I Love the Way You Smile

I noticed her smile before I ever knew her name.

It wasn’t the dazzling kind. Not a movie-star flash or a carefully filtered social media grin. It was quiet—sometimes barely there—but when it surfaced, the world tilted. A room with her smile in it just felt better.

She worked at the bakery across from my apartment—a cozy place with chipped windowpanes and a bell that jingled every time the door opened. I saw her first on a gray Monday in November, the kind of day where the sky seems to be holding back tears.

She handed an old man a bag of croissants, smiled at something he mumbled, and the whole room shifted. Not just for him. For everyone. I stood there pretending to study the cinnamon rolls, just so I could stay a little longer.

Her name, I would later learn, was Maren.

I didn’t know then that her smile was a shield.

The second time I came in, she greeted me like we were old friends, even though we weren’t. That’s who she was—effortlessly warm. I ordered a black coffee and a blueberry muffin I didn’t really want. She handed it over with that same smile. I made an awkward joke about the weather. She laughed—a soft, breathy sound—and I left feeling like I’d passed a test I hadn’t prepared for.

It became a rhythm. Coffee and a muffin. Sometimes a Danish or bagel, just to mix things up. She began to remember my order. “Black coffee, no room,” she’d say, already placing it on the counter.

Then one morning, I found the word smile scribbled on the back of my coffee cup in Sharpie. No explanation. Just that.

I looked up. She was serving another customer, but when our eyes met, she grinned—bigger this time—and I knew it was intentional.

I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to break whatever spell we were under.

Three weeks in, I asked her out.

It wasn’t dramatic. I said, “Hey, if you ever want to get coffee without handing it to me across a counter, I’d like that.” She raised an eyebrow but smiled. “That’s the most original offer I’ve had all week.”

We met at the park that Saturday. She wore a mustard sweater and jeans. No apron. No name tag. Just her. We walked the lake loop, talking about everything and nothing. She asked about my job—graphic design—and I asked about hers. She said she liked the early mornings, the rhythm of baking. Said she once wanted to be a photographer, but life rerouted her.

“Why didn’t you do it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Didn’t think I’d be good enough.”

I wanted to tell her that was absurd. That she saw beauty in places most people missed. But I didn’t want to sound like a Hallmark card.

So I just said, “I think you'd be great.”

She looked surprised, then smiled.

That smile again.

We started seeing each other more. Post-shift coffees. Late-night walks. Her cooking pasta in my kitchen while I picked music. She made silence feel comfortable—like we didn’t have to fill it just to prove we were okay.

But something was off.

It was in the way she dodged questions about her family. How she flinched at raised voices. It was subtle, but it was there. Her smiles were genuine—but sometimes they came too fast, like armor.

One night, she called me around 1 a.m., her voice trembling.

“Can I come over?”

I said yes without hesitation.

She showed up in a hoodie and jeans, makeup-free, eyes red. I didn’t ask anything. Just handed her a blanket and sat beside her. We didn’t speak. She leaned into me, and I let her. The silence was thick with what she couldn’t say.

Eventually, she whispered, “It was my dad.”

I waited.

“He showed up at the shop. I wasn’t expecting him.” A long pause. “We don’t talk.”

Still, I stayed quiet.

“He used to… not be kind.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

A slow, quiet anger simmered inside me. I reached for her hand.

She looked at me and smiled—but it was tired, frayed at the edges.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“For being like this.”

“You don’t have to be anything. Just be.”

She stayed the night, curled beside me like someone exhaling years of tension. I watched her sleep, her face finally at ease without that careful smile. And I realized I loved her.

Not with fireworks or violins. But in the way you love someone when you see every fracture and still think they’re beautiful.

A week later, I told her.

“I love the way you smile,” I said, as we sat on the fire escape drinking lukewarm tea.

She looked down, then back up. “Even when it’s fake?”

“Especially then. Because I know what it means.”

She didn’t answer right away. Then she leaned in and kissed me—slow, careful.

Things didn’t magically get easier after that. Life isn’t a montage. Her past still echoed. Some days were heavy. But she let me in. Piece by piece, we built something honest. Not perfect, but real.

She picked up photography again. Started taking portraits of people at the bakery—mid-laugh, mid-bite, mid-life. She hung them on a corkboard in the back room. One day, I noticed she’d added a photo of me—coffee in hand, grinning like a fool.

Beneath it, in small script: I love the way you smile.