When We Were Almost in Love

I met her on a Wednesday.

The kind of day that feels like it forgot what it was supposed to be.

It had just rained, and the air smelled like wet pavement and unfinished thoughts.

She stood in front of me in line at a coffee shop, mumbling about the lack of cold brew. I laughed, agreed, and ordered the same drink she did. It felt like a strange kind of fate.

Her name was Claire.

She said it like it didn’t matter, but I held onto it like it did.

She chose the corner table, and for some reason, I followed.

“I like quiet corners,” she said, without looking at me. “It’s where people like us disappear.”

I wanted to ask what she meant by “people like us,” but I didn’t. I just smiled.

And for the next forty minutes, it felt like I knew her all my life.

---

We didn’t exchange numbers.

No promises. No plans.

But she was there the next day.

And the one after that.

She stirred her coffee three times, always three.

She smelled like rain and rosemary.

She drew tiny shapes in the condensation on her cup.

I learned she was a painter.

She painted mostly in blue.

“Blue is lonely but honest,” she told me.

I told her I liked honesty.

She said, “Most people don’t.”

---

There was always something fragile in her.

Like if you spoke too loudly, she’d shatter.

But she laughed with her whole face.

That’s what killed me.

Because someone who laughs like that has seen too much darkness.

---

One day, I asked, “What scares you the most?”

She didn’t flinch.

“Being remembered by the wrong person,” she said.

And then she asked, “What about you?”

I wanted to say, “Losing you before I even get to love you.”

But I said, “Empty rooms.”

It wasn’t a lie. Just not the whole truth.

---

We never kissed. Never touched.

But she’d look at me like she wanted to remember my face for the rest of her life.

And sometimes, that felt more intimate than anything physical.

There was a Thursday she didn’t come.

I waited. Told myself it was nothing.

But Friday came, then Monday,

and she was still gone.

---

Ten days.

That’s how long it took for her to return.

Same table. Same stir. Same storm in her eyes.

I didn’t ask where she’d been.

She didn’t offer.

She just said, “Sometimes I run before I get attached. It’s easier.”

I told her, “I would’ve held on.”

She smiled without her eyes.

“You say that now,” she whispered.

---

I think I started loving her that day.

Not in the usual way.

Not with flowers and fireworks.

But quietly. Like a secret.

Like how the ocean loves the moon—distant but pulled anyway.

---

She once told me her favorite stories were the ones that never ended—

Just stopped.

No goodbye. No explanation.

I should’ve known.

Because one day, she stopped showing up.

No text.

No note.

Just an empty chair and cold coffee.

And I—

I kept going.

Not because I believed she’d return.

But because some part of me already belonged to the version of her I’d built in my head.

---

I don’t know where she is.

Maybe in another city.

Another coffee shop.

Telling someone else about blue paintings and ghosts that live inside people.

But sometimes, in moments I can’t explain—

when the rain falls just right,

or I catch the scent of rosemary—

I remember her.

Not like an ex.

Not like a regret.

But like a story that never finished writing itself.

---

And maybe that’s what we were.

Not a love story.

But a sentence that trailed off…

mid-thought, mid-breath—

still echoing somewhere inside me.

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romance nter

lostlove nter

emotional nter

bittersweet ter

modernlove nter