One September Afternoon - Many Moons Ago

This isn't the ACTUAL story of how we met.... but in a way, it felt the same. Just some imagination flowing:

The cafe smelled like rain and burnt. It was late afternoon.
One of those dusky in-betweens when the sky can’t decide if it’s day or night. She sat by the window, chin resting in her palm, watching cars blur past like ghosts. Her wedding ring was gone.......left in a bathroom drawer she’d slammed shut that morning. She hadn’t cried. Not yet. Not really. 

A man stepped inside.... shaking rain from his coat. He looked like he belonged to autumn. Dark hair damp and curling slightly at the edges and his jaw covered in a few days of soft stubble. Blue eyes radiating their hazy blue. He was handsome, but not perfect. He carried something older in his face. A knowing. A gentleness. He ordered quietly and turned toward the room and then, he saw her.

Their eyes met.

It was instant. His coffee forgotten, held loosely in one hand. His gaze lingered too long for a stranger, too deep for someone who didn’t know her, but he didn’t look away. Not when he noticed her tired eyes, or the crack in her smile, or the way her shoulders sank like she’d been carrying the weight of pretending to be okay for far too long.

She almost looked away, almost straightened up, masked it again.

But he smiled. Not the flirtatious kind. The kind that said I see you. 

She blinked, startled. No one had seen her in months. Her soon-to-be-ex only saw what he needed from her. Her friends only saw what she pretended to be. This man? He didn’t even know her name, and yet, he looked like he already knew everything.

He walked toward her slowly, like if he moved too fast, she’d disappear.

“Do you mind if I sit?” His voice was low, a little raspy, like he hadn’t used it much lately.

She hesitated, but only for a breath. “No. I don’t mind.”

He sat. No small talk. No assumptions. Just silence and electricity. Then finally, he said, “You don’t look okay. But you look like you’re trying so hard to be.”

Something about that shattered her.

Her throat tightened. She looked down at her hands. “I’m going through some shit in my marriage.”

He nodded, not pitying. Just understanding. “I figured. You look like someone trying to survive something big.”

She looked up again, really meeting his eyes this time. They were deeper blue now but almost clouded, like smoke caught in ice. Kind eyes. Strong. But a little sad, too.

And for the first time in weeks, she smiled. A real one.

“What’s your name?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Mike.”

“I’m J.”

He leaned forward a little. “J… You have no idea how beautiful you look right now. Even in pieces.”

And just like that, she exhaled for the first time in weeks. 

Something new had started. Not a rebound. Not a distraction. But the quiet possibility of being seen and loved for exactly who she was. Not despite the cracks. But because of them.

He still loves all of my cracks. 

Heres to more cracking but now doing it together, 

-J.C.