Sunlight spills across the wooden tables, catching dust motes mid-swirl, and I've been sitting here long enough that the cup in my hands has gone lukewarm.

I haven't taken a sip.

I don't know why I sent it. Three years of silence, three years of telling myself this was for the best, three years of Ayla growing taller, smarter, softer, more like him every day—and I broke.

One message.

I need to see you.

And he answered before I could second-guess myself.

The bell above the door chimes. I don't look up. I don't want to see who it is until I'm ready, until I've steeled myself, until I remember all the reasons this is a mistake.

But I feel it.

That shift in the air, the way a room changes when he walks into it. I'd know him blind.

I lift my head.

He moves slower now. Careful. Each step measured, like he's thinking about the cost of it. The light catches his face—those sharp cheekbones, the locs that fall past his shoulders, the way he fills out that simple fitted tee like it was made for him.

And then I see it. A faint bruise along his jaw, fading yellow-green at the edges, fresh enough to remember. His posture's off, one shoulder dipping lower than the other, like he's holding something in.

He reaches the table and stops.

He thinks I didn't notice.

I did.

Silence stretches between us. The jazz keeps playing, the steam keeps hissing, and I can feel every second of three years pressing down on my chest.

I don't answer right away. I watch him, weighing everything—the life I've built, the daughter we share, the man in front of me who's still bleeding in ways he won't say out loud.

He breathes out, something loosening in his shoulders, and for a second, it feels almost like before.

Then the bell above the door chimes again.