Steam rose from the froth that skimmed the creamy brown surface. The scent of roasted coffee beans wafted through the room, burrowing into my clothes and hair, promising to linger hours after the fact. I dipped my finger into my cup of cappuccino to break the foam. I had to disturb the perfection, and somehow make it real.
“So you’re just going to sit there?” Chauncey stared at me. He leaned to one side; one forearm lay across the table top. The other was bent at the elbow, fist balled and jammed into his hip. I could hear the Blancpain on his wrist tick-ticking away.
“So you’re just going to sit there?”
“Fuck you,” my brain spat out the words—my eyes reinforced it, but my tongue remained silent. Though they were left unsaid, my piercing words of hurt, I know that he felt them. Chauncey blinked hard; he blinked until tears—two fat, wet orbs—hovered in the corners of his eyes. It was enough to make me laugh.
“Oh, please,” I scoffed. How long are you going to play this game? You never cry.
“Sadie?” Chauncey shifted in his seat. He reached across the table for my hand. It was only by reflex that I recoiled, but I could tell he was hurt. I saw the shock in his stricken face. He mirrored what I had seen in myself for the past three days: shocked, distraught, lonely, confused.
“Why, Sadie?”
The foam broke, the brown liquid beneath flooded through—joyous to part the white lather.
“Why, Chauncey?”
It wasn’t a real question—I simply threw it back at him. Why did you have to ruin everything? Why was it so easy for you to be the guy you swore you would never be? If I had known back then what I know now, I would have left him standing there the moment he tapped my shoulder with that million dollar smile seven years ago.
“Please, will you just listen to me,” he wiped one eye with the back of his hand. He rubbed his temples with that I fucked up ardor.
“I have every intention to listen to you. So talk.” One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seveneightnineten. I was almost to one hundred before he spoke again.
“I first want to apologize—”
“Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’; because I’m sorry.”
“Why? Are you sorry that you did it or sorry that you got caught?”
“Why? Are you sorry that you did it or sorry that you got caught?”
“Sadie…”
“No—you know what? I changed my mind. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to be with you.”
“You don’t mean that—”
“The hell I don’t! I’m through—Done. You got me all mixed up, I can’t even think straight. All because of you, and honestly, you don’t deserve that much from me. You don’t deserve to be all I think about or dream about. For the longest time, you have been all that I want. You compromise everything we had for what? Some ass? Is that all I’m worth?”
“You’re worth so much more.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
Brown liquid spilled onto the white tablecloth. More reality, more imperfection—perfect. The table was shaking—I hadn’t noticed. My emotions were so high that my leg was twitching in the way that it did when I was angry, insecure, fragile—two seconds from breaking. Chauncey looked from the tabletop back up to me. He reached for my hand again, stopping only when I flinched.
“I love you, Sadie.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“—And you love me too.”
“…I don’t know that I do. Not anymore.”
“That hurts, Sadie. Are you trying to hurt me?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Were you trying to hurt me?”
“Of course not. I told you I would never hurt you, and I meant that.”
“Do you love her?”
“Why in the hell would you ask me—”
“Do you,” I felt more than my voice rise as I asked again, “love her?”
Chauncey lowered his eyes and chewed on the inside of his cheek. I could see his jaw tremble as he bit down on the soft flesh within. Hesitation was not something I had anticipated. I stood to leave.
“Goodnight, Chauncey.”
He nearly leapt across the table as he grabbed my wrist. He clumsily stood and took a step towards me. He was more than half a foot taller. He moved in; his broad chest covering everything in my line of sight. For a moment I was baptized in his sensual musk. He pulled me close to him, an act of desperation.
“Sadie, don’t walk out of here—don’t walk away from me saying that you don’t love me anymore. I can’t believe you’d lie like that.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are lying—you’re lying to me and you’re lying to yourself. I know that you love me, because I love you.”
We paused. I was suddenly at a loss for words as I stared at him, carefully watching me. We stood frozen like that. Two figures posing for a picture no one dared to take. A wave of silence crested over us—the noise in the cafe muted, the whole world melted away–if only for a second that seemed to last forever.
“Sir?” It was broken. “Would you like your coffee to go, sir?”
A barista rushed up behind us. She was young, late teens, with way too much glitter clouding her eyelids.
“Uh, no,” I lie, Chauncey gave me a look, “He’ll stay and finish. Excuse me.”
I stepped past them both, weaving my way through the maze of tiny, perfect tables toward the door. Whether my face displayed it or not, I was truly grateful. That little interruption wrought my escape from my now ex-fiancé.
I looked back, but immediately wished I hadn’t, and I saw his face. There was Chauncey’s gorgeous, chiseled face staring back at me through the glass window.
“I won’t let you get away,” he muttered, but I couldn’t hear him, and I wouldn’t. 
Original image: Carli Jeen via Unsplash