sweater, the one he never knew I took. At 7 am exactly I walk over from my apartment across the street to the cafe on the corner, walking the same route that we used to take together. I make sure to  sit down in the very spot where we met, at the table in the corner by the window. When my coffee arrives, and I look up after my first sip, he’s right there across the table, drinking and smiling along with me. When I begin our daily conversation, starting off with the weather, I often catch people giving me looks out of the corner of their eyes. From their eyes, all that sits in front of me is air, so they look, wondering what is wrong with me. Meanwhile, I contemplate how they can exist in the midst of such a formidable man and sit there, as if it’s just another normal day in an average coffee shop. It should make me sad that he’s still here every day with me and still hasn’t gone to the sparkly light that we are all supposed to chase once we leave our earthly bodies behind. But it doesn’t; an overwhelming part of me wants him to stay here, in this room, in this seat, endlessly waiting for me to come for coffee. 

Half an hour later we are still sitting there, my coffee mostly gone, laughing together like we always do at this point. My cheeks are starting to hurt from smiling, and my coffee is getting a bit bitter, and the strange looks from the tables around me are reaching their peak. It may sound like I love this cafe, like it’s my favorite place in the world, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The lighting is dim, forcing me to squint my eyes; the walls are dingy and yellowing, and the smell of old coffee grounds seems to have seeped into the very floorboards. If I could meet him in any other place, I would. But this place was chosen for me by him, a fact quickly learned after his death. 

For weeks after the incident, I would sit at the headstone inscribed with his full name and try to feel his presence in the air around the marble. I would close my eyes and try to get a whiff of the scent of saltwater and sand that he always gave off and reach out to touch the cold of the stone and pretend it was the scratchy wool sweater he wore constantly in the winter. When my persistent efforts with the stone failed, I got desperate and tried the places where we built unhappy memories, like the apartment where he told me he was leaving me for her. Nowadays, I know he never meant a word he said that night; however, even curled up on the floor, the same way I did for weeks after his admission, clutching at the remaining shard of the cup of coffee that I had thrown at his head, I didn’t feel him. I went back to the restaurant where I had followed him to two months after he had left me on the floor of that apartment. I traced my steps exactly as I remembered them, keeping a distance of six feet from him, waiting 15 minutes after the moment he entered the restaurant to walk in. I stood right across the threshold, right where I watched him take her hand across the able, lean down to her and plant a soft kiss on her lips. I requested the table that I sat at that night. I sat there as I had that night, watching them for an hour, flirting, laughing, and talking as they would for the rest of their lives. I finally moved to stand in the place I stood where I distracted the waitress going to his table and poured a vial of clear liquid into the goblet carrying his favorite wine. I recalled him taking a sip and saw his nose scrunch up in confusion and his stare zero in on his drink. I stared at the spot on the floor where he lay writhing, grabbing at his throat not a minute later, at the indentation in the carpet where she knelt next to him, screaming for a doctor, then wailing when he stopped moving altogether a second later. I swung my head to the door, picturing the paramedics arriving soon after, and immediately started to press on his chest with urgency. I sat back, with a final effort to feel his presence, bringing up the image of the paramedics bringing their fingers to his neck one last time, sharing a defeated look and bowing their heads in resignation. Finally, I turned away from the scene, heading out the door, his empty eyes and the woman’s wails at my back.

The last place I imagined him to be was this cafe; he hated this place as much as I did. But the second I sat down in the seat I first laid eyes on him, I felt him. His scent, his presence, it as if it was infused into the oxygen of this room. After all my searching, it was here that he had chosen to rest. As I began to come back here daily, he began to trust me with the image of his face, then his neck, then the rest of his body. After all this time, he had come back to me. So, despite its imperfections, I’ll never stop coming back to this cafe, this exact seat. 

I look down at the empty cup in front of me, and realize our time together is up. I give him my best smile, the way I always do, see him staring at me across the table, his warm smile slowly begin to shift into a blank stare and then tense up, eyes widening. I smile at him in return, pay for my bill as he begins to try to grab at me, only to find that the chair is his forever prison. As I walk out the door I give him one last grin, promising to be back for him tomorrow.