The café is noisy today.
I can hear everything—the way spoons scrape against ceramic cups, the hiss of steam from the coffee machine, even the soft giggle of the girl working behind the counter. It all mixes together into this awful noise that crawls under my skin, heightening my rising annoyance, making my head pound and my chest feel tight.
My tea has gone cold. I've been stirring it for God knows how long, watching the sugar that settled at the bottom swirl around in lazy circles. I should drink it or ask for a fresh cup, but I can't seem to make myself care about either option.
"Miss, do you need anything else?"
The waiter is young, probably still in college, and when he looks at me I can see him trying to figure out what's wrong. His eyes drift down to my wedding ring—the one that used to mean everything and now feels like it weighs a thousand pounds—and then he looks away quickly like he's embarrassed for me.
"No, I'm fine," I tell him, and we both know it's a lie.
He nods and walks away, probably grateful he doesn't have to deal with whatever mess I am today.
The door opens and cold air rushes in, making me shiver even though I'm not really cold. I catch his reflection in the window before I turn around, and my stomach drops the way it always does when I see him now. Gray coat that probably costs more than most people make in a month, perfectly knotted tie, hair styled like he's about to walk into a board meeting instead of destroy what's left of my world.
Damien Cross doesn't just walk into places—he takes them over, claims them, makes everyone else feel small just by existing in the same space.
I stay in my chair and watch him approach our table, this little corner spot where we used to meet when things were different, when I still believed his promises and thought love was enough to fix everything that was broken between us.
He sits down across from me like this is normal, like we're just two people meeting for coffee instead of what we really are—a man who built his entire life on lies and the woman who was stupid enough to believe every single one of them.
"Traffic was hell getting here," he says, settling into his chair like he owns it.
I almost laugh, but it comes out sounding more like a sob. "You live five blocks away from here, Damien."
"Still took forever," he says with that smile, the one that used to make my knees weak and my heart race, but now just makes me feel sick to my stomach.
He looks tired, but not the kind of tired I am—not the exhausted-down-to-your-bones tired that comes from months of sleepless nights and wondering if you're losing your mind. He just looks like a man who's getting worn out from keeping track of all his lies.
A small white paper bag appears on the table between us, and the sound it makes when it hits the wood seems too loud in the space between us.
"Got your favorite," he says, pushing it toward me. "Pistachio croissants."
The smell used to make my mouth water and my stomach growl with hunger, but now everything tastes like nothing, like my taste buds died along with whatever naive part of me used to believe in fairy tales.
"I saw the pictures," I say, and my voice sounds strange even to my own ears, too calm and too quiet.
His hand stops halfway to his coffee cup, just for a second, but I catch it because I've gotten good at watching for the small things that give him away.
"What pictures are you talking about?"
I slide my phone across the table, screen facing up, and watch his face change when he sees what I'm showing him. It's her—his real wife, his legal wife, the woman the whole world knows belongs to him. She's smiling at some charity gala, wearing a dress that probably cost more than I make in six months, diamond earrings catching the light. His arm is around her waist like it belongs there, like she's the most natural thing in the world for him to be holding.
And she is. She always has been.
"Oh," he says, and the word falls between us like a stone dropping into still water. "That."
"Yes," I say back. "That."
He runs both hands over his face, messing up his perfect hair, and for just a moment he looks like the man I fell in love with instead of the stranger sitting across from me now.
"Zahra, she's just—"
"The mother of your children?" I interrupt, and I'm surprised by how steady my voice sounds when everything inside me is shaking apart. "The woman your sister loves and approves of? The one the whole world sees as Mrs. Damien Cross? Is that what you were going to say? That she's just a formality?"
"It's not what you think—"
"It's exactly what I think, and you know it."
The silence stretches between us, heavy and uncomfortable, filled with all the things we've never said and probably never will.
"I sat in this exact same chair one year ago," I tell him, tracing the grain of the wood table with my finger. "Do you remember that day? You told me you were going to fix everything, that you were finalizing the divorce, that soon we could be together properly, out in the open where everyone could see."
"Things got complicated, Zahra. You know how these things work—"
"No," I say, cutting him off clean. "You got scared. Or maybe you were always planning to keep me hidden away like this, and I was just too in love with you to see what was really happening."
His face crumbles like I've hit him, and part of me is glad because I want him to hurt the way I've been hurting.
"Your wife came to see me last night."
All the color drains out of his face so fast I think he might fall sick right here at the table.
"She didn't scream at me or throw things or make a scene like you might expect," I continue, watching him closely. "She just stood there in my hallway and looked at me like I was something disgusting she'd found stuck on the bottom of her shoe. And do you know what she said to me?"