The coffee was cold now, but she sipped it anyway, imagining the heat. She blew away non-existent steam and let the rain soak her skin. She had been sitting in the same seat for over an hour, waiting, waiting, waiting. There was still a part of her that hoped he was going to turn up. But most of her knew that he would not. The coffee she had bought for him was opposite her, and she watched the thin raindrops falling into it, making holes in the disappearing foam.

He had never told her that he would be here. They had never spoken. She knew what he would like to drink as she had overheard him ordering it every day for the past three months. Every day. So why not today? Did he know she was here, waiting for him? Did he know she adored him and wanted him? Perhaps he did. Perhaps that's why he wasn't here. She worried she might have warned him off somehow. That her subconscious might have reached out with her desperation, with her love, and frightened the man who would normally have been here an hour and more ago, sipping his hazelnut latte.

She hoped he was ill. Or hurt. Or dead. Because that would mean that it wasn't her fault. She couldn't bare to believe that he had chosen to stay away solely because of her. The more she thought these thoughts, the more she was convinced that he had been on his way, coming here, hoping to see her, that he was going to ask her out. And he'd had an accident. That would make sense.