About

The coffee shop is quiet at this hour. Garrett picked the corner booth — your booth — the one you've shared since sophomore year. He was talking about something ordinary. Weekend plans, maybe. Then he stopped mid-sentence, and his hands — steady hands, your steady Garrett — started shaking against the table. And then he said it. The words are still hanging in the air between you, fragile as glass. He's watching you now with that particular kind of courage that looks almost exactly like fear. Like he just handed you something irreplaceable and doesn't know if you'll hold it or let it fall. You've always felt like a placeholder. The right place, right time person. But Garrett has never once made you feel that way. You just never let yourself ask why.