It’s another ordinary Tuesday, and Amelia is midway through her very ordinary Tuesday routine. Autumn leaves litter her three mile run, stretched in the park across from her townhouse, showered and dressed, fed her cats, and has just settled in to the window seat of her favorite cafe with a cheese danish, a cappuccino and her laptop to check her email before working on her latest course. Everything was perfectly average and predictable, which she had come to accept as a victory and a curse over the past five years.

Somewhere around the third module’s slides on “integrating the divergent meridians into your diagnosis and subsequent selection of balancing meridians,” she felt pulled away from the screen and shifted her attention out the window, as if someone were just on the other side waiting for her. The thought passed before she could realize it, and saw bystanders waiting for a bus, and a cyclist weaving through traffic. She looked down to finish her lesson and never got to start her next sentence, because in that moment, the ring of a bell as the cafe door opened would be permanently engrained in her memory attached to crinkled, blue eyes and sheepish smirk.

She froze. He was walking toward her, carefully, and she recognized those eyes about to deceive them both. She couldn’t do this right now. She had finally started to move on, but here he was about to pull her back in. She told herself a hundred times that she’d only ever listen to him if he apologized. From there, she really didn’t know what she’d do or how she would feel.

“Hi,” he said, with smiling eyes, “I see you still drink cappuccinos. Mind if I have a seat?”

Without waiting for a response, he has taken the chair square to hers. She didn’t bother to answer him, but she hoped her facial expressions conveyed impassivity, because she would be damned if he would get the upper hand here. Also, she had work to do. And her life was just fine without him. She didn’t need him. He brought nothing but chaos to her heart and head. But it was exciting, wasn’t it? And he certainly has a look that tells her hes not here to bore her.

She thought all of this, while he tried to peek at her notes, and prayed that five years had improved her emotional resilience. She closed her laptop, leveled her gaze, and said, “Well. This is a surprise.”