Centre your story around two characters who like each other but don’t get a happily ever after.

Late Fall

Every Thursday at 5:30 PM, Emma met Chris, no questions asked.

Their spot, the café on Montrose Street, Halcyon Grounds, had been theirs for almost six years. It was situated between a used bookstore and a locksmith, the kind of hole-in-the-wall café you could stumble upon or walk by entirely. The inside was dimly lit, with warm lamplights and mismatched secondhand chairs; even the mugs were mismatched, all layered with the scent of old books. There was a vinyl player in the corner that only ever played smooth jazz records. It was never trendy. It was never loud. Just what they liked.

Every week, no matter how windy, rainy, or sunny, Emma arrived five minutes early. She sat by the window, ordered a black coffee, and pulled out a book that she had no intention of reading and never finished. Chris always arrived five minutes late, looking out of breath, apologizing with a crooked smile, and unbuttoning the last few buttons of his parka in haste.

Emma and Chris's friendship began back in university. They met in a seminar course on modernist literature, which had started with nothing short of chance-in-hell luck: mixing up as they did, the occupied seats; flinging an unclaimed sheaf of paper into a debate over a misquoted line by T.S. Eliot. From there, and after hours of spirited debate afterward, they became acquainted and collaborators. They talked until the late hours of the night about everything from Kafka to Murakami, explored used bookstores, and passively and actively exchanged marginalia inside one another's paperback novels. There had always been something else going on, that same chemistry that physically made passersby stop in their tracks when they saw the two of them together, that they had just never acted upon.

Emma met Chris at her second job after university. Chris had just finished his degree. He was quiet and earnest and naïve, but had the finest heart. They got along, as you might expect from a pair of co-workers, but never summoned the nerve to hang out outside of work. Emma once jokingly suggested a weekend trip to see a concert 6 hours away, and he said he would think about it. The closest they got to spending time together outside of work was when they both got to the office sleepy from the night before, they giggled when the supervisor walked around the office silently, and they only heard them. They were the two weirdos at work, tolerated by the rest of their co-workers.

At 25 years old, Chris proposed to his long-time girlfriend Mara, who also worked. Emma went to the wedding. She wore a slate-blue dress with a gift bag and a card, which she had handwritten out three times, and still felt like she was lying when she gave it to them.

"I am so happy for you," she wrote in it.

And she was happy, in a way. And she wasn't happy in other ways.

Two years later, Emma got a job in marketing and moved to a new city. Chris helped her pack one weekend. He came down and they danced around boxes, ordered greasy pizza, and talked about what was next on her hardwood floor. She almost said something that night; whatever it was that lay unspoken between them for years, if there was an ‘it’ to speak of. But then he showed her a picture of his new dog, and told her about a birthday surprise from Mara, and the moment drifted on by.

When Emma's father died unexpectedly, Chris was the one who showed up at her door. She didn't even tell him. She hadn't told a soul. But there he was holding a bouquet of lilies she despised, but acted like she adored. He stayed three days, made breakfast, and cleaned up. He sat with her quietly when she didn't have the strength to talk. After that, they never talked about those days. They folded it up into their shared history.

Two years later, Mara filed for divorce. Chris lightly mentioned it to Emma over coffee one Thursday morning. As if reading a script. Emma didn’t ask questions. She simply listened. He looked tired, but relieved, like someone who had been holding their breath far too long.

Now they were 34 years old, and every Thursday was a ritual. They talked about everything and nothing. Books. Work. Failed relationships. Emma had, at one point, briefly dated a poet. Chris went on a series of forgettable dates. None of them stuck. Nothing ever stuck.

He still made her laugh like no one else. She still observed that he stirred his coffee no more than three times before drinking it. Sometimes they held each other's gaze just a beat long. But neither of them moved. Neither of them reached across the table. And neither of them caught the question hovering between them like smoke over a candle, and none of us were brave or stupid enough to mention anything.

Until one Thursday in November, it was raining.

The city was shrouded in cold mist. The windows of Halcyon Grounds were dusky with fog. Emma sat at the same table, watching the rain slither down the glass. Her coffee was steaming, and full but untouched.

Chris was late.

When Chris finally strolled in, he was completely soaked. His hair wobbled, drenched onto his forehead. His coat was dripping water on the floor. But he was smiling.

"You're 17 minutes late," Emma said, her voice warm.

“New record,” he said, brushing the water from his sleeves. “I brought something to make up for it.”

He reached for a small paper bag from his coat. There was a cinnamon roll. Her Favorite.

They talked. They laughed. He told her about a horrible blind date who thought Kafka was a kind of pastry. She told him that she had finally finished the novel he lent her three years ago. Then a lull in the conversation. Silence felt large and comfortable between them.

Emma looked at him.

“If we had met at a different time...”

Chris didn’t answer right away. He reached for his cup of coffee and let his fingers fall.

“Emma," he said her name lightly, like an exhale.

He knew. He always knew.

“...maybe," he finally said. “Yeah. Maybe.”

She smiled, and it was the kind of smile that stung.

“But we didn’t," she said.

“No,” he said. “We didn’t.”

One week later, Chris told her he was moving to the other side of the country. New job. New life. Closer to his brother and niece. He didn’t ask if she would visit. He didn’t offer to stay.

On his last Thursday, she brought a notebook. Brown leather, bound with a simple ribbon. Inside were letters she’d written for him over the years. Thoughts. Memories. The moments they’d never talked about. Every almost. Every maybe. Every version of them that could have been.

She slid it across the table.

“I don’t expect anything,” she said. “I just wanted you to know.”

Chris looked down at it. He traced his fingers across the cover as if it were delicate.

“Emma...”

She shook her head.

Then she stood up. Leaned across the table. Kissed his cheek.

Not the lips. Not this time.

It lingered. And then it was over.

She walked out before the tears came.

Chris never came back to the café.

But Emma did.

Every Thursday at 5:30 PM. She sat by the window. Sometimes, she would continue reading her current novel. Sometimes she just listened to the jazz and watched the door, even though she knew he wouldn’t walk through it.

Some loves don’t end in dramatic confessions or heroic reunions. Some don’t have to.

Some exist quietly between the cracks.

In old cafés. In rainstorms. In the smell of cinnamon rolls.

And for Emma, that was enough.