Kirsch didn't come back to the café the next night.
That surprised him more than it should have.
For years, the place had been less of a destination and more of a default state—where his body went when his mind didn't want to be anywhere else. Skipping it felt like skipping sleep or forgetting to eat. Wrong in a way that didn't immediately hurt, but left something unsettled under the skin.
He told himself he was tired.
He told himself it was practical.
He told himself that routines were allowed to break when circumstances changed.
All of that was true.
Still, the next night, he found himself standing outside the café anyway.
The sign buzzed faintly above the door, one letter flickering like it always had. The windows glowed warm against the dark street. Inside, he could already see familiar shapes—regulars hunched over laptops, the barista wiping the counter with the same slow, unbothered rhythm.
Nothing had changed.
That was the problem.
Kirsch stepped inside.
The bell chimed. The smell of coffee hit him like muscle memory. Someone laughed softly at a corner table. The espresso machine hissed and sighed, doing the work it had done a thousand times before.
The night was intact.
He ordered his usual without thinking. The barista nodded without comment. No one asked where he'd been yesterday. No one noticed the absence of a second cup.
Kirsch carried his drink to the back of the café.
To their table.
He stopped short.
The chair across from him was empty.
Of course it was. It had been empty before. It would be empty again. There was nothing unusual about a chair not being occupied at two in the morning.
And yet—
Kirsch stood there longer than necessary, staring at it like it might explain itself if he waited.
He sat down.
The table felt wider than he remembered.
Not physically. Emotionally. Like the space between objects had stretched now that no one was quietly bridging it with presence alone.
He placed his cup where it always went. Out of habit, his eyes flicked to the opposite side, expecting movement. A shrug. Fingers around porcelain. Lita's half-distracted posture as she settled in.
Nothing.
The night didn't react.
It didn't pause. It didn't soften. It didn't acknowledge that something had left.
It just kept going.
Kirsch realized then that this was the first time he was truly alone here.
Not alone in the literal sense—there were other people, other lives quietly intersecting in the same space—but alone in the way that mattered. Alone without anticipation. Alone without someone who would arrive eventually.
He tried to read.
He lasted five minutes.
Every sentence dissolved halfway through, his attention slipping back to the empty chair. To the idea that absence could be this loud without making a sound.
He tried scrolling through his phone. He caught himself opening his messages, thumb hovering instinctively where Lita's name used to be.
He closed the app.
This is stupid, he thought.
She wasn't gone in a tragic way. She hadn't vanished. She hadn't disappeared without explanation.
She was just living differently now.
Healing.
Moving into mornings.
Doing the thing people were supposed to do.
And yet, sitting there, Kirsch felt like someone had quietly removed a load-bearing wall from his nights and expected everything else to stay upright.
A couple at a nearby table laughed. Soft, private laughter. The kind that didn't need an audience.
Kirsch envied them—not for their romance, but for their timing. For existing in the same hours. For not having to carve connection out of shared exhaustion and dim lights.
He took a sip of his drink. It tasted the same.
That, too, bothered him.
The café didn't miss her.
The night didn't miss her.
Only he did.
And that realization landed with an unexpected clarity.
Nights weren't special because of what they were.
They were special because of who stayed.
Kirsch leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting toward the window. Outside, the street was quiet. A car passed occasionally. A stray cat darted across the sidewalk.
The world hadn't noticed the shift either.
He thought about all the things he and Lita had never said.
Not because they were afraid—but because the night had never demanded it. The night had been a place where honesty didn't require declarations. Where companionship didn't need labels. Where loneliness could sit beside loneliness without trying to fix itself.
Daylight would have asked questions.
Daylight would have required explanations.
Night had let them exist.
Kirsch wondered if that was why it hurt now.
Not because he'd lost her exactly—but because he'd lost the version of himself that only existed here, at this hour, across from someone who understood without probing.
He stayed until 3:00 a.m.
Then 3:30.
By 4:00, the café began its subtle shift toward morning. The barista changed playlists. A delivery truck rumbled outside. The air felt different, like it was preparing to exhale him back into the world.
Kirsch stood.
For a moment, he hesitated—hand resting on the back of the empty chair.
It felt ridiculous.
But he did it anyway.
Then he walked out.
The sky was pale gray now. The kind of color that pretended to be gentle while erasing shadows.
Kirsch didn't feel devastated.
He didn't feel dramatic.
He felt… quieter.
As he walked home, he understood something that hadn't been clear before:
The night hadn't changed.
The café hadn't changed.
The chair hadn't changed.
People did.
And sometimes, they changed in ways that didn't leave room for you—not because you were unwanted, but because the place you shared no longer existed for them.
Kirsch reached his apartment as the sun crested the buildings.
For the first time, he didn't rush inside to escape it.
He stood there for a moment, letting the light touch his face.
Morning didn't feel like betrayal anymore.
Just unfamiliar.
And maybe, he thought, unfamiliar wasn't the same thing as impossible.