Kirsch didn't go back to the café for three nights.
It wasn't a decision. Not a stand. Just inertia shifting direction.
Instead, he stayed in his apartment, letting the hours pass the way they always had—quiet, unstructured, suspended. He worked when he needed to, slept when exhaustion forced him to, ate without paying attention to taste. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was fixed.
Without the café, the nights felt longer. Not emptier—longer. Like time had slowed once it stopped being shared.
On the fourth night, Kirsch woke up at 3:12 a.m. for no reason at all.
No alarm. No noise. Just awareness.
He lay there staring at the ceiling, the dark familiar but suddenly less comforting. He reached for his phone, checked the time, then set it back down.
This was usually the hour he'd be walking home from the café. Or sitting there, watching Lita cradle her cup, listening to her talk about something small that somehow mattered because she was the one saying it.
He exhaled slowly.
So this is what the night feels like without an anchor.
Kirsch sat up.
He padded into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, drank it in silence. The apartment felt neutral. Neither welcoming nor hostile. Just a place that existed because he did.
He thought about the word stuck.
He had used it casually before—jokingly, even. Night people are stuck, he'd once said to Lita, half-smiling. She hadn't disagreed. Just tilted her head and said, Or maybe we're just not ready yet.
At the time, he'd thought they meant the same thing.
Now he wasn't so sure.
Lita hadn't been stuck.
She had been resting.
Healing quietly, invisibly, without announcing it. Preparing for something else while still showing up for the night because it was all she could handle at the time.
And when she could handle more—she left.
Not dramatically.
Not cruelly.
Just… naturally.
Kirsch sat at the small table by his window and watched the city outside. A few lights still burned in neighboring apartments. Somewhere, a siren wailed and faded. Life continuing in fragments.
He asked himself a question he'd been avoiding.
If she came back tomorrow night… would I want her to?
The answer surprised him.
He wanted the version of her who had sat across from him in dim light, speaking honestly without trying to be better yet.
But he didn't want to pull her back from mornings.
He didn't want to be the reason someone stayed in the dark longer than they needed to.
And that meant something uncomfortable.
It meant the night hadn't been a meeting point.
It had been a waiting room.
Kirsch leaned back in his chair, the realization settling slowly, without panic.
He had mistaken stillness for safety.
The night had felt kind because it didn't ask questions. It didn't push. It didn't expect transformation.
But it also didn't offer direction.
It just held him exactly where he was.
And he had mistaken that for belonging.
He thought about how easily he'd accepted her leaving. How he'd nodded, wished her well, stayed passive even as something quietly ended.
At the time, he'd thought it was maturity.
Now he wondered if it was avoidance wearing calm like a disguise.
Kirsch had always been good at not interfering.
At letting things happen around him.
At staying present without participating too deeply.
It made him easy to be around.
It also made him easy to leave.
The thought didn't sting. It didn't accuse.
It simply existed.
Around dawn, Kirsch showered and dressed—not because he had somewhere to go, but because staying unchanged suddenly felt dishonest.
He stepped outside just as the sun fully cleared the buildings.
The light was harsher than he remembered. Less forgiving. It showed everything—dust on the pavement, tired lines on his face, the unromantic truth of the world continuing.
He walked.
No destination. Just movement.
As the city woke up around him, Kirsch realized something else:
Lita hadn't left the night behind because she was stronger than him.
She'd left because she'd decided she didn't want to live only where pain was manageable.
And he hadn't followed—not because he couldn't, but because he hadn't decided anything at all.
That was the difference.
Kirsch stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the signal to change.
For once, he didn't feel like he was waiting for someone.
Just waiting.
The light turned green.
He crossed.
There was no resolution waiting on the other side.
No promise that mornings would be better.
Only the quiet understanding that he had been calling it shared loneliness when, in truth, it had been shared pause.
And pauses, eventually, end.
Kirsch kept walking.
Not toward the café.
Not toward the night.
Just forward—uncertain, awake, and finally aware that the question had never been who left first.
It was who had been ready to move at all.