Everyone assumes Adrian and I first met at my cafe.

They're wrong.


I first saw him the year I graduated college, on what was then the worst day of my life.

That day, my long-term boyfriend dumped me, and hours later, I got the call about Mom's diagnosis.

I raced home to find Mom ghost-white against hospital sheets and a stack of medical bills that made my knees buckle.


We never got to say a proper goodbye.

Dad died when I was too young to fully grasp loss. But with Mom, I was on the cusp of adulthood, about to face the world completely alone.


That's when I realized how cruel life could be—how it rarely gives you the gift of a proper farewell.

I hid in the hospital's ground floor cafe, sobbing until I could barely breathe.

But scenes like mine are common in hospital cafes.

Those walls have absorbed more grief than any church confessional.

No one stops to help—everyone's carrying their own invisible burdens, too afraid to take on someone else's pain.

"Enough crying," a cool voice cut through my misery. "You're making the coffee bitter."

A man dropped into the seat across from me, offering a tissue.

I couldn't stop, my body shaking with grief, sweat and tears making me look like I'd been caught in a storm.

He pulled out a cigarette, gesturing with it. "Mind?"

I just sobbed harder, ignoring him completely.

He kept the unlit cigarette between his lips.

His voice remained detached throughout: "Grow up. Every hello is the first step toward goodbye. Even the closest people—one always leaves first."

"Whoever goes first, life goes on. It's not the end of the world."

Despite complaining about my crying, he stayed with me for what felt like hours.

In that moment, I just needed someone—anyone—to sit with me.

To confirm I wasn't completely adrift in the world—that even if I faced everything alone from then on, I wasn't entirely invisible.

Eventually, someone called for him. A man stuck his head in the door: "Adrian, we're leaving."

Adrian stood, brushed invisible dust from his suit, and walked away without a backward glance.

No goodbye—why would there be? We were nothing to each other.

But I remembered his name. Adrian.

Two years later, when Calm Breeze opened, Selina breezed in with him in tow. "Clara, meet my friend Adrian."

His blank expression told me he had zero memory of our previous encounter.

It didn't matter. I remembered his small kindness.

I repaid that debt to Selina tenfold. That's why I made her my closest friend.

Though sometimes I wish I'd never met either of them.

He offered me the barest comfort—a match flame in a blizzard.

And I paid for it with the rest of my life's happiness.