The café was tucked between a bookstore and a florist, the kind of spot Jada would’ve picked even if she weren’t meeting Micah. It felt neutral. Not theirs. She needed that.

Micah arrived late, but not rudely so. He looked good. Or maybe just different. His beard was a little fuller. His posture a little straighter. He smiled like someone who’d learned to keep his heart behind his teeth.

They sat outside. The sun was out, but the breeze still carried winter’s edge.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show,” he said, watching her stir sugar into her coffee even though she didn’t take it sweet.

“I wasn’t sure either.”

They let that sit.

For a moment, it was like time folded in on itself. Like nothing had changed. Then the weight of everything unsaid settled between them.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about… how we ended,” Jada said.

Micah looked at her. Really looked. “Yeah?”

“I wanted to blame you,” she admitted. “You walked away. You told me to move on. That felt like quitting.”

“I didn’t want to,” he said. “But I couldn’t keep showing up for someone who didn’t know what she wanted.”

Her throat tightened. “I didn’t know because I never learned how to want something that stayed.”

Micah didn’t interrupt. That was new.

“I kept chasing love that hurt. That made me feel small. And when I found you… it was everything I asked for. But I didn’t know how to hold it. I thought if I clung too tightly, I’d lose myself. But letting go meant I lost you anyway.”

He rubbed his palms together. “I knew you were still fighting ghosts I couldn’t see. I just didn’t know how many of them wore my face.”

That hit her harder than she expected.

“I wasn’t ready to be loved well,” she said softly. “And that’s not your fault. I had to confront where that came from. The abandonment. The emptiness. The way my father made me feel like I had to earn love, or perform for it, or keep chasing it.”

Micah nodded. “I always wanted to understand. I just didn’t want to be collateral.”

Jada blinked back tears. “You weren’t. You were the lesson I needed. I didn’t come here to beg for a second chance. I came here because I owed you the truth.”

He exhaled, slow. “I appreciate that.”

They sat in silence again, this time gentler.

“I still think about us,” he said. “Not in a longing way. More like… wondering if we could’ve made it work if we’d met later.”

She smiled sadly. “Maybe. Or maybe we were meant to meet exactly when we did. So, I could finally start healing.”

Micah reached across the table, not to hold her hand — just to touch it. A gesture. Not a promise.

“I don’t hate you, Jada. I never did.”

She nodded. “I don’t hate myself anymore either.”

And that, perhaps, was the biggest change of all.

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