#decisions

The woman at Table 7 ordered black coffee and asked for the check before taking her first sip.

Marco had been working at Café Luna for three years, long enough to catalog the patterns. Sunday morning regulars nursed their cortados, stretched their newspapers across two tables, made the café their living room. But Table 7 was already counting coins from her wallet, arranging them in neat stacks on the marble surface.

She wore a wedding ring—gold, thin, catching the morning light slanting through the Gothic Quarter's narrow streets. Her phone lay face-down on the table. She hadn't touched it.

The woman at the café orders her coffee the same way every morning: double espresso, no sugar, ceramic cup. She sits at the corner table, the one with the wobbly leg, and opens a notebook she never writes in.

I know because I've been watching for three weeks.

Today she's wearing a ring on her left hand that wasn't there yesterday. It catches the morning light—silver, or maybe white gold. She turns it absently while staring at the blank page.

The bus stop bench wore someone else's warmth. Maria sat down anyway, pulling her coat tighter against the December wind. Beside her, a man muttered into his phone—

I'm not coming home, Carmen. I can't.

She looked away, studied the graffiti on the shelter wall. A heart with no names. Just the outline.