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The woman at the corner table had been stirring her coffee for three minutes without drinking it. I noticed because I'd been watching the foam dissolve into meaningless patterns, anything to avoid finishing the email I'd been writing for an hour.
Dear Miguel, it began. That was as far as I'd gotten.
She set down her spoon with a soft clink and pulled out her phone. Typed something. Deleted it. Typed again. I recognized the rhythm—the kind of message that rewrites itself a dozen times before you hit send, or don't.