That’s how I ended up in a small café downtown—the kind of place my parents would never step into.
It smelled like coffee and something freshly baked. No one was trying to be impressive. People were just… there.
That’s where I met Claire.
She didn’t try to impress me. She laughed easily, spoke directly, and paid attention in a way I wasn’t used to. When she looked at me, it felt like she saw something real—not something curated.
So I did something that made no sense, even to me.