Friends for 10 Years, Lovers for a Night

A Lover for a night

The café felt hollow, bathed in the cold glow of fluorescent lights. The hum of the coffee machine was distant, a background hum to the tension between Kara and Mark. Outside, the rain came down in sheets, each drop pounding against the windows with a relentless force. The world felt muted, like something was closing in.

Kara sat stiffly, her fingers clutching the edge of her cup, the steam rising into her face but doing little to warm the chill settling in her bones. She kept her eyes low, tracing patterns in the foam, avoiding the weight of what she felt tonight.

Mark entered quietly, the door's chime barely registering over the rain’s thrum. His expression was unreadable, his eyes dark and heavy, like he’d been carrying too much for too long. He spotted Kara and approached, his movements deliberate, cautious, like he was stepping into a conversation that would change everything.

He slid into the seat across from her, his coat still damp, the smell of rain clinging to him. They sat in silence for a moment, neither willing to speak first. The café was nearly empty, save for a couple in the far corner, huddled over their own private world. The ticking of the clock on the wall felt louder with every second.

“It’s been a while,” Mark said, finally, his voice low and rough, like gravel scraping against concrete.

Kara nodded but didn’t meet his gaze. Her fingers twitched around the cup, a faint tremor she tried to hide. “Yeah. Too long.”

Mark’s eyes lingered on her, seeing the exhaustion etched into her face, the grief that had never quite left her since her mother’s death. He wanted to say something, but the words felt stuck, like there was no room for them between everything else.

The silence grew heavy again, thick like the rain outside, pressing against the glass. They both watched it, like it was easier to focus on the storm than the one brewing between them.

“Do you ever feel like... we missed something?” Kara asked, breaking the silence, her voice barely above a whisper. There was a sharpness in her tone, an edge that cut through the quiet. She kept her eyes on the window, watching the water streak down, distorting the world outside.

Mark didn’t answer immediately. He stared at her, his jaw tense, the muscles in his neck tightening as he tried to find the right words. He had always been careful with her, always so controlled. But something about tonight felt different. More fragile. Like whatever he said could unravel years of carefully maintained distance.

“We didn’t miss anything,” he said finally, his voice hard, though he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince—her or himself.

Kara’s lips tightened, and she shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her. “You really believe that?”

Mark leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, hands clasped together. “Life isn’t some fairytale, Kara. We make choices, we settle into them. That’s it. There’s no magic ending waiting for us.”

She glanced at him, finally meeting his gaze. Her eyes were hollow, reflecting the same bleakness he saw in the sky outside. “But what if we made the wrong choices?”

The air between them felt thick, like the weight of their past was pressing down on the small space they occupied. Mark shifted in his seat, uncomfortable under the scrutiny of her words, the unspoken regrets that hung between them like a shadow.

“I have a family,” he said, his voice firmer now, but there was a crack in it, a vulnerability that hadn’t been there before. “I love my wife. I love my kids. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

Kara nodded slowly, biting the inside of her cheek, her eyes distant again, like she was searching for something she could never quite reach. “And what about us?” she asked, her voice so soft it almost got lost in the ambient noise of the café.

Mark looked away, his eyes tracing the cracks in the tile floor, his hands fidgeting on the table. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “If we’d been together... maybe it wouldn’t have been a fairytale either. Maybe it would’ve been worse.”

The rain outside intensified, hammering against the windows like some kind of warning, like it was urging them to stop, to go back before something broke.

Kara’s expression hardened, her hands finally still. “Do you really believe that? Or is that just what you tell yourself so you don’t have to think about it?”

Mark swallowed, his throat tight, and for a moment, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. When he finally did, there was something raw in his gaze, something that had been buried for years. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

The clock on the wall ticked louder, each second stretching out between them, pulling at the fabric of their friendship, their history. They had shared so much, but tonight, it felt like they were standing on opposite sides of a chasm they could never cross.

Kara’s voice broke the silence again, barely audible. “I miss her. I miss my mom. Every single day.”

Mark’s eyes softened, and he reached across the table, his hand hovering just inches from hers, but he didn’t touch her. “I know,” he said quietly. “You’ve been carrying that alone for so long.”

The rain outside slowed, its violent pounding giving way to a soft, steady drizzle. The world outside the café felt distant, like it was just the two of them now, suspended in a moment that could stretch on forever.

“Maybe this is it,” Kara whispered, her voice trembling, not from the cold but from the weight of the truth she was trying to accept. “Maybe we were never supposed to be anything more.”

Mark stared at her, his heart heavy, knowing she was right but wishing, for just a second, that things could have been different. That they could have rewritten the story somehow. But life wasn’t a fairytale. And sometimes, the endings weren’t happy.

“I think we’ve always known that,” he said, his voice barely more than a breath.

And just like that, the distance between them solidified, the chasm too wide to bridge, and they both knew that after tonight, things would never be the same again.

The rain continued its quiet descent, a slow, melancholic rhythm against the glass.