Secret

Before the coffee gets cold

I met my younger self for coffee this morning.

He sat across from me, legs swinging slightly beneath the chair, hands wrapped around a cup too big for his grip. He looked at me like I was some kind of ghost—half in awe, half in disbelief.

"You look... different," he said, tilting his head. "Older."

I chuckled. "That's how time works."

He hesitated, tracing patterns on the table. "So... do we make it? Do we figure things out?"

I exhaled, staring at the version of me who still had so much ahead of him. The boy who didn't yet know the weight of silence, the ache of leaving things unfinished, the push and pull of wanting to belong while craving freedom.

"We're still figuring things out," I admitted. "But we're getting there."

His brows furrowed. "And the dreams? The big ones?"

I smiled, thinking of the things I once swore I'd accomplish, the versions of me that changed along the way. "Some of them shift, some of them stay. But we never stop dreaming."

He nodded, though I could tell he wasn't completely satisfied. I wouldn't have been either, at his age.

Before he could ask more, I leaned forward. "Just—keep going. Keep making things. Keep believing in yourself, even when it feels like no one else does. You're going to build things, break things, love, lose, and learn. And one day, you'll sit here, like me, and realize you were never really lost."

He bit his lip, nodding. And just like that, the coffee gets cold, and he was gone.

But I could still feel him there, lingering in the space between who I was and who I'm becoming.