Your Chair at the Café

The first year after someone dies is a minefield of ordinary things. Their coffee mug. Their side of the bed.

Your name remains in the group chat, a small green circle beside the last thing you said:

There was a version of me only you remembered: the red coat, the cheap apartment,

The first month, I kept calling. Not on purpose.

The sky was the kind of blue that makes you think nothing bad could happen—which is how you know you're still in the before.

After she died, her garden kept going—which felt, at first, like a betrayal.