When you’re the one without friends, you start to recognize the shape of it in other people. The way they linger. The way they pretend to be busy when they’re really just there. I see it now more than I ever did.
Most days I sit at my usual spot, a coffee shop off Broad Street between 11th and 12th. I order a chai latte with double caramel. Always that. It’s not about taste anymore. It’s muscle memory. Something to do with my hands.
This is where my solitude meets my loneliness.
I sit across from strangers I’ve watched for months. People I know not by names but by their smiles and frame. The way they carry themselves. The way they exist.
Military guys outside trading drunken cigarettes. Their jeans washed into near white, Under Armour clinging to their shoulders like armor they don’t know how to take off.
College students in packs, huddled in fragile ecosystems. You can almost see the social tension hanging between them.
Girlfriends in shorts and tank tops, scented like flowers and heat.
The divorced man scrolling through photos of kids who probably live three states away. Sadness like a watermark behind his eyes.
Two middle-aged Latina women, white hair pulled back tight, drinking espresso and laughing about Cartagena in the spring like they still believe they’ll get back there.
Families trying to smile while sons in uniform pack their fear into bags and rub the sleep out of each other’s eyes.
The mundane nothingness has always fascinated me.
Alternate lives coexisting in tandem with mine. All of us on different tracks, brushing shoulders, never speaking.
And then I think of them.
The ones who knew me when I didn’t feel like this.
My friends and I never smoked cigars or shared coffee.
We met on church benches. We lingered after services. We showed up for deaths, for first cars, for awkward Christmas parties.
We shared gas money and late-night drives and prayers that felt heavier than our own voices.
We were connected by common service, bloodlines, and faith.
We were inseparable.
Until we weren’t.
I always felt like a foreign body dropped into the middle of it. Like life cast me as the beloved Judas. Close enough to kiss but always one foot out the door.
I convinced myself that all I brought to the table was my faith.
That if that ever slipped, the love would disappear too.
On the surface I was solid.
I was present. I showed up.
But deep inside, the insecurity chewed at me. Quietly.
That’s the thing about being avoidant. You don’t leave people out loud.
You just start building exits in your mind. And eventually, you take one.
Now I sit here in the backdrop of Syrian friends having a sort of Middle Eastern version of a siesta. Their voices low and warm. Their peace louder than any conversation I’ve had in months.
And I think about the way my friends loved me
Like that Japanese golden glue, kintsugi.
Not fixing me to make me perfect.
Just holding me together because I mattered. Because I was worth keeping intact.
Some days I think that kind of love won’t come back.
Some days I’m not sure I’d know what to do with it if it did.
But I remember it.
I carry it.
Even now.
Even here.
Beautifully written. Also this setting sounds eerily familiar to a cafe in my hometown in Georgia.
It was your photograph and summer bucket list piece that drew me to your artistry. What you captured and wrote about felt deeply personal. For you to make this connection proves the authenticity I got a whiff of. I've met so of the names you've mentioned and "Southern hospitality" is alive and well. Ellaville and people who look like you and me is a story to tell. Yet ... ! It's a pleasure seeing you in the places you've been. I would to connect more . Probably, even work on something together. Currently a school History teacher and I'd love to have you in my room sometime.