The kitchen after Nolan is always cold. The warmth no longer emanated from the stove or from his arms, leaving me with the chill of the few breakfasts that hadn’t sold.

I stood in front of the steel table, the noise of Mrs. Miclan’s words still bouncing and bursting between my temples. Bouncing and bursting. Bouncing and bouncing. Growing louder with every pass.

My hands slid along my sweater down to my forearms, pressing into the marks of my loyalty with as much force as I used to draw a bowstring. I turned to look at the refrigerator — the effort Nolan had made for me was still there.

"Nolan would never," I whispered, resting my elbows on the cold metal. "He’s a café au lait. Soft and sweet."

I leaned down, feeling the cold of the metal press directly against my forehead.

"He stains me white," I murmured, tightening my fingers. "He stains me with the perfection I hate... but love when it’s his."

"What if it were true, Ryne?" said my voice like an echo in my mind.

I straightened up, looking at my reflection in the metal.

"Why would you say that?" I murmured. "We know Nolan perfectly. Remember the year we spent watching him — he only has eyes for us."

"Eyes for you," it pointed out. "You’re the part he loves. I’m the part that doubts."

My eyes closed as I moved toward the refrigerator.

"And what would there be to doubt?" I asked, looking at the cold lunch. I shifted the aluminum foil slightly, seeing the flower ruined by the spoiling. "Maybe his color... What if he weren’t white?"

I went quiet, feeling the whole world stop alongside my desire to preserve Nolan’s effort.

"If he isn’t white," I repeated, "then what color am I...?" I slammed the fridge door shut, watching it swing back and forth. "Does that mean I painted myself wrong?" I swallowed, pressing my face to the table, my hands gripping my hair. "What color was I really supposed to be stained? Tell me..."

Slap!

I struck both cheeks with my hands. Pain always works to stop the thinking — which meant...

"You mustn’t think about that, Ryne," I told myself. "Don’t be foolish. Mrs. Miclan is a woman who has spent four months living off other people’s generosity and filling that emptiness with other people’s stories. She’s exactly the type of person who builds fires with wet matches — who exaggerates, who invents, who needs the world to be more dramatic than it is to justify the fact that she’s still in it without doing anything useful." I said it all without drawing a breath. "Nolan isn’t like that. I know our Nolan."

"My Nolan," I smiled. "I know the number of freckles on his neck. I know the rhythm of his breathing when he concentrates. I know the speed at which he walks from school to here, his average steps per block, the exact time it takes him depending on whether he comes straight here or stops at the hardware store corner to look at the window display — which he does when he’s in a good mood."

"The clock." I turned. "This will be a test... a test."

"A definitive one," I agreed. "If Nolan arrives on time, it will only mean one thing."

"That the bloodsucking, life-draining leech was lying."

"And if he doesn’t..." I sighed, squeezing my wrist as I thought about the display case. "Better not to be negative — that’s only going to be the last option."

Two minutes.

"In two minutes Nolan’s cooking class ends. From school to here, walking at his normal pace, is approximately eight minutes. Which means that in ten minutes, barring any unexpected variables, the bell is going to ring." I came out of the kitchen with a new smile and a cloth in my hand. "How clever, Clear. I’m a genius."

Mrs. Miclan and her companion were still at the center table, now talking about clothing prices they were never going to pay but enjoyed showing off. I ignored them with the same energy they had used to ignore my discomfort.

I served two more customers. Wiped the bar. Arranged the cups.

Eight minutes.

Mrs. Miclan left without a tip — entirely predictable; she doesn’t even pay for the coffee.

Five minutes.

The café was almost empty. An older woman at the back table had been sitting with the same cold cup for half an hour and hadn’t ordered anything else.

I rearranged the cups that were already arranged.

Two minutes.

I stood still behind the bar. The cloth in my left hand. My eyes resting gracefully on the door.

One minute. This is the moment.

Clink, clink, I heard — a single chime of departure.

The silence of the café grew dense — not because it was empty, but because it was replaced by the leech Miclan’s words, words that only bounced through my mind with disgust and fury.

"Nolan didn’t arrive within the ten minutes I had calculated," I whispered, as I wrung the cloth and listened to the drops fall to the floor.

"That confirms Miclan’s words," said Dr. Roy, looking up from her notebook for the first time in several minutes.

I looked at her and smiled.

"He did arrive," I confirmed. "Just not within my calculations."

The clock read exactly three-oh-eight, with four seconds, when the bell rang.

Clink.

My feet took a step on their own.

There he was. Backpack on his left shoulder. Hair slightly wind-tousled from the walk. His emerald eyes searching for me from the door — that beautiful habit of finding me first before seeing anything else.

Something in my chest expanded — something only he could cause.

He crossed the café in eight steps, wrapped me in his large arms, and kissed my forehead with that specific warmth that belonged only to me.

"I’m here," he said, as if that were enough explanation for everything.

"I noticed, you fool," I answered, taking in his warmth.

He smiled, leaving his backpack on a chair, assuming everything was in order. But one small thing didn’t add up: the bell. A single clink wasn’t normal — one as it opened, one as it closed.

And I was right.

Behind him, holding the door before it swung shut, a girl walked in.

Clink.

Chapter 7: Purple Handkerchief II

She simply walked in. Her chains jangled softly with every step — a small sound that somehow filled more space than it should.

I don’t know why I watched her so closely before even considering her a customer. I suppose there are people who generate questions just by existing in your space. But one detail — a small one — made me recognize her. A little handkerchief, tied in a clumsy knot, hung from her wrist.

"The girl with the purple handkerchief," I whispered. The same one from yesterday.

She took a seat at the second window table. Mr. Arrit’s table. That detail made me frown. I didn’t like it. Nothing about her did.

Nolan brought her a menu with his perfect host smile — the same one I had seen a thousand times. I reminded myself of that. I reminded myself three times in a row; I needed to.

The afternoon moved at its usual pace. Nolan served, I prepared, the two of us in our synchrony. Everything was fine. Everything was in order. EVERYTHING NEEDED TO STAY IN ORDER. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Nolan had left me her order: a frothy lemon tea.

"Somewhat pretentious taste," I said.

I prepared her order with the same care any customer deserved. Though hers took three hours longer than necessary, on the excuse that we were out of tea — which sent Nolan out to buy a box. It wasn’t an oversight. I don’t have oversights.

I watched her without looking at her as the café slowly emptied, the way it always does at this hour. The older woman from the back left first, leaving a small tip and an untouched cup of cold coffee. Then the two young people by the window. Finally, a man who had only ordered water and had been reading the same newspaper for twenty minutes.

Until it was just the three of us.

Nolan took her frothy tea from the counter without a word, though visibly puzzled by my efficiency. He walked toward her table with the cup in hand.

We’re about to close — she should drink it fast and GET OUT.

Instead, she greeted Nolan, wiggling her fingers at him as if casting a spell. Nolan returned the greeting, and she had the bright idea to pull out a chair, patting the seat.

And against all prediction, my man stayed.

It wasn’t unusual for Nolan to talk with customers. He did it all the time — with Mr. Arrit, with Mrs. Prats, with anyone who sat alone for too long. It was part of him, that inability to leave someone without conversation. But this time was different. I can’t say exactly how. I just feel it.

I watched them from the bar with the cloth in my hand. She talked with a familiarity I didn’t recognize — I know Nolan’s family, and I made sure to memorize the faces of his close relatives. She wasn’t on the long list.

Nolan answered, nodded, gestured with that expressiveness that only comes out when someone knows you well. He was more of a listener and advice-giver, not one to keep a conversation going — and certainly not this cooperatively.

I kept wiping.

She said something I couldn’t quite make out. Nolan broke into a laugh — one of the genuine ones, the kind that come from his stomach and not from his hosting protocol.

THE KIND THAT BELONGED ONLY TO ME.

"If you tattoo your whole back they’ll kick you out of the house," he had said — a comment that not even in my worst nightmares had I heard him make.

"I didn’t like that," I whispered, keeping quiet.

And then she raised her hand and gave him a little tap on the shoulder. A small nudge — just one. Brief. The kind people give without thinking because they already feel they have permission.

"I didn’t like that," I whispered, pressing down on the bandages over my hands, feeling the burn in my wounds as I thought about the knives beside the cookies. "Not at all."