The coffee had long since cooled in the chipped ceramic mug, its surface now dull and lifeless, like a page left unturned in a book too heavy to bear. Léna sat alone at the small wooden table in her modest apartment—a studio with walls yellowed by time and lit only by the pale gray of a November morning. She stared absently at the droplets of rain sliding down the windowpane, tracing erratic paths across the glass, letting the silence stretch thin between the muted sounds of the waking city.
Every morning was the same ritual: the coffee, black and bitter, often forgotten and left to lose its warmth. But this morning, the taste of the cold coffee felt different—sharper, heavier. It was as if the bitterness carried the weight of something deeper, a flavor steeped in memory and loss. The taste of a love that had frozen over.
She brought the cup slowly to her lips, savoring the strange mix of lingering heat and creeping cold. It was as if the coffee had absorbed her memories—sweet and sour all at once—a story paused, held captive by time. She set the cup down gently and let her gaze wander, as fragments of the past crept in, slow and delicate, like a veil lifting from her heart.
The first image that came to her was of a cobblestone street, bathed in the orange glow of a summer evening. She saw herself walking there, face light, heart beating with a strange, new energy—both unfamiliar and intimate. It was a time when everything seemed possible, when even time itself held its breath, careful not to break the spell. Then, she saw Élise: her smile, her laugh ringing clear in the warm air, like a fragile song you wish you could keep forever.
Léna's lips parted slightly, whispering a name as if speaking it aloud might summon the ghost of what once was. "Élise..." The sound was soft, almost a secret. She remembered the first look, the shiver that ran down her spine, the silent promise that passed between them without words.
But memories are never pure; they carry the scars of time. In the taste of cold coffee, she found the sting of absence, the loneliness that follows the storm, the hollow left behind by Élise's disappearance.
Around her, the apartment seemed frozen in a fragile balance. Bare walls, a crooked photo frame, a worn novel never finished. Everything was suspended, as if the world had moved on without her. The coffee continued to cool. She wrapped her hands around the cup, feeling the chill against her skin, and thought of those days when everything had burned bright, urgent, alive.
She rose and moved slowly to the window, looking down at the street below. A black cat crossed, its eyes gleaming like twin shards of memory. She smiled faintly—a sad smile mixed with resignation.
In these morning hours, she found herself caught between what had been and what might still be. The past was stubborn, relentless, shining with flashes of light and shadows.
Leaving the empty cup on the table, she reached for a battered leather notebook. This was where she wrote sometimes, away from prying eyes, letting the words flow in a desperate attempt to contain the chaos inside. But today, words seemed feeble—as if writing could only skim the surface of what gnawed at her.
She scribbled a line, then erased it: "The coffee is cold, yet I still drink the illusion of your presence."
She put down the pen and, in the silence, almost heard Élise's voice, soft and distant, whispering in her ear.
A faint noise interrupted her thoughts. Her phone buzzed on the table. A notification. She hesitated, then checked it. Nothing urgent—just a message from Camille, a friend, asking if they could meet soon. She smiled at the simple connection, that thread of friendship that endured beyond the distance of time and pain.
But how could she explain to Camille the invisible weight that kept her prisoner of a past she both cherished and feared? How to say that every morning was colored by that same bitter taste that tightened her throat, like a cold, sharp blade?
Time slipped by, heavy and slow. Léna wondered if she would ever get used to the absence, if one day she could replace the taste of cold coffee with that of warm coffee shared, smiles exchanged, hands held.
But the truth, she thought, was that some hours are forever etched in the soul. They become invisible scars, markers in the labyrinth of our lives. We try to erase them, hide them, ignore them—but they return again and again, like a scent, a sound, or a simple taste.
In the melancholy silence, a voice inside her whispered a question: "Why hold on to this taste, when you could choose another?"
Léna shook her head as if to dislodge the weight. She knew it was not a matter of choice. It was about time, wounds, loyalty to what had been. She could neither forget nor truly move on. She was caught in a pause, between yesterday and tomorrow.
The coffee had gone cold. But her memory still burned.
As she stood to leave the table, a sudden thought struck her. What if this coffee, this bitter taste, was a metaphor? A symbol of the frozen love that had turned cold from neglect, from pain, from being left hanging? A flavor that had lost its warmth and sweetness but retained all its intensity.
Léna laid her hand gently on the notebook, closed her eyes for a moment, then decided to write—not a story, not a letter, but a confession to herself, a secret shared only with the quiet room.
"This cold coffee is you. It is me. It is us. A time that stopped without warning, without noise, yet still vibrates in every stolen moment, every silence filled. The bitter taste of a dream slipping away, of hope broken. And yet, in this bitterness, there is beauty, poetry in surrender. Maybe this is what love means: learning to drink the cold without forgetting the memory of the warm."
She opened her eyes again. The day was a little brighter; the rain had ceased. A timid ray of light slipped through the cloud veil, touching the surface of the table and the rim of the empty cup. That light seemed to whisper that time marched on, relentless—but maybe there was a promise to grasp, a new warmth to welcome.
Léna drew a deep breath, as if to inhale that light into her very bones. Then, in a soft voice, she murmured:
— The hours we never forget... that's you, Élise.
And she knew that whisper would echo long after the coffee had lost its bitter taste.
Outside, the city breathed with the slow awakening of a new day. Inside, Léna felt the fragile stirrings of a heart that had lived too much in the past. The taste of cold coffee lingered—bitter, sharp—but no longer unbearable. It was a beginning, a silent invitation to remember, to feel, and maybe, one day, to let go.
End of Chapter 1
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