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Steven had a bad day and just needed something to make him feel better.

That was the excuse anyway.

The truth sat heavier.

The truth was he’d been driving around for nearly an hour with nowhere to put himself. The apartment felt wrong now. Too quiet in the places that mattered. Even the refrigerator hum sounded lonely. Especially at night.

So he ended up at Mikey’s Diner again.

Rain hammered the city in silver sheets, turning headlights into smeared watercolor ghosts across the windshield. The neon sign outside the diner buzzed and flickered in bruised shades of orange and blue.

THANKS COME AGAIN.

Steven stared at the sign longer than necessary.

Funny how harmless things became cruel when you were grieving.

He stepped out into the rain. Cold water soaked through the shoulders of his hoodie instantly, slid down the back of his neck, crawled under his collar like icy fingers. The night smelled of wet asphalt, cigarette smoke, and oil rising from the streets after rain—the scent of a city sweating out its sins.

Inside, warmth hit him first.

Then the smell.

Burnt coffee. Bacon grease. Dish soap. Old leather booths cracked from decades of tired people sliding in and out carrying heartbreak like unpaid tabs.

The kind of place where nobody asked too many questions because everyone was already carrying something.

Mikey glanced up from behind the counter and gave a small nod.

No smile.
No “How you doing?”
Just recognition.

That was the utility of old diners and older men. They understood silence wasn’t emptiness. Sometimes silence was triage.

Steven slid into their booth.

Their booth.

The vinyl creaked beneath him. The table still had the tiny burn mark Jasmine made trying to light one of those ridiculous clove cigarettes she swore made her feel “mysterious and French.” She’d nearly set the napkin dispenser on fire laughing.

Now the mark felt archaeological.

Proof she existed.

Outside, rain crawled down the windows in trembling streams, distorting the city into something underwater and unreal. Steven watched strangers move past beneath umbrellas and streetlights, their shapes bending in the glass.

For a second, every woman became her.

That was the cruel part.

Grief turned the world into a hall of mirrors.

He rubbed his thumb along the coffee mug Mikey set down in front of him. The ceramic heat burned pleasantly against his skin, but the warmth never traveled farther than his hands. His chest still felt hollowed out. Excavated.

“You eating?” Mikey asked.

Steven looked at the menu without seeing a single word.

“Nah.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“I meant it yesterday too.”

Mikey grunted and walked off.

Steven stared at the empty seat across from him.

Jasmine used to fill space aggressively. Not loudly—never that—but completely. She had this way of leaning forward when she listened that made you feel like the center of the universe instead of background noise. Her laughter came fast and reckless, head tilted back slightly, curls catching neon light while her fingers drummed against coffee cups like she carried music under her skin.

And God, she noticed everything.

“You know what your problem is?” she once told him here at this exact booth.

Steven had snorted. “Feels like a dangerous question.”

“You think sadness makes you deeper than everybody else.”

“That sounds insulting.”

“It is insulting.”

Then she smiled afterward so he knew it came from love instead of cruelty.

Now he’d kill to hear her insult him again.

The jukebox crackled near the bathrooms. An old soul record drifted through the diner low and smoky, full of aching brass and tired romance. Jasmine loved music that sounded slightly damaged. Said perfect vocals made her suspicious.

“Pain should leave fingerprints,” she used to say.

Steven swallowed hard.

The memories weren’t arriving clean anymore. They came fragmented now. Pieces. Her hands wrapped around coffee mugs. The scent of coconut lotion and rainwater in her curls. The tiny scar near her eyebrow from falling off a bike at thirteen.

He was terrified of forgetting the sound of her voice.

That fear upset him more than death itself.

Because death was final.

Forgetting felt like betrayal.

A group of college kids stumbled inside laughing too loudly, dripping rainwater across the tile floor. One wore an expensive wool coat with an elite university crest stitched onto the breast pocket. Young faces. Healthy faces. The careless invincibility of people who still believed time owed them something.

Steven looked away before resentment settled too deep.

That bitterness had started creeping in lately.

Not enough to make him cruel.
Just enough to make him tired.

Grief had turned him into a gadfly version of himself—irritable, restless, quietly hostile toward joy he couldn’t participate in anymore. He hated that part. Hated how pain could reduce the soul into something smaller if you weren’t paying attention.

Mikey returned carrying fries Steven didn’t order.

“I said I wasn’t hungry.”

“Yeah,” Mikey muttered. “And I said nothing.”

Steven almost smiled.

Almost.

Steam rose from the fries carrying the smell of salt and grease. Jasmine used to steal half of them while insisting she “only wanted one.”

He reached for a fry automatically before realizing there’d be nobody reaching beside him for the next one.

The realization hit strange.

Not sharp anymore.

Worse.

Dull.

Like emotional nerve damage.

Steven leaned back in the booth and watched the rain assault the windows.

“We barely had time,” he said quietly.

Mikey pretended to wipe the counter.

“Mm.”

“That’s the part nobody tells you.”

The old cook glanced over.

“What part?”

Steven stared into his coffee. Black. Reflective. Bottomless.

“You spend your whole life hearing love is hard to find.” His throat tightened. “Then when you finally do find it…” He exhaled shakily. “Turns out keeping it is harder.”

The diner hummed softly around him. Plates clinked. Coffee poured. Rain battered glass. Somewhere in the kitchen grease hissed like static.

Life continuing without permission.

The song on the jukebox reached the chorus again, soft and bruised around the edges. An encore of longing. Steven closed his eyes for a moment and let it wash over him. Jasmine used to sing this exact part off-key on purpose just to annoy him, dragging out the last line dramatically until he threatened to leave her there with the check.

He’d give anything to hear that terrible performance one more time.

Steven looked toward the door.

For one dangerous second he imagined Jasmine walking through it again—rain-soaked curls, crooked grin, teasing him for looking miserable.

But only strangers entered.

Only strangers left.

The neon sign painted trembling orange across the wet floor tiles.

THANKS COME AGAIN.

Steven laughed softly to himself, exhausted and cracked around the edges.

“Yeah,” he whispered toward the empty seat. “I wish you could.”

And for the first time all night, the silence across from him felt less empty and more haunted.

Not by ghosts.

By love that still refused to leave.