No speaking necessary

I was sitting in the bagel shop with my soon to be ex-boyfriend. We were eating and not saying much, lost in thoughts of exams and papers and why can’t this be easy? Being together used to be so easy.

The bagel shop was small. It had a couple of tables in the windows, one on each side of the front door, but most of the seating was on stools facing mirrors that covered the walls on either side. We were sitting on stools. Where we used to sit facing each other with our thighs nearly entwined, this morning, we faced the mirror, eyes on our food, or off in space.

Until I saw you in the mirror.

Our eyes were drawn to the other. We stared for only a moment, but far longer than a casual glance. The air between us was crackling and alive with interest, possibility, promise… I felt you, though we had never met, spoken, touched....

But I was in a relationship, albeit a dying one.

I gave a sort of in another lifetime perhaps smile and looked back at my bagel. And when I looked again, you were gone.