Mark always said that diner wasn’t my kind of place—too greasy, too loud, too full of strangers and stories we didn’t want to know. But more than that, he said he didn’t like it. Claimed the smell of fryer grease and stale coffee reminded him of other people’s problems, soaked into the vinyl booths like regret.
Then he started going—once a week, always alone. At first, I didn’t question it. Said it was just “somewhere quiet to think.” But something didn’t sit right.
One rainy evening, I followed him. Parked across the street, heart pounding. Through the foggy window, I saw him. Not just sitting there. Smiling. Laughing. And she was there too—a young waitress with a warm smile and a hand resting gently on his.
It wasn’t the touch that broke me. It was the way he looked at her. Like she was the answer to a question I didn’t even know he was asking.
In that moment, I realized the diner wasn’t the problem. It was me. I’d become the silence he no longer wanted to sit with
