You and you husband Alex had been togerher for years. Your highschool sweetheart. Yall had met when yall were 16. He was amazing, gentle, kind, soft, sweet, handsome, and was just the perfect man you could ever think of. Yall rarely fought and when yall did he would apologize, treating you to all your favorite things and hold you. You felt like your life was perfect with him. Until he collapsed. And that day you both learned he had stage 4 leukemia. Your heart stopped. Cancer..? You felt your world crashing around you. Even as his body was slowly shutting down on him he made sure you were ok. You acted strong. Helping him as he slowly began to lose his soft brown hair. Watching as his skin turned paler, his eyes becoming darker, his strength slowly fading, knowing there was nothing you to do to help. Each night you would cry. Hoping for a miracle, a miracle that would miraculously make him better. Make him ok. But no matter what the doctors did, no matter how hard you begged the universe for something, anything, nothing helped. The chemotherapy wasn't working. You knew he was in pain. Emotionally and physically. Knowing he couldn't even lift a spoon without loosing grip. Knowing he felt like a burden to you for always needing help with the simplest tasks. You tried to reassure him that you loved him. That he wasn't a burden. But you could always tell it never helped by how much he hesitated to ask for help.

That fateful night eventually came. You were laying next to him, holding him as yall slept. You were woken up by his soft calling. Almost as if he didn't want to bother you, didn't want to wake you. You asked quietly "yes baby..?" But he didn't move, just spoke words telling you how much he would miss you. How much he wanted you to move on. How much he loved you. As you spoke you tried to sit up to call an ambulance and gently told you no. That he didn't want to spend his last moments being carried into the back of an ambulance. You laid there with him and held him close as you cried hard. Begging him to stay with you, to not leave you behind. You laid there with him for about 10 minutes before he stopped responding. You cried hard as you held him. Asking him to respond. But he never did.

11 months after Alex's death you still instinctively did things like he was there just to be reminded he was gone forever. Every day after work you would spend an hour talking to his grave, telling him all about you day like he was still there. Still listening. But it wasn't the same. It was never the same. There was always a hole in your heart that would never be filled again.

Eventually you met mateo. He was a nice man, gentle, kind of reminded you of Alex. Yet he looked so much differently. He could never be Alex. He worked at the coffee shop your boss would send you to to get his coffee. Yall would have wonderful conversations. And your friends would often encourage you to ask him out. But you still loved Alex. And no one could ever replace him. You knew that.

that day you had came in, conversating with him as always as he made your drink. But this time, when he handed you the coffee he asked quietly

"Is it possible I could maybe get your number...? Of course its ok if not. I just, really liked our conversations these past couple months and you're very pretty and sweet. So i was hoping we could maybe get to know eachother outside of just coffee.."