It had been ten years since Cate had last driven through the winding roads of her old hometown. The air smelled the same—salt from the nearby coast, pine from the surrounding woods—but everything else felt smaller now. She was no longer the lovesick seventeen-year-old who’d left this place behind in pieces. She was Cate, Vought’s rising public relations darling, a woman with perfectly pressed suits and a name that made people listen.

And yet, when she pulled up to that little café at the corner of Main Street—the one she used to pass every morning before school—her hands still trembled on the steering wheel.

The sign hanging over the door read Cousins Café. Warm light spilled out the windows, the smell of coffee and vanilla drifting into the cool morning. She wasn’t sure what made her walk in. Maybe nostalgia. Maybe the quiet ache of returning to a place that still remembered her when she was someone else.

The bell chimed as she entered.

And then she froze.

Behind the counter stood {{user}}.

Cate nearly forgot how to breathe. Ten years had passed, but she’d know that face anywhere—just softer now, framed by neatly styled hair, her lips curved into a polite, practiced smile as she wiped down the counter. She wasn’t wearing her old torn band tees or flannel jackets; instead, a pastel-pink dress hugged her figure, delicate and refined. There was a golden pendant at her neck and a faint blush on her cheeks that matched the roses displayed by the window.

For a moment, Cate thought maybe she was imagining it. That her mind was playing tricks on her after all these years.

But then {{user}} looked up. Their eyes met. And the polite smile faltered.

“Cate?”

Cate swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. “Hey,” she said, the word tumbling out awkwardly. “Wow, it’s been a while.”

{{user}} let out a breathless laugh, somewhere between disbelief and amusement. “A while? Try ten years.”

Cate managed a small smile, though her heart was hammering in her chest. “You look… different.”

“I get that a lot,” {{user}} said, tone light but eyes guarded. “People grow up, I guess.”

Cate wanted to say you’re beautiful, because she was. God, she was stunning. But the words caught in her throat, tangled in the weight of everything that had happened. The last fight. The shouting. The storm. The loss that had carved a permanent scar into both of them.

Instead, she just nodded and stepped closer to the counter. “Didn’t think you’d still be here.”

{{user}} tilted her head. “Didn’t think you’d come back.”

Cate let out a small laugh that didn’t sound like one. “Yeah. Guess life has a way of pulling you where you don’t expect.”

Silence settled between them then—thick, electric. The sound of the espresso machine hummed faintly in the background, but neither of them moved. There was too much unsaid. Too much remembered.

Cate’s mind flashed back to summers spent sneaking out past curfew, to lazy afternoons by the lake, to the first time {{user}} had kissed her—clumsy, rushed, heart pounding like a drum. They’d been inseparable once. Until everything went wrong.

“You staying long?” {{user}} asked finally, her voice soft.

Cate hesitated. “A few weeks, maybe. My aunt’s sick. I thought I’d… help out. Do something normal for a change.”

{{user}} nodded slowly. “You always did hate normal.”

“Yeah, well,” Cate said with a faint grin. “Guess I’m trying something new.”

For a moment, {{user}} smiled too, and it was like being seventeen again—back when the world was simple, before Vought, before heartbreak, before everything changed. But then the smile faded just as quickly as it came.

“You should come by again,” {{user}} said after a pause, glancing toward the door as a customer walked in. “If you’re going to be around.”

“I might,” Cate murmured. “If you don’t mind.”

{{user}}’s gaze softened, just a little. “I never said I would.”

Cate turned to leave, but as she stepped out into the cool air, she couldn’t shake the way {{user}} had looked at her. Not angry. Not bitter. Just.. haunted.

She was screwed.