The coffee shop stood. It was both a haven from homework and a place for it to get finished. It was a place for old friends to meet and large business deals to get the final handshake and signature. The building was small, with windows surrounding the exterior. The furniture was worn. Old wood tables with equally worn chairs surrounding them dotted the sandy-colored tiled floors. The tops of the walls above the windows were a dark green, and had tiny coffee cups circling the ceiling. The counter inside was set up in the back with the same old wood of the tables. Steam rose from the machines as coffee was made and served to customers. It was to its soul your coffee shop. A place to call your own and inside, there sat a young man. He was frustrated and it played across his face as easily as a breeze would shake the branches on a tree. The barista with curly hair had noticed it the moment the young man had walked in. The barista adjusted his cap to keep his hair organized, and wiped down a counter while handing a customer their coffee, all the while listening to the young man finally breaking his silence.

"It's weird, this thing we do called 'love.' Last time I checked, the people who I've screwed over the most is my family and I'd die for any of them Isn't that bizarre? We sit here and selfishly choose what we want, whenever we want, say hurtful things, become numb to all the pain we carelessly spread and then look up from our phones to see these very real people in front of us and say, 'Oh man, I love you so much.' What the hell is that? At the end of the day, it’s true. We hurt the people we love most. We take them and we bend them and push them in every way imaginable."

He paused for a sip of his coffee because, like the good stereotypical college student he was, there was a coffee in his hands. It was a cool Sunday afternoon with no sun, just a light layer of grey covering the sky. It was a comfortable spot, which was why he chose it. Lots of uncomfortable things to say maybe would just cancel out here. He hoped for that numbly, as he restlessly picked at the cardboard sleeve on his cup.

"After we're done breaking these people down with our annoying habits, selfishly taking their time and money and emotional strength, we sit there and ask for more. Love sucks because of all of that and even more. Broken people loving broken people. Sucky people dating other sucky people. One lies and hurts the other and the other person can never forgive them. It's like, I'm sorry, what even is that? First there's this love, and then one thing happens and poof, that love is just not worth it. It hurts too much. It's not worth fixing. It's his fault. It’s her fault. You're both at fault. Doesn't matter. And guess what? That person who you 'loved' just doesn't feel like you ever did. And the worst part is that it doesn't matter how you feel. And it shouldn't, because guess what? You actually love that screwed-up person. I mean, like, you really do. So how they're feeling is 10 times more important than how you feel. Damn it."

He glanced to his left, frustrated, his hand straying through his hair fast and reflecting on his feelings. There was a couple just sitting there. One of the two was on their phone and the other just reading book. Casually, the one reading, reached out to grab the other's free hand on the table. The one receiving the gesture smiled, but didn't look up from the phone. It was like a curling up in a blanket after a long day at a job you don't really like: pure comfort and relief. And that was it. A moment that would be forgotten as easily as what you had for breakfast a week ago. But it was everything, enough and nothing all at once.

He smiled quietly to himself and sipped his coffee again before continuing. "But there's something so inherently beautiful about people loving one another. Even with all the hurt they'll leave you with. Feeling betrayed. Feeling used. Feeling like nothing mattered, really. All that stuff can just fade in an instant if there's love there. Even when the love just isn't there for days, weeks, months. All of a sudden, there's a forgiveness there. For all the terrible things you did and all the stuff you will do. It doesn't always happen that way though and sometimes you lose people you love indefinitely. Forever sometimes."

The f-word got caught in his throat, and he had to take a sip of coffee and look down for a second to catch the feelings before they bled out of his eyes. You don't cry in coffee houses. Not yet, at least. There was just too many people. It was too bright. Lots of a reasons. Guy reasons.

"Wow. People we love are just incredible. For whatever reason, we pick them out of a crowd, or maybe you were just born by them. Whatever it is, doesn't really matter, because once you've decided you love them, the sun rises and sets with those people. Like, all of a sudden, we just decide this person is worth investing our time in. You choose these flawed people who're going to screw you over just as much as you screw them over and you just love them. And even if they leave, there's a part of you that just clings to them, because that's what love does. It's hopeful, it's kind, it's patient, even through all the bull that it goes through. Love just never stops if it's the real thing. Some people just need to grow more, or some are just in a bad place, but sometimes, love just works through all that. It honestly just takes the breath out of me to think about all these people hurting and hating and then, maybe in the same day, loving and forgiving. Even with all the hurt, love can sometimes just creep in amidst all the wrong. I don't know. Now love is beautiful. Now it's this amazing thing, that amazing people do every day bravely, and so so selfishly. It's just..."

He paused to take another sip of his coffee, but he'd finished it. The one across the table still hadn't spoken. Who knows what was even going through that mind? He sure as hell didn't know anymore. He knew, but there was so much happening. He had so much to say and not the right words to do it. So much to fix but literally no way to fix it. He was alone in the coffee shop with words that were failing him. If they'd been working, he wouldn't be alone. He was fighting a losing battle that he knew deep down, only time could fix. Time and a God who really did love the two people sitting in a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon, with the sky being light grey. Even though they loved so poorly. He knew it was just hard to admit it. Plus, he really missed her.

"And people take my breath away every day. But I still haven't gotten mine back fully from her. I know she doesn't believe me, but even with all my flaws and everything I did. There's a part of me that's just broken and held together by her all at once. And I've told her this a thousand times before, but nothing I say in a moment is going to fix her or me or us, but I just need her to know that I loved her so badly. And that I love her now. And I'm sorry."

Across the table, the stranger with whom he'd sat down to practice what he needed to say to Bonnie cleared his throat, breaking the silence. "Son, I think you have a lot of good in you and a lot figured out that some don’t ever come to terms with. I don't know what in the hell you've been sitting here talking to me about, exactly, but I appreciate your honesty and telling me all this. Have you told her all this?"

He said that he hadn't. That he had tried, and just could never get his words right.

The stranger nodded sagely and said, wearing a quiet smile of his own, "That seems about right." And they sat and talked for the rest of the day about love lost and love found. Two perfect strangers, selfish and brave enough to sit in a coffee house and love each other.

The barista stopped listening after a while. Not because he didn’t care, but because there was the beginning of something happening. And he had no role to play in it. The coffee shop stood and the barista worked on, watching the ebb and flow of perfect strangers walking in and out of each other’s lives.