Chapter 2 — Fragments of the Past

Ben

The café had always been Ben Carter’s fortress, but lately, it felt more like it was crumbling around him. He stood behind the counter, clipboard in hand, staring blankly at the inventory sheet as if the numbers might magically rearrange themselves into something less dire. The espresso machine hissed softly, breaking the silence, but even its familiar noise couldn’t drown out the weight pressing against his chest. Another slow day.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair before adjusting the beanie that had slipped askew. The café used to hum with life—groups packed into every corner, laughter bouncing off the walls, a line of people waiting for their coffees stretching to the door. It had been a place where everything felt possible, where people came not just for the drinks but for the atmosphere. Now, the mismatched chairs often sat empty, their scratches and worn cushions more noticeable than ever. Even the “Take a Book, Leave a Book” shelf sat looking sad and forgotten—half-empty with the same dog-eared titles covered in a fine layer of dust.

His eyes shifted to the counter where an envelope sat with the landlord’s name neatly printed in the corner. He hadn’t opened it yet. He didn’t need to. It wasn’t difficult to guess the contents.

Ben’s focus snapped back to the present when he heard Mia’s voice at the other end of the counter. “Welcome back to the land of the caffeinated,” she said, her tone as chipper as ever. “One Homecoming Latte for you.”

Ben glanced up, distractedly curious about who she was chatting with, and his breath hitched. Clare Donovan stood by the counter, her hands wrapped around the drink Mia had just set down.

She was sitting at their old table—the one near the back with initials carved into it, B.C. + C.D. His stomach clenched as if someone had landed a punch. Of all the people to walk back into the café, why did it have to be her?

She looked the same but different, if that even made sense. The auburn waves of her hair were still there, the freckles still dusted across her nose, but something had shifted. There was a weariness in the way she held herself, the way her shoulders slumped ever so slightly, as though she wasn’t sure if she belonged anymore. He wasn’t sure either.

Ben caught himself staring and quickly looked down at his clipboard. Focus. Numbers. Expenses. He tapped the pen against the edge of the counter, trying to will away the thrum of anxiety creeping into his chest. The café had enough problems without adding Clare Donovan to the mix.

Still, he couldn’t help but glance up again. She was setting up a laptop and a microphone, her movements deliberate but hesitant. A pang of something—resentment, maybe, or something softer—settled in his chest. She was recording for her podcast, no doubt. He’d heard about it months ago from Mia, who had mentioned it with her usual enthusiasm.

“Clare Donovan? Like, the Clare Donovan?” Mia had asked one slow afternoon, her face lighting up. “Her podcast is huge! You know she got interviewed on that one NPR thing, right? She’s, like, a star now.”

Ben had grunted in response, changing the subject. He didn’t want to think about Clare’s success. About how she’d left this town—left him—to chase the kind of life he’d never even imagined. And yet, here she was, sitting at their table, her laptop open as if the years between them hadn’t happened.

He tucked the clipboard under his arm and stepped out from behind the counter, heading for the back hallway. The storage room felt cooler, quieter, the kind of place where he could retreat and breathe for a second without the knot in his stomach tightening further. He leaned against a shelf stacked with syrup bottles and stared at the faded brick wall, his jaw clenching.

Why now? Why had she come back?

The faint hum of her voice drifted in from the front of the café, and he thought briefly about the way she used to fill every space she entered without even trying. She had this way of making everything feel bigger, more alive. He hated the way that thought still hit him, a shard of pain sandwiched between the resentment and the tangled mess of other feelings he didn’t want to name.

He pushed off the wall, grabbing a box of cups from one of the lower shelves. When he turned to head back to the front, his foot caught on the edge of something. Frowning, he crouched to investigate and pulled at a dusty tarp covering a box shoved far under the shelf.

The box was heavier than expected, and when he peeled back the flaps, his breath caught. Sheet music. Lyrics. Notes scribbled in Clare’s handwriting, and some in his. Familiar napkins with sketches of ideas. A worn folder holding lists of songs they’d planned to record.

It was their project.

Ben stared at the contents, the air suddenly too thick. He sifted through the papers with slow, deliberate movements, his fingers pausing on a lyric sheet covered in Clare’s unmistakable scrawl. A melody whispered in his mind, unbidden, carrying with it the memory of her voice—soft, insistent, brimming with ideas. He could almost see her sitting across from him, excitement lighting up her face as they worked into the early hours of the morning, back when everything seemed possible.

His chest tightened. They hadn’t just been writing songs; they’d been building something—dreaming of something bigger than either of them. And then she left.

He sat back on his heels, the box still open in front of him. A voice in his head told him to shove it all back under the tarp, to bury it the way he had years ago. Out of sight, out of mind. But another part of him hesitated, his fingers lingering on the edge of a page as if holding on to it meant holding on to the past.

The sound of the front door opening brought him back to the moment. He snapped the lid onto the box and pushed it under the shelf again, his movements hurried, almost frantic. He took a breath, grabbed the box of cups he’d come for, and returned to the front.

Clare was still at the table. She had her headphones on now, her mug sitting untouched beside her laptop. Her shoulders were hunched, her gaze fixed on the screen in front of her. She looked so much smaller than he remembered. Or maybe it wasn’t her who had changed. Maybe it was everything else.

“Everything okay back there?” Mia’s voice broke through his thoughts. She was wiping down the counter, her expression inquisitive but light.

“Fine,” he said curtly, setting the cups down with a little more force than necessary.

Mia raised an eyebrow but didn’t press. She went back to cleaning, humming softly under her breath.

Ben busied himself with restocking the shelves, his hands moving on autopilot. But no matter how hard he tried to focus, his gaze kept drifting back to Clare. To the way her fingers tapped absently on the edge of her laptop, to the way she tilted her head slightly as she listened through her headphones. He didn’t want to care. He didn’t want to notice any of it. But he couldn’t stop himself.

As the afternoon wore on, Ben retreated to the storage room again, box forgotten on the counter. This time, he sat on an overturned crate, elbows on his knees, staring at the tarp-covered box. The weight of it felt suffocating, even from a distance.

The café was slipping away from him. Clare was sitting out there, a ghost of everything he’d tried to leave behind. And the worst part was, he wasn’t sure which one of those things hurt more.

He closed his eyes, the faint hum of the espresso machine filtering through the wall. It was comforting, in a way. A reminder that the café was still here, still standing, even if it felt like its walls were closing in.

For now, that had to be enough.