Circular.

 
One day, he dropped into the seat in front of her without a word. She had put her book down a few minutes prior, and that was the only reason she reacted when he sat down.

“The seat is not taken.” She said, “But thanks for asking.”

He shrugged carelessly, his boyish hair flopping on his head as he did so.

“I see you’ve finally finished reading.”

They both glanced down at the nondescript book on the coffee table.

“I’ve been meaning to approach you for ages and ages, I guess today is my lucky day.”

“How long?”

There was the faintest hint of a question in her intonation, just two syllables expressing a veiled sense of curiosity and surprise.

“Days, weeks maybe. You always sit at the same table.”

“I see no reason to change my habits.”

“It must be a fascinating book; I haven’t seen you glance up even once.”

“It is.” She flipped the book over onto its front. It has a plain dark green cover. He already knew what he would see there. He had been watching her long enough.

“What is it about?”

“You can’t tell from the cover?”

He shook his head.

“I suppose it’s an autobiography of sorts. It starts with the narrator walking down a long, long hallway.”

“With thick carpet?”

“I suppose so. His footsteps are muffled, so that could be why. During the walk he thinks about a lot of things. Basically, he reflects on his life and the people he knows.”

“What about his life and the people he knows?”

“I can’t tell you the whole story but I can give you an example. There was one relationship that he had been in; the girl he fell in love with told him out of the blue that she can’t be with him anymore. She says this: ‘It doesn’t matter how many things we’ve been through or how long I have known you. None of this is enough. After so long, I still feel like I don’t know you and I can’t go on trying anymore, it’s too tiring.’”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“I thought so too, and then I thought about it. It’s true what she said; you can’t know somebody to the extent that you know everything about them, and it doesn’t matter how hard you try. A lot of the people we are in relationships with, it’s not about how compatible you are, or how much you have in common; it’s about who you meet, a lot of it is just geographic correlation.”

“Like this café, the fact that I have seen you here for weeks now is that we both live or work around this area.”

“Precisely.” She took a sip of her coffee, now long cold.

He stared at the way her fingers wrapped around the mug for a moment, before musing aloud.

“But maybe that isn’t the point about relationships. It isn’t about how much we know about each other; love isn’t defined by whether we know everything about each other that other people may not, it’s about making the most of what we do know. It is a miracle that two people can meet and have coffee together; it may have everything to do with geographic correlation, but it also has everything to do with how much time and effort we are willing to put into the relationship, despite not knowing everything about the other person.”

He paused, his eyes softening.

“Tell me how the book ends.”

She pushed the book toward him across the table.

“The last page is missing.”

He reached for the book, taking out his pen as he did so. She glanced at the upside down words as he wrote. When he finished, he walked around the table and took her in his arms.

“Oh god, I’ve missed you so much."

Fin