Born to Run Back by Nora Fares

Author:Nora Fares [Nora Fares]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nora Fares
Published: 2025-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Edges of Normal

Theo

The fluorescent lights at Brewed Awakening hummed with the particular frequency of institutional discomfort, washing everything in a harsh, clinical white. I’d arrived fifteen minutes early, claiming a corner table where I could easily watch the door, my hands wrapped around a to-go cup of black that had already gone cold.

This was a mistake. I’d known it the moment I’d woken up at 6:30 a.m., still tasting her on my lips, my body aching in places that reminded me of exactly what we’d done against the hood of her Honda. In the daylight streaming through my bedroom windows, the whole thing had felt like something that had happened to someone else. A fever dream brought on by four months of sleepless nights and too much goddamn bourbon.

But she’d texted at 9:15.

Still want to get coffee? There’s this new place called Brewed Awakening on Diamond Bar Boulevard.

And I’d texted back: Yes. 3:45?

Now, sitting in this sterile new coffee shop with its generic jazz music and the constant hiss of the espresso machine, I couldn’t remember why this had seemed like a good idea in the first place. The man who’d held her in the rain, who’d whispered her name like a prayer as he moved inside her—that man felt fictional. I was just Theo Garner, high school history teacher, wearing a soft flannel button-down and jeans that still smelled faintly of sage brush and her vanilla perfume.

When she walked in through the door, I nearly didn’t recognize her.

Gone was the ethereal figure from our moonlit memorial, the woman who’d felt like eternal salvation in my arms. This was just—a person. Pretty, yes, very pretty, in fact, but also ordinary in the way that daylight made everything ordinary. She wore dark jeans and a cream-colored sweater with knee-high brown riding boots, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that revealed the sharp angles of her face. She looked tired. Nervous. Like someone meeting a blind date she wasn’t particularly excited about.

She spotted me across the coffee shop and raised her hand in a small wave, making her way to the counter first. I watched her order—a chai latte with an extra shot, she told the barista—and felt the first stab of something that might have been disappointment. I didn’t know she liked chai lattes. I didn’t know anything about her except the sound she made when she came and the way her tears tasted like salt and desperation.

“Theo,” she said, sliding into the chair across from me, her latte cradled between both hands like a shield. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I tried to smile, but gave up. It felt too forced, artificial. “How are you?”

“Fine. Good. A little tired, if I’m gonna need to be really honest.” She tucked a lock of dark brown hair behind her ear, a gesture that should have been endearing but somehow confused me even more. “You?”

“Same.”

The silence stretched between us, filled only by the ambient noise of the coffee shop—conversations at other tables, the clatter of coffee mugs and dishes, someone’s phone ringing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.