People have always said that I’m good at reading people, that I have a good sense of what they’re thinking and feeling, even when they don’t know. It’s what makes me a good artist, a couple of critics have said, it’s what makes my paintings more than just lines and colours and shapes. It’s strange that the same qualities that can make a person’s work meaningful can make their personal life such a disaster.

I picked this chain for its bland neutrality. There’s no home court advantage, just the awkwardness of two artists overpaying for coffee.

I tried to be early but he got there first. He sits in a chair in the window, backlit by the sun, an angelic smile on his wolf in wolf’s clothing face.

His smile still makes me feel like a kid who was given an unexpected prize, a plastic bunny, a tiny toy inside a Kinder Surprise.  There are new lines that crinkle in the corners of his honey molten eyes, a few grey hairs by his ears, a new tattoo peaking out from under the sleeve of his black t-shirt, and I marvel at the ridiculousness of him being more beautiful now, like a sycamore or redwood that gets more sublime with age.

I sit across from him, my knees feeling the familiar electricity. I tap the table with my fingertips.

He wasn’t a young love in the traditional sense. He wasn’t my first boyfriend, or the person I lost my virginity to. But he was the first person who I thought might understand me. He always struck the safest balance of boundaries and openness, of deep interest and distance.

“It’s good to see you,” I say, and he laughs, like he knows how bizarre this is too, but here we are.

We both order coffees, his black, mine with vanilla oatmilk and sugar.

He taps my arm, gently, an opening drumbeat when the drinks come.

We talk about books we’ve both read recently, favourite songs that have been soundtracks to creativity. He holds up my right hand, the back of it and the underside of my arm still covered in  streaks of red and yellow paint.

“Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose,” I say, wondering if I’ve said it right and he smiles.

I talk about my latest paintings. “I’ve been obsessed with almost complimentary combinations lately, I tell him. Vibrant oranges and cobalt blues, ocean blue and mint green and magenta, lime green and the softest lavenders and lilacs.”

He can still make anyone feel like they’re the most riveting person he’s ever met. I wonder if a random person listening thinks I’m trying to decide what colour to paint my kitchen.

I used to feel like that all the time before I met him, like I was trying to connect with people but we were speaking different languages, just occasionally settling on the same word.

He tells me about the latest movie he’s producing, the story, the casting, where they’re shooting it. He’s as passionate and electrifying as ever.

When I was in art school, there were artists more talented than me. There were people who could sculpt and whittle and make prints, people who could bead and craft and do murals. There were people who could draw from life so realistically you’d think you were looking at a photo. But there few people who spent as many late nights in the studio as I did. There were few people who wanted to make it as badly as I did.

I introduced myself to him after seeing him around. He said I looked familiar, and I reached into my sketchbook and pulled out a drawing of him. I had no idea how he’d react but he told me he loved it.

We had so many intense conversations, ideas and words, passion and music. He said I needed to stop apologizing for my ambitions. He always asked to see my work, the process, the finished stuff. He was always so supportive.

When we’ve swallowed the last dregs of our coffee we get up, walk around the old neighbourhood.

“Remember the fight we had over here,” I say, nodding my head to the left of us, and first he laughs, but when he registers the hurt in my face, he stops, suddenly serious.

“It was hard, what happened with us,” he said.

I’m surprised, because it always felt like I was the one who loved and wanted and need more. I reach over and squeeze his hand. We hold on for too long. He’s the one who pries his fingers loose.

“There are things more painful than the way things ended between us,” I say.

He looks at me, his eyes widening with irritation that he can hardly conceal, a deep breath where he tries to center himself, where he takes an actual step back, when he tries to hear me out because it’s the Right Thing To Do.

I’m never good at being on the spot. I don’t mean to delay, it’s not a tactic, I want to say, just an anxiety disorder, and I want him to laugh, but I know he won’t unless I give him explicit permission to, which would make all of this superfluous.

“It’s worse,” I find myself saying quietly, “to know that you never fully had someone. To know that the spark, the potential for real happiness was there…”

I hear him take a deep breath. I wonder if he’ll walk away now, but I continue.

“It’s worse to know that you occupy no space in a person’s heart, a person you thought about all the time.”

“No,” he says, and puts his arms around me. He always gave the best hugs, hugs that pull your whole body into his, the kind that can somehow be both reassuring and sensual, the kind that leave you both standing there for too long, and when you cross the street and look away, he’s still looking back at you, intensely.

He says something into my hair, I think he says something about it not being true, and I say something into his shoulder, something like it is true, because if it wasn’t you would have been in touch before this, you would have let me know and he shakes his head, and I know this is as close as I’m going to get to him admitting anything. I run my hand along his cheek like I used to a long time ago.

I want to kiss him, and I think he wants to kiss me too, but that was always the problem, I was never sure how much I was imagining and how much was real. I think about a line in a poem I read a long time ago, about a kiss in someone’s eyes that haunts the poet.

I say, “I could continue being happy for you from a distance, but this is good, seeing you, hearing everything you’ve been up to now.”

He nods. “It is good,” he says.

He says something about how he always knew I’d do the things I was doing now, and I say it to him too, and I think we both mean it.

I think back to a conversation we had long ago, where I asked him if he clicked so deeply with people that he met often, and he assured me that he didn’t.

There was always something in the way. It was work, or life, a hidden partner with a complicated history. Most of all I think, it was fear, but maybe as much as it hurt at the time, maybe none of the reasons matter. Maybe that’s what makes it easier now to say the right things, to turn away when I feel the tears coming, to give him one last hug, to feel his eyes on my back as I walk away even though I’ve been too afraid to turn around and look at him.

Danila Botha is the author of three short story collections, Got No Secrets, For All the Men…which was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award, The Vine Awards and the ReLit Award. Her new collection, Things that Cause Inappropriate Happiness will be published in March 2024 by Guernica Editions. She is also the author of the novel Much on the Inside which was recently optioned for film. Her new novel, A Place for People Like Us will be published by Guernica in 2025. She teaches Creative Writing at University of Toronto’s SCS and is part of the faculty at Humber School for Writers.