In This Place, I Stay

[Inspired by “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan]

The coffee had long since gone cold. I didn’t mind.

I sat in the corner of the coffee shop by the fogged-up window, the same seat I always took on days like this—when the sky looked like a sheet pulled tight and the branches outside scraped against it. A November kind of day. Empty, echoing, and impossible to explain to someone who hadn’t lived through it.

I put my headphones on. The dull hum of the café fell away in a heartbeat.

♪“I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed…”

I looked up just in time to see a woman step through the front door, her scarf wound high around her chin, her hair lighter than I ed. She moved with quick, purposeful steps, the kind of movement people make when they don’t want to be seen. But I knew her. Or used to.

She hugged someone in line. Smiled wide. Laughed.

Not once did her eyes scan the corner. Not once did she hesitate, like something felt familiar.

I watched her order a cappuccino and slip back out into the cold. She didn’t see me. Or maybe she did. And chose not to.

♪“And it’s half my fault, but I just like to play the victim…”

The door hadn’t even closed before someone else caught my eye. A couple by the window—young, maybe college-age. One was talking, fast, hands moving. The other sat rigid, arms crossed tight. It was the same look I’d seen in the mirror the week you packed your things.

They argued without sound. Or maybe one of them didn’t say anything at all. Maybe silence was the point.

Then the one with the knit hat stood up. Left. Didn’t even look back.

The one still sitting just stared out the window. Eyes glazed. I imagined he saw tire tracks where there were none.

♪“Now you’re tire tracks and one pair of shoes…”

I took a sip of my coffee and winced. Cold. Bitter.

There was a time I would’ve waved the barista down for a new one. Today I just held the cup, let the heatless ceramic rest in my palms. Some things aren’t worth reheating.

Outside, the trees stood naked. Limbs like bones against the fog.

♪“I love Vermont, but it’s the season of the sticks…”

It wasn’t Vermont, but it felt like it could’ve been. Any small town where the color drains out of life come November. Where people look forward to snowfall just because it hides the death underneath.

A man walked past the window with a brown paper bag held close to his chest, soaked at the corners from the rain. He stopped at the trash bin, looked inside it for too long, and kept walking.

I wondered what was in the bag. I wondered if it mattered.

♪“And I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed…”

The song looped. I didn’t pause it. Didn’t skip. I wanted to live inside it, the way you live inside a memory when it’s all you’ve got left. It’s funny—how music can feel more real than anything else.

At the table across from mine, a girl sat staring at her phone. She’d been there before me, I think. Her tea was untouched.

The front door opened again.

A guy walked in, wet hair, backpack slung low. He saw her. Froze.

Then he turned around and walked right back out.

I don’t know what she saw on her screen, but she didn’t cry until he was already gone.

♪“You once called me forever, now you still can’t call me back…”

I reached for my phone, almost out of instinct. There was a message I’d typed weeks ago. Still sitting in the text box.

Hey. Hope you’re doing okay.

It was stupid. Pointless. I didn’t send it then, and I didn’t send it now.

♪“I forget how you felt before the world found out …”

You ever look at someone and know they were yours once?

And now, even the idea of belonging feels foreign.

A gift bag sat abandoned on the table near the counter. Someone had left it behind. Forgotten, or maybe on purpose. Silver ribbon. Tissue paper. Unopened.

A barista picked it up, looked inside, and set it back down.

No one came for it.

♪“And the driver’s door doesn’t open when it’s cold…”

I shifted in my seat. I ed the winter your car froze shut and we had to crawl in through the enger side, laughing too hard to care. You kissed me with snowflakes in your eyelashes. I thought that moment would last forever.

It didn’t.

Now it lives in the same place as the coffee shop in the mountains, the one we never got to visit. Or the sweater you left at my place that I still haven’t thrown out. I tell myself I’ll donate it. I won’t.

♪“I am stuck between my anger and the blame that I can’t face…”

A man slammed his fist down at a table, face red with frustration. The woman across from him stared like she’d already left him a long time ago. I couldn’t hear a word, but I didn’t need to.

You learn to read body language when you stop being heard.

♪“And memories feel like weapons…”

She stood up and walked out.

He didn’t follow.

♪“And I can’t tell if I’m bitter or just bored…”

I looked back at my phone. The cursor still blinked in that unsent message box. Waiting. Always waiting.

Outside, the trees rattled against the wind. Someone jogged by in a hoodie, face flushed, headphones in. Probably trying to outrun something they didn’t want to name.

Inside, the girl with the phone finally wiped her eyes.

The couple’s empty table had already been wiped down. No sign they were ever there.

The barista was staring at the window now, too. Foam overflowed from the milk pitcher on the counter, hissing softly against the hot plate. She didn’t move to stop it.

♪“I’ll dream each night of some version of you…”

I took my headphones off.

The sound came rushing back—clinking cups, laughter, rain hitting glass, the hiss of the steamer. But it felt wrong. Like stepping into a world I wasn’t part of anymore.

Like waking up from a dream you didn’t want to leave.

I looked out the window one last time.

The trees were still bare. The sky still gray.

But I stayed. Just like the coffee that never got replaced.

Because sometimes, there’s nowhere else to go.

And sometimes, you stay not because you’re waiting for someone to come back—but because you’re still learning how to leave.

#CoffeeCreations