Nikki sighed and sipped her coffee. This was the last time she was going to come to this café. A funky little nest with street-side tables, Boo was their favourite, and where they would come whenever he was back in town. Where they would reconnect, laughing and enjoying each other’s company, and first talked of buying a terrace. Where they had fallen in love. On arrival, she’d almost ordered a large flat white with a double shot, as well as her skinny latte, the habit hard to break.

My God, she missed him. He’d been a hard nut to crack – when they’d first met, he’d had more walls around him than anyone she’d ever known before – but she’d hung in there, intrigued by this shy, handsome and serious soldier boy, and by the time she was in, she was in deep. He was the smartest guy she had ever encountered, she knew that for sure. But also sweet. Not everyone saw that side of him, she knew. Her friends thought he was a bit staid for her. But, God, she loved him. She suspected that him losing his parents so horrifically when he was young had made him wise beyond his years and much, much more sensitive than your average nineteen-year-old army boy. And the sex . . . well, it had been mind-blowing. Intense.

The wind whipped up again, and she felt a piece of grit blow into her eye. Great, she thought, I can’t even enjoy a coffee without it turning to shit. She felt tears start to well in her eyes, and not because of the grit. Fuck! She put down her coffee and picked up her mobile phone. As she rubbed her eye, she swiped, pressed and was soon looking at Facebook, which she hadn’t opened in months. She didn’t bother reading any of the posts or checking the unread messages in the inbox. She just went straight to her profile, then to her relationship status. A single tear crept from the corner of her eye as she changed it from ‘engaged’ to ‘single’. She almost hit ‘It’s complicated’, but he’d been adamant it was over. Said it was the only way.

There, done. Time to move on.

If only it was that easy. She wiped the tear from her face after she slipped her phone back into her purse. She took one last look at the café before she left and could have sworn that for a split second she saw him there, but then her eyes refocused and she realised it was just some other guy, about his height but not him. Well, how could it have been? Stupid, she thought, as a fresh tear replaced the one she had wiped away.