“You said it!” she exclaimed. “Of course, I said it,” I thought to myself. I wasn’t impressed by the coffee, but I would pay 2 euros for a cup every day for the rest of my life if I could watch her make it.

In hindsight, of course it all started with an unplanned coffee “date.” I don’t remember much of what was said; it was oddly silent, just the way I like it.

Now, as I reminisce, the only time I paid attention to her was when she kept whisking her coffee around the house. I remember being amused by her little hands making the whisking sound with her tiny cup.

Throughout my life, I’ve used coffee as a tool, a tool to keep me sane, at least for a little while. She made me fall in love with coffee again—the experience. We have different preferences, of course; she prefers the gayer version, while I like my coffee as it should be.

I don’t know when or how it all started, the daily coffee ritual. But I started looking forward to mornings when I have her in my arms on the sofa. Just as we’re about to fall asleep, I tell her “You know where we’re gonna go in the morning? “Coffee!” She chuckles every time.

Waking her up, distracting her in the elevator, ordering the solito, cleaning her seat, diverting her attention from the birds around her, smiling at her innocence when she stops to take a picture to send to her mother, having a pointless, no-filter conversation with her—all this while smoking cigarettes, and distracting her on the way back—that’s my routine.

I’ve hated bad coffee perpetually. But when she’s sitting across from me, when she take a sip, I love to watch her lips flutter. Life’s too short to have bad coffee, but I don’t care— because I have her with me. Let me die while I watch her drinking coffee. A beautiful last sight.

That cup of coffee doesn’t hit the same now, even if it’s Pew Caffe. I want to have coffee, but with my little pomo. It’s daunting to think that nothing tastes the same without her, apart from the cigarettes—they’re still loyal to me.

“Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee,” I feel like I’m losing the will to live slowly. But I close my eyes and think about the mornings after she’s back.

The sun, coffee, cigarettes, and her. Sign me up to live another day.

I look forward to having my arm around her neck while she sleeps on my chest, and the last word she hears before falling asleep—“Coffee.”