The café had not changed. It was still a collection of worn chairs and mismatched tables, walls adorned with art that seemed more experimental than intentional. Yet somehow, today, it felt comfortable. Familiar. Jessica was already seated, stirring her drink absently, her gaze flitting to the door until she saw me and offered a small, tentative smile.
Taking my seat across from her, I found myself smiling as well, though with a strange sense of fragility. “Jessica,” I greeted her, the word carrying a weight I could not quite explain.
“Percival,” she replied softly, setting her spoon aside and giving me her full attention. For a moment, neither of us spoke, and I became acutely aware of the hum of the café around us, the laughter and the chatter, an undercurrent to our strange, suspended silence.
Clearing my throat, I ventured forward, unsure where to begin but unwilling to leave things unsaid. “I… wanted to thank you for meeting with me. I realize our parting was not… under the easiest of circumstances, and if I caused you pain or discomfort, it was most assuredly not my intent.”
Jessica’s gaze softened, but there was something guarded in her expression. “Thank you, Percival. I… I wanted to see you, too. There’s been a lot I’ve been thinking about.” She paused, folding her hands around her cup. “It’s strange how you think you know what you want… until someone shows you something different.”
I felt a pang at her words, but I nodded. “Indeed,” I replied, searching for a way to express what I’d realized in her absence. “It’s odd. After we parted ways, I fell back into my routines - the clubs, the same conversations with my… chums. But it was as if the world I knew was no longer the same, and, well, I no longer fit within it.”
She tilted her head slightly, curiosity softening her features. “I know that world meant a lot to you, Percival. But… I guess I never really understood why.”
I exhaled slowly, carefully considering my words. “When I was young, it didn’t mean much at all,” I admitted, a faint smile tugging at my lips. “I was, for lack of a better term, rebellious.”
Her brow arched in disbelief, and she leaned forward. “You? Rebellious? I can’t imagine it.”
“Oh, I assure you, I was,” I said, allowing a touch of humor to color my tone. But the levity waned as I continued, my voice growing quieter, tinged with something harder to define. “During my university years, I became involved with someone I’d known nearly all my life. She was vibrant, confident, and so utterly different from anyone else I’d met. For a time, I thought we shared something truly meaningful.”
I paused, my gaze fixed on the rim of my glass, as though it might anchor the memories that threatened to rise. “But as I began to embrace a more independent path - one that didn’t entirely conform to the expectations of our families - things began to change.”
The table fell quiet, and I allowed the moment to settle before speaking again, my tone more measured. “I discovered she had taken up with someone else - someone who embodied everything I wasn’t. It was a betrayal, yes, but it also left me questioning whether I’d been wrong to step away from the traditions I’d been raised to uphold. Perhaps, I thought, they were a refuge for a reason.”
Jessica’s expression softened further. “And you? What did you do?”
I smiled faintly, though it didn’t quite reach my eyes. “I retreated. I buried myself in the world I’d grown up in, the world my parents had always expected me to embrace. At first, it felt like a sanctuary. Tradition offered structure, a sense of purpose. It gave me a code to follow, a way to make sense of things when the world felt… unmoored.”
Her gaze didn’t waver, but I felt a faint heat rising to my cheeks as I pressed on. “For a long time, that world was all I allowed myself to know. It gave me predictability, safety. But it also became a fortress, one that kept everything else at bay. I told myself it was enough, but in truth…” I hesitated, the words catching in my throat. “In truth, it was a way of hiding. Hiding from the uncertainty of a world I didn’t understand - and, perhaps, didn’t want to.”
Jessica leaned forward, her hand brushing against mine lightly. “It sounds like it gave you time to figure out what you really wanted.”
“Perhaps,” I said softly, meeting her gaze. “But it also left me blind to what I might have missed.”
Jessica nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. “And now?”
I glanced away, the weight of my own words hanging in the air. “Now,” I said, my voice quieter, “I see that tradition, for all its virtues, can sometimes be a mask - one that conceals envy, arrogance, and even cruelty. I built my life around it, thinking it would protect me. But I’m starting to realize it might have done the opposite.”
Her face softened, and she reached out, resting a hand on mine. “Percival… you didn’t deserve to be treated that way. No one does.”
I nodded, finding both solace and regret in her words. “Jessica, you have to understand,” I began, gathering myself. “When I first met you, I… I saw our connection as something of a lark, a spark of novelty in a world that had grown dull. But the more I knew you, the more I realized…” I paused, feeling the depth of the moment. “I had come to… depend upon you. Not in the way one depends upon the mere comfort of companionship, but as one might come to rely on air, or light.”
A silence lingered between us, gentle yet weighted. Jessica’s fingers tightened around mine as she glanced away, her eyes filled with a mixture of tenderness and sadness.
“I missed you too, Percival,” she admitted, her voice so quiet it barely rose above the hum of the café. “But I also wondered… how long could this last? We’re so different, and not just in the obvious ways.”
I nodded slowly, sensing the crux of her apprehension. “I see that now. Your world - the freedom, the warmth, the ease with which you navigate it - it was something I could not understand. But in seeing you in it, I’ve come to realize how… limited my own world was.”
Jessica gave a faint smile, her thumb tracing an absentminded circle against my hand. “I have to admit, there were times I wondered if I could ever get used to the formality, the chivalry. I found it endearing, but also… sometimes it felt like a barrier, you know?”
I gave a small, rueful laugh. “A barrier built of the very traits I believed defined me.” I hesitated, glancing down before continuing, “But I am trying to find a new definition. And you have been… instrumental in that discovery.”
She looked up, her gaze searching. “Percival, I need to know… was I just some… I don’t know, experiment for you? A diversion from your world?”
Her question struck deeply, and I shook my head vehemently. “Jessica, I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. The others - Alistair, Cecil, Reginald - they projected their own intentions onto you. But to me, you were… are, someone remarkable. Someone I could never reduce to mere entertainment. You are, in fact, the only person who has ever truly seen me.”
A soft blush rose in her cheeks as she looked down. “I wanted to be that for you. But the more time we spent together, the more I worried… maybe I’d just end up as some footnote in your life, or worse, someone tucked away and forgotten.”
A sadness filled me as I realized how my own decorum, my clinging to tradition, had likely fueled her fears. I leaned forward, willing her to see the honesty in my gaze. “Jessica, I understand now that the love I feel is not the one they taught me. It is not a series of gestures, obligations, or polite courtesies. It is, simply, the desire to see you happy, in whatever form that takes.”
Jessica’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears, but her faint smile held steady. “You’ve changed, Percival,” she said softly. “I don’t know if you realize it, but you have.”
Her hand moved toward mine, hesitating for a moment before she closed the distance. This time, I held it - not with the stiff formality I might have once insisted upon, but simply and sincerely, allowing her to guide the moment.
“I don’t want anyone else,” she began, her voice trembling slightly. “I tried, you know? After we broke up. I dipped my toe back into the dating pool. You were my first date, let alone relationship in so long I deluded myself into thinking regular guys would be more along the lines of what a normal relationship was.”
My breath caught as she spoke, her words unwittingly unraveling the assumptions I’d built around that scene. She glanced at me, a flicker of concern crossing her face before she pressed on.
“After that, I started trying to figure things out. I went on dates, met people - people who seemed like they should’ve been perfect. But every time, it felt… off. They’d talk about keeping things casual or not wanting to label anything, and it just made me feel… empty. Like I was standing in the middle of a conversation that wasn’t about me at all. Do you know what that feels like, to be a spectator in my own life?”
Her grip on my hand tightened, her frustration evident. “And the worst part? I let it happen. I told myself this is just how dating works now. No one wants to say what they mean, no one wants to risk looking like they care too much. But every time I sat there listening to someone talk about ‘seeing where it goes,’ I’d think about you.”
Her voice softened, and for the first time, her gaze faltered. “I’d think about the way you looked at me, like I was the only person in the room. Or the way you asked me questions - real questions - and actually listened to my answers. How you never tried to play it cool or keep things vague. You were just… you.”
Jessica paused, her free hand brushing a stray lock of hair from her face. “After I saw you at the festival, I guess it stirred something inside me. I realized I didn’t want to pretend anymore. I didn’t want something casual, or undefined, or halfway there. I wanted… this. Us.”
Her eyes searched mine, her vulnerability laid bare. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, no one else felt like you. No one else made me feel seen, or understood, or even safe. And I didn’t realize how much I needed that until I didn’t have it.”
Her words settled between us, heavy with meaning. I felt the walls I’d carefully built around myself crack, her honesty cutting through the doubts and fears I’d carried since that night. Slowly, deliberately, I raised her hand to my lips and kissed it, a quiet promise to hold on - not just to her, but to everything we could be.
Jessica smiled faintly, her voice softening. “You don’t have to say anything, Percy. I just needed you to know.”
But I did speak, my voice low and steady. “Jessica… I thought I was alone in feeling this way. But now, I see I never was.”
Her smile widened, the tears in her eyes finally breaking free. And for the first time in a long while, I let myself believe that I could deserve this.
I felt my own composure slipping, and for once, I allowed it. “Would you,” I ventured, my voice rough with emotion, “would you do me the great honor of allowing me to stand by your side once more?”
She nodded, laughing as she wiped away a tear. “Yes, Percival. I’d like that very much.”
And there, in the heart of that small café, the place that had once seemed so foreign to me, we found a moment of undeniable, unvarnished truth. We were, at last, simply ourselves.