Chapter 2

Coffee Eatery was the place where Tristan took Clarice. He knew the woman he had just met was feeling a deep sadness and heartache that wouldn't go away anytime soon.

He watched as Clarice ordered a coffee, which Clarice had said she didn't drink it. Tristan began to wonder what had changed Clarice to order coffee.

She's probably dealing with a lot of things, I should let her be until I feel her grief is enough, Tristan thought.

Clarice was silent with a look that had no life in it. It would be a pity for Tristan if his life continued to mourn the sadness of someone who was gone forever.

"Go ahead and tell your story," Tristan said, starting to speak.

Clarice gave him a strange look. She had no idea what he meant, so she chose silence as her response.

"What's your name?" asked Tristan without caring that he was being ignored.

"I won't tell you my name since this is my first and last meeting. Let's just say it's a way of consoling me that I can't be at my boyfriend's grave when he is buried!" chided Clarice.

Tristan did not change his movements at all. He made a relaxed motion, which he didn't want to appear to be forcing a woman to tell him. But making this meeting a beginning and an end ... he would not allow it.

"Miss, whatever your name is, I won't force you to tell me your problems. But a dead person has nothing to do with us."

Clarice took offense at Tristan's words. Her eyes glazed over as Tristan's words pierced her. No matter if Joel was dead, to her, Joel was her boyfriend and would remain her boyfriend.

"Don't you dare say that about Joel!" 

"I'm just making you realize, Miss. I know you're down, but life must go on."

Clarice's tears spilled out in front of him. She sobbed again, feeling even more hurt. She had caused her boyfriend's death, she couldn't be at his funeral, and now a stranger was trying to wake her up.

She felt she would never wake up even if someone tried. All those years with the person she loved were not easy things to forget or let go of. 

Tristan crossed his arms, watching Clarice cry without trying to soothe her. The tears needed to be released to relieve the feelings. If she could, Clarice would cry until the tears were completely vanished.

The order came with a shocked expression on the waiter's face as Clarice cried while Tristan remained silent. The waiter must have assumed that Tristan was not being gentle with Clarice by not calming her down.

"When you've finished placing our order, leave," Tristan ordered the waiter impassively.

Clarice sniffled one last time until she had completely stopped crying. Her face was flushed with eyes that had deteriorated from crying. She looked at Tristan with an annoyed expression and took a large sip of her coffee.

"Are you satisfied to watch me cry?" Clarice asked in a cold voice.

"I let you cry because I wanted to know how much you were crying for your dead ex-boyfriend."

"He isn’t my ex-boyfriend! I told you!"

"Well, I assume he's your ex-boyfriend."

His calm demeanor irritated Clarice. She could have just left him at the café, but seeing his calmness, Clarice was reluctant. She even felt a little envious of how Tristan was calm in the face of her frustration over Joel's death.

"You must be mourning for someone too, right? How can you be so calm?" Clarice tried to find fault with Tristan, she wanted to make him feel what she felt.

Tristan nodded his head. "That's right. I just lost my little brother to brain cancer. I loved him, but I had to love him more when he died. Because that is the peak point of loving someone who is dead. They'll live in peace and feel like they've left nothing behind in this world."

Clarice gaped, shocked. She couldn't decide whether to be amazed or annoyed by his description of the significance of love. "H–how about your family? Your parents?"

"No one cries in my family, Miss. Well, maybe since childhood we were all taught not to cry over someone leaving forever, so I have no idea what it's like to cry as you do."

Once again, Clarice sipped her coffee. She was visibly nervous and looked as if she was ignorant of Tristan's explanation. She saw that the man in front of her appeared to be emotionally distant even if it was not visible on his face. Even his speech and expression were quite flat.

Tristan knew that what he was saying was opposite to the woman in front of him. But he intended to help her get past her past. Unfortunately, he still didn't know her name, so he didn't know what to call her other than 'Miss.'

With Clarice, Tristan would have to be much more patient, because melting down a stubborn woman in a state of grief wasn't going to be easy for him. 

"You and your family–"

"Weird?" added Tristan. He knew that Clarice would say that to him. Because not only her, some people who knew the Penn family would say the same thing. They thought that the Penn family had mental problems, but in reality, it was all because of their upbringing. 

Clarice swallowed, "sorry." 

The gentle side that Tristan had seen in Clarice was at least showing through. There was guilt in her eyes for thinking of her family as something strange.

"That's a common thing. You have nothing to feel guilty about, Miss."

"It’s Clarice. Clarice Morgan. You can call me Clarice, without Miss. It just sounds very strange for someone to call me that."

Inwardly, Tristan smiled. Without realizing it, the woman in front of him had finally introduced her name. "Well, you finally told me your name, Clarice Morgan."

Clarice shrugged her shoulders. She seemed indifferent to the look she was casting around her. It was her way of hiding her nervousness in front of a man who had no expression at all even after she told her her name!

"I have no choice. So don't expect things like this to continue indefinitely. I'll take this as a meaningless encounter!"

Tristan was more eager to make their meeting seem accidental because of Clarice's stubbornness. He had already decided that his days would be filled with him and Clarice meeting. Because of the ignorant and stubborn woman, Tristan wanted to approach her more than a woman who was busy showing her beauty and wanted to be touched.

"What if I don't want this to be just another meeting that means nothing to you, Clarice?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know that the meaning of meeting is that we will meet again later?”