THE MEET UP

I'm staring at spreadsheets that have become a blur of meaningless pixels, and it hits me that I've been holding my breath again. It's been three months since my divorce, and I still can’t seem to breathe properly.

The café is filled with the smell of burnt coffee and the optimism of others, and I can’t stand it. I dislike couples sharing pastries and how everyone appears so comfortable in their own skin. I'm wearing a crisp white blouse, perfectly pressed, as if it’s armor—if I can control my appearance, maybe I can manage the chaos raging inside my head.

My therapist calls it "processing," but I think of it as drowning on dry land.

The cappuccino is bitter, just like everything else lately. I should eat something, but my stomach has been knotted since David signed the divorce papers, since I discovered those messages, and since I realized that three years of my life were built on his lies and my own ignorance.

I force myself to focus. Work. Numbers don’t lie.

I'm so absorbed in drainage calculations that I don't notice him approaching.

The collision happens in a strange mix of slow motion and real-time. One moment, I'm alone, safe in my bubble of spreadsheets and coffee; the next, a tall, paint-splattered man stumbles backward, sending his portfolio flying. Papers scatter like wounded birds.

And then there's his coffee. Oh God, his coffee.

It arcs through the air perfectly, and I watch as it hits my pristine white blouse, obliterating the careful control I've maintained for three months with a splash of physics and bad timing.

I should be furious.

Instead, I laugh.

It’s the first genuine sound I’ve made in weeks that isn’t a sob or a scream into my pillow. It bubbles up from a deep place, one I thought David had killed, and I can’t contain it. This is perfect. Of course, this would happen. Of course, the universe would literally throw coffee at me.

The guy drops to his knees immediately. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Please, let me—”

He’s thrusting napkins at me, his hands shaking, dark eyes wide with horror. I notice the paint under his fingernails—green and blue. I focus on these details because it distracts me from the warmth of him kneeling in front of me, and the genuine panic in his expression contrasts sharply with the hollow apologies I received from David.

“It’s okay,” I find myself saying. “Really.”

“How is it okay? I just ruined your shirt.”

I glance down at the coffee spreading across the expensive white fabric—the blouse David bought me, the one he said made me look “professional enough”—and something shifts. Or maybe something begins to heal.

“It needed to be ruined anyway. My ex-husband bought it.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them. D*mn it. I don’t talk about David, especially not to strangers kneeling in coffee puddles.

But the guy’s expression changes. Not pity—thankfully, not pity—but understanding. It’s as if he recognizes the weight behind my casual words, as if he’s carrying his own burdens.

“I’m Amon,” he says, still kneeling, surrounded by his scattered art. “Professional disaster and coffee assassin.”

“Sarah. Professional target, apparently.”

I kneel down to help him gather his papers, but my skirt is too tight, my body too rigid, and everything about me screams control while my hands tremble as I pick up his drawings.

Then I see her.

An elderly woman selling fruit at Nakasero Market, captured with such tenderness that she seems alive. Every wrinkle tells a story. Every shadow suggests depth that I can measure with my engineering mind but can’t explain.

“This is beautiful.” My voice drops to a whisper. “You capture her dignity.”

He stops moving, frozen mid-reach, papers forgotten. “You see that?”

“Anyone with eyes would see that.”

But that’s a lie. David never saw anything in art except for price tags and status. He never looked at my blueprints and envisioned the homes they would become, the families they would shelter. He saw numbers, budgets, and dismissed my work as a “cute little hobby.”

I picked up another drawing—children playing in Katwe, their joy evident despite the surrounding poverty. “You don’t just draw what’s there. You draw what should be there. The beauty hiding beneath the surface.”

Our eyes lock over the scattered papers.

The café noise fades away.

My carefully controlled heartbeat falters.

No. Absolutely not. You are NOT doing this.

“I should buy you coffee,” he says, breaking the moment. “As an apology. And maybe dinner? To fully atone for my crimes against your wardrobe?”

His smile is tentative, hopeful, as if he expects rejection but is trying anyway. It’s that effort that terrifies me. The hope reminds me that hope can be dangerous. Hope is what led me to marry the wrong man. Hope is what made me ignore the warning signs until I was drowning in someone else’s lies.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I stood up too quickly. My laptop, my bag, my carefully constructed facade of normalcy—I need them all between me and this feeling.

“Wait—”

But I’m already moving. Already running. Already proving I learned nothing except how to be afraid.

Outside, the heat of Kampala hits me like a slap. I press my back against the café wall, hand over my racing heart, coffee staining my expensive armor.

My phone buzzes. David’s name appears. We need to talk about the house.

Even in separation, he’s still trying to control the narrative.

“Excuse me?”

I look up.

Amon stands there, holding my wallet. “You dropped this.”

Our eyes meet again.

This time, I don’t run.

Not yet.