30 Days, 30 Stories: My Heart Left Empty

My Heart Left Empty

By Sharee Garcia

            I look at the deserted newspaper through the glass. Just like he would have left it. Discarded. Useless after the sports section had been devoured, and his coffee was nothing but a brown semicircle in the bottom of the cup.

My chest hurts. The smell of coffee does that to me now, sends a lingering pain through me. A persistent ache. I try to avoid it now, the smell of coffee, but today I’m in the mood for punishment. I gaze steadily at the abandoned paper, smelling the coffee, feeling the pain, remembering the smell of the rain on his skin, the way he would rub his cheek when he was concentrating, the jingle of his keys that day. Faces glide past me in the glass, the passage of time etched in images.

I watch as an employee picks up the newspaper, wipes off the table, pushes in the chair. My cheeks are wet. I brush them quickly with my shirtsleeve as I turn to go. I glance back over my shoulder and see my reflection ghost out of the glass.