The Vanishing act
715 Words
Lucas Tom disappeared.
One moment, he was sitting across from me in the café, speaking in riddles, his hazel eyes watching me like he knew something I didn’t. The next, he was gone.
Not just from the café. From everywhere.
I told myself it didn’t matter. That he had been nothing more than a passing moment, a stranger with a name that meant nothing to me. And yet, for reasons I refused to admit, I kept going back.
I convinced myself it was coincidence. That The Crescent Café had always been my place, long before him. But I wasn’t fooling anyone.
Because every time the bell above the door jingled, every time a figure stepped through, I looked up, waiting.
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The Passing Days
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At first, I told myself he’d come back. That our encounter wasn’t just some fleeting, dreamlike thing that was never meant to last.
Then, as the days slipped by, I convinced myself otherwise.
He wasn’t coming back.
I had imagined the way his presence had lingered, the way his voice had settled into my bones. I had created something out of nothing.
So, I stopped waiting.
I stopped looking at the door. I stopped listening for his voice. I let the idea of him fade, just like the warmth of my coffee as it sat untouched on the table.
And then, just when I had almost let him go, I saw him.
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The Reunion
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The rain was steady that evening, drumming softly against the café windows, turning the world outside into a blur of lights and shadows.
I was staring into my coffee, lost in thought, when the bell above the door chimed.
I didn’t look up at first. I had trained myself not to.
But then I felt it, a shift in the air, the quiet pull of a presence I thought I had imagined.
And when I finally glanced toward the door, there he was.
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Lucas Tom.
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Standing just beyond the threshold, drenched from the rain, his damp hair falling messily over his forehead, his eyes searching. For me.
For a second, neither of us moved.
The café felt too small, too silent, as if the moment itself was holding its breath.
"You’re real," I whispered, my voice barely a breath.
A tired smile ghosted across his lips. "Did you think I wasn’t?"
I should have been angry. I should have demanded an explanation—where had he gone? Why had he vanished without a trace?
The words wouldn’t come, I mean , why ask him when he never promised to stay.
But there was something about the way he stood there, his shoulders slightly hunched, the weight of something unseen pressing into him, made me pause.
He looked... tired. Not physically, but in a way that felt older than he should be. Like he had been carrying something heavy for far too long.
I swallowed, gripping my cup to steady myself.
"You left," I said finally. (I tried to control it , I swear I tried)
"I did."
"Why?"
Lucas hesitated. Then, for the first time since I met him, his smirk faded.
"Because some things are easier that way."
A vague answer. A non-answer. But the way he said it, the way his voice dipped, like he was speaking from a place he didn’t want to revisit made me stop pushing.
I wouldn't wanna be the stranger who reopened his old wounds.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
So instead, I nodded toward the seat across from me. A silent invitation.
For a moment, I thought he might refuse. That he might vanish again, slipping away before I could figure him out.
But then, with a quiet sigh, he walked forward, his presence settling into the space between us once more.
"You’ve been coming here," he murmured as he sat down.
I frowned. "I come here everyday, even before you."
Lucas didn’t respond. Instead, he simply met my gaze, his eyes holding something dangerous, quiet, and impossibly familiar.
Like he had known me long before I knew him.
And suddenly, I wasn’t sure if I had been waiting for him
Or if he had been waiting for me.
- Writer
