Teddy’s POV.
Two years ago.
Rain hammered the restaurant windows in relentless sheets, blurring the street outside into a gray watercolor. I sat at my usual corner table, black coffee cooling beside a stack of contracts I was only half-reading. The place was quiet except for the low murmur of other patrons and the occasional clink of cutlery.
Then I saw her.
Through the streaked glass, a woman stood alone on the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, face tilted toward the downpour as if the rain itself could wash something away. Tears mixed with the water streaming down her cheeks—she wasn’t even trying to hide them. People hurried past with umbrellas and hoods pulled low, but no one stopped. No one even glanced twice.
I watched her longer than I meant to. Something about the rawness of it—the
