A Surprise Misunderstanding

I saw them through the coffee shop window and my chest tightened like someone pulled a string

too hard. She was laughing, head thrown back, hand resting on his arm.

The same arm I'd fallen asleep against last weekend after we stayed up talking until sunrise.

We weren't official, sure, but I thought we had something unspoken, something real.

I walked in, ready to confront whatever this was, my pulse hammering in my ears.

He saw me first, his face lighting up in that way that usually made my stomach flip.

Then she turned around. My sister. The one who lives three states away,

the one I hadn't seen in two years because of our schedules never aligning. He'd been planning