Zoya

By Sara Ali

Zoya stood at the corner of 5th and Lexington, her fingers wrapped tightly around a paper coffee cup as the early spring breeze kissed her cheeks. The streets of New York buzzed the same way they always had, but today, something in the air felt different. She glanced at her watch and then looked up — and there he was. Jay.

Ten years hadn’t changed his smile.

He approached with that same easy swagger, a worn leather jacket hugging his frame. “Zoya,” he said, her name rolling off his tongue like it had a decade ago — full of memory and something unspoken.

“Jay,” she replied, heart skipping a beat.

They hugged — awkward at first, then familiar. The kind of embrace that reminded the body of things the mind had tried to forget.

Zoya was a senior editor at a publishing house in Manhattan, known for her sharp eye and even sharper wit. She lived in a small but tastefully cluttered apartment in Brooklyn, with walls lined with books and tiny plants she named after poets. She spent her Sundays in bookstores, her evenings editing manuscripts, and her nights wondering — occasionally, guiltily — what would’ve happened if he had stayed.

Jay had returned to New York a month ago after years working with a nonprofit in South America. He taught literature now at NYU — a twist of fate, perhaps, that had brought him back to the city they once wandered hand-in-hand. He said the city felt smaller now, but seeing her again stretched time in the most unexpected way.

They sat at the same cafe they used to haunt — the one with wobbly tables and indie music that hadn’t updated in years. Zoya laughed softly when she saw the crooked painting still hanging above the counter. She remembered how Jay once insisted it was tilted on purpose — “like life,” he said.

“Remember the time we skipped class to watch that French movie neither of us understood?” Jay asked, eyes dancing.

“And ended up arguing about it in the rain for two hours,” Zoya added. “We were soaked. You gave me your hoodie and got sick the next day.”

“You made me soup. It was awful.” He smirked.

“It was store-bought!”

“You heated it with love. That counted.”

She stirred her coffee absentmindedly. “I still have that hoodie, by the way.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“It’s buried in a box somewhere. Smells like old dreams.”

They both laughed — a quiet, knowing kind of laughter that lives between people who’ve once loved each other in full color.

Their first kiss had happened during a blackout in Harlem, on a rooftop, wrapped in the hush of city lights. Their love had been all-night conversations, poetry scrawled on napkins, shared playlists, bike rides through Central Park at dawn, dancing in Chinatown after midnight dumplings, fights about the future, and silent apologies made with fingers grazing fingers under library tables.

They once got lost on the subway for an hour and didn’t care. They’d gotten off at the wrong stop and walked aimlessly for blocks. That night, they found a street musician playing violin under a bridge. Jay had pulled Zoya close, and they danced — right there on the sidewalk, in front of strangers. She remembered thinking, this must be what forever feels like.

And then there was the bookstore on Bleecker Street, where they used to meet every Saturday. She would sit cross-legged between aisles, and he’d bring her books with underlined passages. On one page of The Bell Jar, he’d written, If you ever leave, don’t. She had pretended not to see it.

They had even planned a road trip — coast to coast, no maps, just jazz and diners and motels with peeling paint. It never happened, but in their minds, they’d lived it a hundred times.

But forever never came. He had to return to San Diego for family. She stayed in New York. Promises were made. Calls grew fewer. Time grew longer. When her emails went unanswered for weeks, she stopped writing.

Now they sat quietly, finishing coffee. Zoya looked at him, and her voice softened.

“Did you ever move on?”

Jay shook his head. “I tried. But every woman I met... I looked for you in her.”

She swallowed hard. “I always thought you’d come back.”

“I always meant to.”

The city buzzed around them, unbothered by two people catching up with a decade lost.

She asked, “Do you still write poetry?”

He smiled. “Only in the margins of books. For a long time, it hurt too much to write anything real.”

She nodded. “I stopped drawing people. I couldn’t get faces right anymore.”

“Maybe we just needed each other to do it right.”

He paused, then added, “You still drink your coffee with two sugars and no cream.”

“You still remember.”

“I never forgot.”

As they walked away from the café, side by side, not quite touching, Jay turned and said, “Dinner tomorrow?”

Zoya smiled — that same soft smile that once made him write terrible love poems.

“Ten years late... but yes.”

And just like that, the story picked up again — not where it left off, but somewhere new, somewhere hopeful.

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