Instead, I was tired from a delayed flight, wearing uncomfortable heels, and standing in a small grocery store near my hotel because I needed coffee, a banana, and something with enough sugar to keep me awake through a ten o’clock meeting.
I was scrolling through emails when I got in line at the register.
The customer ahead of me stepped away.
I looked up.
The cashier was a teenage boy.
Maybe seventeen.
Dark hair fell slightly over his forehead. His name tag read LEVI in crooked black letters. He was smiling politely, already reaching for my coffee.
“Hi,” he said. “Did you find everything okay?”
My chest locked.
He did not look exactly like Jesse.
No one could look exactly like a person frozen in memory for twenty-three years.
