Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

The thing about wanting someone you can’t have is that it lives somewhere specific — not in the mind, not where you can argue with it, but lower, somewhere in the chest, just off-centre, somewhere unreasonable.

That was where he kept Vera.

Four years of friendship. Four years of being exactly what she needed, which was: reliable, present, not complicated. He was very good at uncomplicated. He had made it his project.

When she called at 11 p.m., he answered.

When she needed someone at the airport at 6 a.m., he was there.

When the man she’d been seeing for eight months ended it over text — over text — he drove to her flat with good wine and worse pizza and sat on her kitchen floor until she’d said everything she needed to say.

“You deserve better than that,” he told her.

“Clearly,” she said. “But what I want to know is — “ She stopped.

“What?”

“Why is it always someone like him? Why do I keep picking people who — “ She waved a hand. “And I never — “

She stopped again.

He waited. He was good at waiting.

“Why do I never pick someone who actually — “ She looked at him. The kitchen floor. The bad pizza. 11 p.m. on a Thursday, and he had come, because she’d called, because he always came. “Oh,” she said.

“Vera — “

“How long?” she said.

The question sat between them. He could deflect it. He was good at that too.

“A while,” he said.

“How long is a while?”

He looked at the wall. “Since the night you made that terrible pasta and insisted it was a regional recipe.”

That was three years ago.

She looked at him — really looked, the way she hadn’t let herself. She thought about airports and kitchen floors and all the times she’d called and he’d answered and she’d thought: this is just who he is.

This was not just who he was.

“I’ve been very stupid,” she said.

“You weren’t ready.”

“You waited.”

He looked at her. “You’re worth waiting for.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, which was either too fast or four years too slow, and he went very still for a moment — surprised, she thought, after all that time, to have it happen — and then he kissed her back, and the kitchen floor was not romantic and the pizza was cold and she had been crying an hour ago, but she felt more certain than she had about anything in years.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” she said.

“Stop apologising,” he said. “We’re here now. This is the part that counts.”

So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee ☕. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.