Despite how hard she was gripping her hand into a fist, Mia's fingers couldn't stop trembling. Her breath came out shallow, threatening to suffocate her. Mia continued scrubbing a damp washcloth on the tabletop, trying to wash out nonexistent stains from its surface.

"I think it's clean, honey," came the remark of one of Mia's elderly coworkers, Michelle.

Mia pulled the washcloth away quickly. "Yeah," she said.

"Are you okay?" Michelle asked.

Mia was not close with any of her coworkers. Their conversations mainly consisted of communicating orders and chores to each other. With several years at the café under her belt, Michelle had trained Mia and the other new hires, but since Mia was able to work independently, their relationship had not gone deeper than that. Hearing Michelle's comment made Mia stiffen. She was not doing a good enough job hiding her surprise of running into Leila Sutherland.

"Fine. Just a headache," Mia answered.

"If you need some ibuprofen—"

Mia shook her head. "I'm going to go sweep up the porch before I head out."

Michelle nodded, and their conversation abruptly ended.

After grabbing a broom from the kitchen, Mia stood and let the humid summer air sit on her shoulders. The afternoon lunch rush had dispersed, and with the heat rising, none of the customers were electing to sit outside. She savored the time to herself and swept slowly, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. That was, until her eyes fell on the table Leila had been sitting at only an hour or two before, and it sped up again.

Was that conversation real? Mia wondered.

Leila looked the same to Mia, and yet, at the same time, a complete stranger. Mia knew being recognized was a possibility of moving back home, and yet, she seemed to think she would never run into Leila again, not since she had ignored her last letter all those years ago.

What does she think of me? Mia thought. She hasn't seen me forever. I thought maybe she would be mad. But she seems relieved.

Mia suddenly cursed herself for handing out her number. It had been done so casually, like nothing had changed between them in the twelve years they had been apart. Now she had given Leila an invitation to reach out, when Mia was beginning to have doubts if they should speak to each other again.

A part of me had to have wanted to speak with her though. Otherwise I wouldn't have given her my number, Mia thought.

The confusing thoughts swirling in her head only worsened Mia's anxiety. She grumbled to herself and got back to sweeping. Getting out of the hot sun would surely help. After putting away her broom and hanging her apron back up, Mia returned back to her apartment, finally feeling the trembling disperse.

...

The sound of her ringtone woke Mia from her nap. She quickly scrambled for her phone underneath the covers and sat up.

"Hello?" she answered groggily.

"Were you sleeping?" Julian answered on the other line.

Mia leaned back onto her ankles. "Mm...a little. I had a headache. Wanted to sleep it off," she murmured. "Everything okay?"

"Just wanted to ask how your day was going. We haven't talked in a little while," Julian said. By a little while, Mia realized he meant this morning, when they had texted briefly to wish each other a good day. Still, Mia couldn't be mad. She liked hearing his voice, and their next date wouldn't be for a few more days.

"It was..." Mia searched for the normal words – boring, fine, exhausting. But instead, she settled on, "weird."

"Weird? Getting some strange customers again?" Julian asked.

"Nothing like the guy with a top hat who came into your bar a few nights ago," Mia said, giggling some.

"What was it, then?" Julian asked.

Mia twisted her fingers into her bedsheets. "I ran into someone I knew. From a long time ago."

"A guy?" Julian automatically asked.

"No! Nothing like that," Mia assured him "It was my old friend from when I used to live here as a kid. I haven't seen her in so long. It was...weird. I don't know."

"I thought you said you didn't know anyone here anymore," Julian explained.

"Well, I guess there was always the possibility she would still be around. I just didn't expect to see her living in the same place as when I left," Mia explained. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed.

"Why do you sound upset? Did you two have a falling out or something?" Julian wondered.

"No. I don't think so," Mia said.

"You don't think so?"

"Mm, 's complicated," Mia murmured, letting out a yawn. She was still groggy from her nap.

"Everything seems to be complicated with you," Julian teased.

"I don't know. Like...like I feel weird she saw me working in a coffee shop. That she saw me here, in Maine again. I feel like a—" Mia let her words drawl off. A failure.

"You wanted to move back here, I thought," Julian said.

"Yeah. Sorry. I don't know. I think I have a bit of a headache still," Mia said, pressing her palm to her forehead. "How was your day?"

She laid back on her bed, letting Julian ramble as he often did about the ins and outs of work as a bartender and living at home with his parents. Mia nodded and hummed in agreement, but her eyes fixated on the shell sitting on her nightstand. She reached for it and ran her fingers over its grooves.

"Mia? You listening?" Julian asked.

"Yeah. Sorry," she said, setting the shell back down on its normal resting spot. "I hate to cut you off, but I said I'd FaceTime my college friends at five. Can we catch up again later?"

"I guess that's alright. We can talk some other time. Talk to you later, Mia. Love you," he said.

"Love you, too," she murmured.

In her few moments of silence, she tried to fix her appearance by brushing her hair and straightening out her t-shirt. She moved from her bed to her desk and opened up her laptop, trying to will herself to smile before she joined the call.

As she did so, a chorus of excited "Mia!"s echoed from her laptop. It was easy to smile from that point further. It had been a month since the last time Mia had gotten the chance to speak with her friends from college. She glanced at their different boxes on the screen, happy to see June and Alana in the same frame. With both of them continuing on to graduate school, they were lucky enough to continue living with each other. Phoenix was below them in a separate window, clearly lounging on the couch in their new apartment.

"Mia! It took you long enough to get on," Phoenix said. The last time Mia had seen them, their hair had been dyed green, but now it was a fiery orange.

"They let you dye your hair that color at the engineering firm?" Mia wondered.

"I'm mostly working from home," Phoenix answered. "Perks of working somewhere small."

"You commented on Phoenix's hair instead of my new braids?" Alana asked, twisting her dark fingers through the long strands.

"They look great too, Alana," Mia assured her. "The kids haven't been pulling on them?"

"The kids know we don't touch other people's hair without permission," Alana assured her. "Though they sure like talking when I'm trying to teach them."

"That's because you don't know how to discipline them," June teased. "Mia, she gets in trouble with her supervisor for not yelling at the kids enough."

"It's hard to! I'm afraid they'll stop drawing me artwork if I do," Alana complained.

Mia could only shake her head and laugh slightly. As she looked at them, her heart ached to be back with them.

June Lawson had been her roommate freshman year at NYU. Smart and studious, June was a first-generation college student and now was in law school, hoping to be a proud Black lawyer. It was through June that Mia had met Alana Parker. They had gone to the same high school together in Brooklyn, and as long as Mia had known Alana, she wanted to be a teacher.

Phoenix Estrada had been in one of Mia's English prerequisite classes early on in her college years. They had graduated with an engineering degree, and though Mia had talked Phoenix down from dropping the major once or twice, she was happy to see them happily working at an engineering firm post-graduation.

Eventually, all four of them had begun living together their sophomore year of college. Phoenix left first shortly after graduating to go work at the engineering firm, and then Mia dropped off the lease the next year when it got too expensive to have a room to herself. She was thankful they could still keep in touch virtually.

Glancing at her friends, Mia saw a group of smart, hardworking, motivated individuals. When she glanced at her own reflection down in the corner, she wasn't sure if she saw the same in herself.

"How's Maine, Mia? We miss you," Alana complained.

"I was afraid it would seem strange to me after all these years, but it's nice," Mia admitted.

"Are you still working at the coffee shop?" June asked.

Mia nodded her head quietly. "But...I mean, I'm working on it. I don't plan to work there forever."

"I can always try reaching out to some friends I have. They might know some people in the art industry," June explained.

"I appreciate it, but...but I want to see if I can try to find something here. I chose to move back to Maine. I don't want to move back to New York again so quickly," Mia explained.

"You don't ever want to come back?" Phoenix wondered.

"You gotta come back! All your friends are here," Alana exclaimed.

"Come on, Alana, she's happy to go wherever she wants," June complained.

"I don't know. I haven't thought about it," Mia admitted. "I mean, I just moved back to Maine two months ago. I at least have somewhere to live—"

"With a roommate you don't really know," Alana interjected.

"Yeah, but, I have a boyfriend now. I mean, I need to think about him when making decisions," Mia explained.

"Ugh, the straights," Alana grumbled, pouring herself a glass of wine behind June.

"No kidding," Phoenix added.

Mia rolled her eyes.

Alana had never once come out to Mia. She had simply strolled up announcing to the world she was bisexual. It was as if it was just another addition to saying your name and offering a handshake to someone. Mia admired this about Alana though. She was a queer Black woman and wanted the world to know it.

The same could be said for Phoenix. Mia had never met a nonbinary individual before coming to NYU, especially when she had spent most of her teen years in Missouri, but now Phoenix was one of her best friends, and she'd gladly fight anyone who misused Phoenix's pronouns.

"How's it going with Julian?" June asked.

"Good," Mia responded.

"That's it?" Alana asked.

"I don't know what to tell you. Adult relationships aren't as exciting as college relationships," Mia explained.

"You sure did have a lot of good stories from your college relationships," Phoenix said. "It was like a new guy was sleeping on our couch every weekend. What was the name of the dude who was the biggest asshole out of all of them? Was it Mark?"

"Matt," Mia said shyly.

"Oh, the one that kept stealing our leftovers from the fridge!" June said, laughing some.

"I get it, I get it," Mia complained. "Look, I made some bad decisions in college, but Julian's different."

"When do we get to meet him?" June wondered.

"Yeah, bring him to New York!" Alana exclaimed.

"Unless you don't think we'd like him either?" Phoenix questioned.

"I think you'd like him!" Mia argued. "We're both busy working in food service, that's all. Our schedules aren't like your guys'."

"Right, right," Alana said. "For real though, how are you doing? June and I get worried about you sometimes. You took off real quick from New York once the lease ended."

"I'm fine," Mia argued. They glanced at her quietly. "No, I am! I even ran into an old friend today. So things are going well. I'd just love a better job, that's all."

"Well, you're always welcome to come crash on our couch," June said.

"Or mine," Phoenix offered.

"Thanks. But how are all of you doing?" Mia asked.

The conversation continued three hours into the night until Mia couldn't stand her grumbling stomach any longer. She said her good-byes to each of her friends, then shut her laptop. The world was quiet once again.

Mia sighed and reached for the seashell on her dresser once more. Each time she spoke to her friends, she started to wonder if her decision to return to Maine had been done in her best interest. She sighed and turned the seashell over in her palm before placing it to her ear once more.

The echoes inside made her think of the ocean, of the waves at the beach, and the salty air of Maine. She smiled hearing those sounds, which made her think it couldn't be all that bad coming back to her home state. She just wished it wasn't so lonely.