Page 52 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

Not forced. Not polite. Just warm.

He stood up as I approached, and before I could even say anything, he pulled me into a hug.

It caught me off guard for half a second, but I quickly realized that Francis had always been a hugger.

I relaxed into it.

“Hey,” he said as we pulled away. “How are you?”

“I’m… calmed down,” I answered, slipping into my seat across from him. “You, professor?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I’m stressed as a teacher.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You? Stressed? That’s like God getting tired of being himself.”

That got a louder laugh out of him.

“That’s blasphemy,” he said, still smiling. “But I’ll take it.”

A little later, a male barista approached our table, placing our drinks down with politeness that matched the atmosphere of the café. We thanked him almost in sync, and for a brief moment, it felt like we had done this a hundred times before.

Maybe we had.

I wrapped my hands around my cup of frappe, letting the warmth settle in as the conversation eased into something softer.

We started talking about college.

How chaotic it was. How everything felt like it mattered more than it probably should have. The orgs, the classes, the drama that somehow always found its way to me.

“You were always in the middle of something,” Francis said, shaking his head with a small smile. “There was always an issue—a fight, or some kind of tension around you and your group.”

I scoffed lightly. “Excuse me, you’re trying to say I’m a mean girl.”

He tilted his head, amused. “No, you weren’t.”

I gave him a look—waiting.

“You were the kind one,” he continued, “in a group of mean girls, though.”

I let out a laugh. “That’s still an insult, Francis.”

“It’s an observation,” he corrected, smiling into his cup.

The conversation flowed easily after that, slipping between memories and small updates. The kind of rhythm that only happens when you’ve known someone long enough to skip the formalities.

For a moment, it almost felt like nothing had changed. Like we had just picked up where we left off.

But then Francis set his cup down, his expression shifting into something subtle.

And just like that, I knew.

We weren’t just here to reminisce.

He looked at me, steady, and asked, “Whatever happened to us?”

For a moment, I didn’t answer.

I just looked at him, the question settling between us like something that had been waiting a long time to be asked.