Becca and and Beck were Star-crossed lovers, meeting at a quiet coffee shop just outside the city, where they both visited after leaving work for the day

Over the course of a couple years, Becca and Beck would occasionally have the baristas accidentally mark their names on the wrong drinks, and eventually, they would start to gossip about Becca and Beck, spinning romantic tales to pass the idle hours at work.

All this would persist until one day, Beck decided to get the same drink as Becca, to mess with her. At first she shrugged it off. Then she started to catch on, and would exchange glances at him from across the shop playfully. The baristas saw this and started to lean into the narrative even more, drawing hearts on their cups, matching moon phases, and finally, two comets.

Both Becca and Beck loved astrology, conversations on the cosmos could span as infinite as space, between these two.

The couch curved inward as if it was made for them, the baristas watching behind the counters almost like zoo animals behind glass.

Soon, the visits to the coffee shop were less frequent. They would take turns visiting each others flats, Beck living in a high-rise with a wonderful view of the night sky. Becca living closer to the ground with her own Hubble telescope.

Sometimes they would think about the baristas, grateful. They even felt like the baristas were always still there, at times.

Eventually they spent years together, and upon engagment, decided to visit the coffee shop one more time.

Upon arriving they were suprised to see it completely empty. In fact, the decoration was drab, white and sterile. The inward curved couch was smaller and grayscale, stripped of color and warmth.

Still, they insisted on paying homage to the place they met in. Sitting o the couch, waiting for service, they looked back on some memories - they recalled how similar they always were. How they were always star-crossed lovers.

Beck recalls always ordering the salted caramel espresso frap, with light ice and extra caramel syrup. Becca insists that was her order. They have a light hearted argument, like asteroids in a close collision.

For hours they talk to themselves, hours and hours and hours they talk to themselves.

The glass appears, and the baristas behind them. The white lab coats, the clipboards.

They could care less, they were talking to themselves about the order they clearly got. Them. Not he or she, them. Not Becca or Beck.

Just them.