Anna should have been offended. She should have told him to leave. Instead, she heard herself say: “What do you want, R?”
That’s a weird thing to say.
But this version is . Better because R (the character, the catalyst, the chaos agent) pushes her toward the one thing she fears most: feeling something real .
“Is there?”
“Large oat milk latte. Two pumps of honey. Extra hot. And a sprinkle of cinnamon — not on top, stirred in.”
She had. God help her, she had.
“You again,” R said. He was holding a mesh bag of colorful socks — none of which matched. “You followed me here.”
She was wrong.