She cupped her hands around the mug, chasing away the cold settling into her fingers. She remembered the first time she’d been in this café, her first date with him, and despite the fact that he no longer accompanied her, she still found herself sitting at the same table by the window every week.

She sipped at the white coffee that was finally cool enough to drink. She used to be an iced vanilla white chocolate mocha kind of girl. Anything sweet enough to disguise the bitter taste of her chosen caffeine source. That was until she met him. James. James was a black coffee, double espresso, dark roast boy. He was a strict early bird, run before sunrise, no caffeine after eleven am type of person. He had laughed at her on that first date for her order. He said there was no point in ordering coffee if you were only going to cover the flavour with sugar. 

She had learned to drop the sugar when she was with him as she learned to adapt to his every minute scheduled plan for everyday life. She had drank more coffee while she tried to keep up with him than she ever had before him. Cup after cup, forcing him to schedule in her coffee stops during their every date just so she could match his energy. 

She resisted the urge to add a sugar to her cup, forcing herself to enjoy the bitterness of the drink. She was a sleep till noon, cosy book in bed kind of person and attempting to change that was exhausting, not even her new taste for white coffee could chase away the tiredness she felt after their months together. She might have learnt to like coffee without sugar, but she still found it hard to shake the need for a little sweetness to wash away the bitterness of the coffee.