The coffee that remembered my name

I poured it at the diner just after closing—last customer, I was. The pot was cold, but the barista didn’t care. She handed me a cup like it was a sacrament. I took it to the far corner, where the light from the streetlamp hits the floor at exactly 3:17 a.m. in winter. The coffee tasted like yesterday’s silence. Like the way a room hums when no one’s left to hear it. I didn’t need sugar. It already knew what I was.