A/N: I wrote this some time ago and posted Wolfgang's POV on tumblr. I recently came across the entire draft while looking for something to update "Reality". This was supposed to be a one shot but I tend to change my mind about these things :) Thanks for reading, and as always, thoughts/reviews are much appreciated!
She sits outside the coffee shop, people-watching, drink in hand, enjoying an unseasonably warm day. She's alone, but she is young and beautiful and some well-dressed, middle aged ass asks to sit with her, keep her company. Maybe get her number. She turns him down with a gentle smile, shaking her head.
There's a light breeze that blows her hair across her face, catches on her full lips, and interferes with her sip of chai. (He imagines it's chai, because that's what she always drank.) She laughs a little to herself, brushes her hair to the side with elegant fingers that no longer wear a wedding ring.
He notices that right away. He'd heard she was recently divorced.
He watches in disbelief as a young man tries his luck with her. What the fuck, he thinks. What the fuck? You don't stand a chance. He watches her turn him away with an odd feeling of satisfaction.
She hasn't noticed him, standing rooted to the corner just west of where she's enjoying her drink. He's been standing there like an idiot forever, unable to move, unsure whether he should make a mad dash for a cab before she sees him or casually walk over to her to say hello.
She'd probably pour the drink on his head and tell him to fuck off. That's what he would do.
Except Kala isn't like that. She'll say hello, like an adult. And then tell him to go to hell.
Or maybe she'll smile politely, look at him like she did the morons that hoped to be with her, and mouth some kind of platitude because he had been a whole marriage ago and life goes on.
It hurt just even thinking it.
And maybe it's an excuse, but Wolfgang takes a deep breath and decides he'll say something to her after all. If only to give her the opportunity to finally tell him off after all these years. Or not. He owes her that much. Or maybe he's nothing to her but an awkward memory.
His gut clenches, but he heads to her table.
...
Kala notices him almost as soon as she sits down with her chai.
At first, there is a moment of panic, when her mind almost directs her to turn right back around as if she's changed her mind. But just as quickly, a defiant little voice pops into her head: It is beautiful outside, she came out to enjoy it, and she is not going to let him run her back indoors. Wolfgang Bogdanow. Of all people.
So instead, she wills herself to relax, enjoy the people and the weather and pretend she can't feel him staring at her from the end of the street. She wants to turn her head and look at him; see if he's changed a little in the five years since she's last seen him. She wonders suddenly if she was mistaken and it is not Wolfgang on the corner. She sneaks a glance and catches the eye of some man who's emboldened to approach her and asks if he can join her. She turns him down politely; makes up a story about waiting for someone. Only she isn't, and now she's going to look like she's been stood up when she leaves alone.
Kala is annoyed, but then she thinks who cares? She sighs because she shouldn't, and blames Wolfgang for her distraction.
At least, she thought it was Wolfgang.
The wind lifts a tendril from her shoulder and Kala almost swallows her hair in her absent-mindedness. She almost chuckles out loud.
A man comes up to her and asks if he can join her. He's younger than she is, looks nice enough. She turns him down. She still finds it odd when someone tries to flirt with her. She'd gone from dating Wolfgang to marrying Rajan with no space in between. She's always been with someone until this last year, and her divorce was finalized only a few months ago.
She is going to discover what she is like without someone; be deliberately single and selfish and do things because she wants to do them, and not because someone else does.
And as she thinks this, she sees him walking to her, and it is him, and he looks the same - maybe a little more weathered. But he is still unfairly good looking and her eyes widen and the fight-or-flight response is strong, but she can't move. She won't move. She's been waiting for this moment for over five years.
And now maybe she can have closure.
