Still Tastes Like Poison

Lisa never liked coffee. She only drank it when absolutely necessary, those dull, caffeine-starved mornings when sleep clung to her skin like mist. That’s why she remembered the day so clearly. She was sitting in a dim hospital cafeteria, nursing a burnt cup of coffee, the kind that tasted like it had been brewed during a war.

Leslie noticed her struggling with the bitterness and grinned from the next table. “Still tastes like poison, huh?”

She looked up, startled, but his smile made her laugh. It was the first time she'd laughed that week.

“My taste buds might sue me,” she replied.

He stood and walked over, placing his own identical cup on her table. “Then we suffer together. Misery loves company.”

Lisa didn’t know it then, but that moment—between stale coffee and unexpected comfort—was the beginning of everything.

They saw each other more after that. Both were frequent visitors to the hospital—she was caring for her father; he was visiting his younger sister battling leukaemia. Days blurred together in the sterile white of hospital halls, but in the corner of the cafeteria, two strangers started building something fragile and quiet.

Every morning, Leslie would bring her coffee with a sarcastic bow. “Milady’s daily dose of poison.”

And every morning, she’d roll her eyes but drink it anyway. It became a ritual, their way of saying, “I see you. I’m here.”

She learned he was studying architecture but had paused everything when his sister's condition worsened. He learned she was a writer who hadn't written a word since her dad was diagnosed. They spoke about loss, fear, and hope like they were reading from the same unfinished book.

“I’m scared,” Lisa whispered one evening, tears pooling in her eyes.

“Me too,” Leslie admitted, and took her hand.

There was no declaration of love, no cinematic kiss. Just a quiet understanding. And yet, that’s when she knew. Love, she realised, wasn’t always loud. Sometimes it was a burnt cup of coffee and a boy who stayed.

Three months later, his sister passed away.

He disappeared.

No goodbyes. No messages. Just silence.

Lisa waited. She told herself he needed space. She texted. Called. Nothing.

Eventually, her father got better. They went home. Life resumed.

But Lisa never stopped thinking about him, about that smile, those tired eyes, the coffee that somehow became an anchor.

A year passed.

Lisa published her first novel. It was about two people who met in a hospital and fell in love over poison coffee. She didn’t change the names.

At her first book signing, she sat behind the table, nervous and lost in thought.

And then she saw him.

Leslie.

Same smile. A little older. A little quieter.

He walked up to her with a cup in hand.

She stared.

“You came,” she breathed.

“I read the book,” he said, placing the cup in front of her.

She looked down. The same paper cup. The same bitter brew.

She laughed, but it cracked in the middle. “Still tastes like poison?”

Leslie nodded. “Worse, actually.”

“Why’d you disappear?” she asked, voice soft but edged with the weight of a year’s silence.

He exhaled. “Because I didn’t want my pain to ruin your healing. I saw you starting to breathe again. Smile again. I was drowning, and I couldn’t pull you under with me.”

Lisa blinked away the sting in her eyes. “You idiot. Love isn’t about protecting someone from pain. It’s about sharing it.”

“I know that now,” he whispered. “But back then, I thought walking away was the selfless thing.”

She reached for the cup, took a sip, and made a face. “God, it’s worse than I remembered.”

He laughed.

And that laugh, familiar and new, filled the space between them.

“You know,” she said, meeting his eyes, “I wrote that story hoping you’d read it. Hoping you’d come back.”

“I almost didn’t. But the line ‘He brought her coffee, and it still tasted like poison, but it was the sweetest thing she'd ever been given.’ That did it.”

Lisa smiled. “Because it was never about the coffee.”

“No,” Leslie said, voice steady. “It was always about you.”

They sat together for hours, catching up over terrible coffee, surrounded by strangers and pages filled with everything they couldn’t say before.

And as the sun dipped low behind the bookstore window, Lisa reached for his hand and whispered:

“Even if it still tastes like poison, I’ll drink it every day… if it’s with you.”