When I finally saw her, she was charging towards the cafe with her head down in a fever of thought, so I stopped and followed her in. She had to know her friend was tin with no heart.
Over the next two weeks, I went back when I could, working up my nerve while savouring the quiet between us. She sat in the corner while I remained far enough away. The way she opened her tattered copy of The Wizard of Oz, flipping page after page, lost to the world around her while she wrote her own—I was mesmerized.
The afternoon she approached the counter for water and an opportune ask, I was ready.
“Have you got any headache stuff?” she asked.
”I’ve got plenty,” I offered, rushing over, delighted at the simplicity of passing care from my hand to hers.
“I’ll take it,” she replied, and I swooned. “You’re Alfred, aren’t you? Friends with Prue’s husband?”
That she called me friend to the beasts cut me down, “Yes. And you’re Victoria.” She swallowed the tablets and sat before I offered, massaging two fingers into her left temple.
“I’m already feeling better. A break as much as the meds I suppose. Thanks.”
Encouraged, I pressed on in fear of losing my nerve. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
The words hung in the air briefly, swirling into concern as she examined my face. “There’s nothing good in how you said that.” 
I let her sit with it for a moment, steeling  myself before answering. “No there isn’t.  I’ve been wanting to run into you.”
“You might have crossed the room,” she said like a flower opening in the sun.
I reached across some scribbled and other cut in initials on the knotty pine table and sandwiched her right hand between mine.
“That bad hey?”
She wouldn’t look at me as I relayed one carefully edited thing only Prue should know, and the essence of commentary that went with it.
  While betrayal, hurt, and outrage wound their way through, I held fast to her hand. 
A minute later, she let go and traced the PW ♡ GM cut into the table with the pointer finger of her left hand. “Heartless bitch. I feel like a fool for ignoring my instincts.”
“And I’m a coward for not walking away. I hate myself for listening to them.”
“I forgive you, Alfred, and myself too, I guess. Prue was never like that. Not until they met, and I’ll be blunt, their appalling conversations silenced me into numbness. More than once.” She got lost in the tracing and retracing of the shape of the heart.
”I kept going back,” I confessed. 
“As did I. They’re so damn smart. Debating with them is riveting.” Her shoulders softened, and her eyes finally held mine. “Nostalgia I suppose. That passion we left at uni—”
“Expunged by wedding bands, babies and big ass moving vans.”
“That’s how it is,” she said, taking my hand. “There’s nobody left.”
“Still, I’m refusing their invitations,” 
“Stalking is pretty time consuming,” she said and winked. “I plan to do the same. I’m glad you told me.”
Relief ran me over and lightened me by a couple of thousand pounds. 
“Point of fact, Alfred, I’ve often thought about running into you.”