Chapter Text
I didn’t fall in love with you.
I walked into love with you,
with my eyes wide open,
choosing to take
every step along the way.
I do believe in fate and destiny,
but I also believe
we are only fated
to do the things
that we’d choose anyway.
And I’d choose you;
in a hundred lifetimes,
in a hundred worlds,
in any version of reality,
i’d find you
and I’d choose you. - kiersten white; the chaos of stars
I look forward to coffee and you
coffee and you
and you
you
“Is it cool if I step in the back for a bit?” Catra stretched her arms in the air after she finished cleaning up the bar area. They were slammed for about three hours straight, and if she didn’t at least eat a bagel, she was going to pass out.
“Of course,” Scorpia smiled at her. “Kyle will just take over the register and I’ll switch spots with you.”
Catra cackled as she watched Kyle flush, he was usually tasked with doing all of the background duties, mostly so he wouldn’t have to actually interact with people. She found great joy in always making him take out the trash since the dumpster was about a five-minute walk down the block.
“Don’t worry, stupid.” Catra patted Kyle on the back. “I’ll come back and save you soon.”
She untied her apron before grabbing her phone and sitting on the steps in the backroom. Working in a coffee shop that was within a two-minute walk of a plethora of big businesses only had one perk, and that was tips.
Otherwise, standing on your feet for hours on end and waking up at 4:30 am every other day was tortuous. Scorpia had recently been promoted to assistant manager, so work had become a little more bearable.
She was always tired, always had a caffeine headache, and always had vanilla syrup all over her arms.
Catra scrolled through her phone for about two minutes, slowly eating the bagel she had saved in her locker.
Her eyes froze on the new notification that popped up on her screen, New Message From Mermista (ex).
She tried to blink a couple of times to see if her vision was blurry or if she was just extremely tired, but she checked her notifications again and it was still there.
Not knowing why she felt the need to reach out, pulled Catra down into a pit of worry. They were friends now, but they didn't usually talk.
Friends in the way that, if they ran into each other at the supermarket, would stop and chat about how they were for three minutes before walking briskly in the other direction.
She had barely started hyping herself up enough to open it before she was interrupted by Lonnie’s voice.
“Cat, you have to listen to this.” Lonnie snickered over the headset.
Catra pushed the button on her own to respond, “Listen to what?” She said, mouth half full of food, trying to focus on the sounds around her and not the text from her ex.
“A customer is basically reciting their own soliloquy to Kyle right now.”
“Fuck,” Catra snorted, “Go turn his headset on.”
Catra set her phone away, preparing herself to deal with Mermista when she was done with her shift. All she had to do was distract herself all day to forget about it, then dedicate three hours to get the emotional energy to respond later.
She could hear Kyle stutter when his headset was turned on, Lonnie was probably acting as if she had accidentally bumped into him and not done the thing they always got yelled at for. Which was, making fun of customers over their headsets instead of using them to talk about work-related activities.
But as Catra had put it lightly, talking shit about customers was a vital work-related activity. And if Scorpia was the manager on duty, she took part in it, too.
Catra chuckled to herself as she listened to the customer’s own personal monologue that was happening in the front of the store. There were some people she loved to listen to. She somehow knew the life stories of almost all of the regular customers, and surprisingly it brought her a lot of joy to see them and talk to them. (Some more than others) It wasn't out of the ordinary for people to ramble.
“So, basically, I just wanted to get her favorite coffee order to surprise her with. It may sound dumb but I was the one who like, got her into drinking coffee in the first place. Definitely was a tea person before we dated.”
“Oh, wow,” Kyle said with his best-faked enthusiasm.
“She also has… No idea I’m here, but maybe it will come across as romantic, or maybe it’ll be cheesy... Not that I technically want it to be romantic... I wouldn't mind, though? But, fuck, sorry I am so nervous, am I rambling?”
A mild feeling of discomfort swirled into Catra’s chest at the familiarity of the random person's voice, something was comforting about it but also wildly unnerving. Like a voice she had always heard in the back of her head or a consistent narrator of a dream she had every night.
“Also, Cat? Can you come help out front? There’s a line again, we need you on bar.”
Catra groaned, she checked her phone was last time to make absolutely sure she wasn't hallucinating the message and swallowed one last piece of food before she headed back onto the floor. She grabbed the first few cups waiting for her on the counter to get started, trying to plaster on that happy customer service smile.
She had been working here for almost a year now, everything seemed to be chalked down to autopilot at this point. Pull espresso shots, steam milk, wait while the milk is steaming to pick up the next cup, and repeat.
Until she grabbed the next one. The autopilot came to a halt as she stared down at the name on the cups, but more specifically what the drinks were. It felt like lead had been shoved down her throat, holding her feet into place so heavily that she couldn’t even think about moving.
Not even the growing line out of the door and the overwhelming stress that was always attached to that was going to make her move.
“Scorpia,” Catra choked out as loudly as she could.
Her friend’s arm was around her shoulders instantly, “Hey, what’s wrong?” Scorpia said, her voice hushed as she looked at what Catra was holding. “Do you need help? I can do cold drinks?”
“Can you… Is there,” Catra cleared her throat. “Is there a possibility that I could leave early?”
“What?” Scorpia’s face quickly fell into a concerned expression, “Are you okay?”
Catra looked back down at the two empty cups in her hands, “I need to leave.”
“I can let you go probably after this rush is done, is that okay?”
“Okay,” Catra stared down at the cups, her vision starting to go black around her.
She took one deep breath and started to make them, staring down at the counter the whole time, forcing herself not to look up. So she wouldn’t have to look at her.
Catra did not have the strength to call out the name on the cups, she set them down and finally brought herself to look up only to grab the customer’s attention.
Adora didn’t see her at first, she was leaning up against a countertop, scrolling through her phone. Catra hadn’t seen her in two years, not at all. She hadn’t seen pictures of her, even. Her jawline was a little sharper, her clothes a little more put together. No sweatpants or mom jeans that she always wore when they were growing up, but she was sporting khakis and a button-down.
She looked so different but yet so familiar, Catra could recognize her in a crowd filled with a million people.
Adora eventually did look up, Catra was sure she hadn’t let her gaze leave her the whole time. Her composure broke immediately, her hands flew to stuff her phone in her back pocket before she slowly walked over.
Her face was completely drained of color when they made eye contact, Catra was sure her own expression was oppositely flushed but more out of unnamed anger than anything else.
“Hi-”
“Have a nice day,” Catra cut her off, even though it was physically painful. She hadn’t heard her voice in so long that having to make her stop talking felt sinful.
“Catra-”
“Have a nice day.”
Her name, she had to say her name.
“Catra-”
She had no right to still say her name like that, still so endearing and soft like she always did. Adora was the one to give her the nickname, Catra. She had spent many nights holding her while she sobbed over her mother’s unwillingness to call her anything but Catrina.
It never felt right. And she hated it.
Adora had helped her come up with a nickname that made her feel good one night and had bullied everyone on their respective sports teams to call her the name she was more comfortable with.
But Catra didn’t even go by it anymore.
She couldn't bring herself to. Not anymore.
“A-” Catra stopped herself from saying her name, “Is there something wrong with your order?” She squeaked out, the lead feeling moved to her mouth, making all of her words have so much more weight than intended.
“Well,” Adora’s wide eyes had not dropped, “I got it… for you, so that one is, um, up to you.”
Got it for her. To surprise her, to surprise her ex-girlfriend who only drank tea before they met. Who for some reason was in New York after spitting in Catra’s face she would never come back here.
Catra clenched her hands into a fist, she could feel Lonnie and Scorpia staring at the two of them. “Have a nice day.”
“Can we talk? When you’re done?” Adora’s voice had grown so small Catra could barely hear her over the sound of the espresso machines.
Catra narrowed her eyes and stared down at the counter. “Scorpia, can you please tell that customer to leave?” Everything hurt, everything hurt, everything hurt.
“Uh,” Scorpia awkwardly walked closer to Adora, Catra could sense she was trying to act tough, it was only half working. “I don’t know what’s going on here ma’am, but maybe it would be best if you left? Have a nice day.”
“Yeah, um, sure. I guess I will… See you around, though.”
“What?” Catra gripped the counter tightly and pursed her lips together. She was doing her best to keep it together long enough to continue working.
“My office is down the street,” Adora cleared her throat. “So, I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
Catra didn’t hold back the cynical laugh that escaped her, “Well that’s fucking fantastic. Have a nice day, you’re holding up the line.”
--
Adora had sworn she would never come back to New York.
She’d only been there a couple of times, Catra had spent most of her college years at Princeton in New Jersey, but when Adora came to visit they always tried to visit the city once.
Adora would go to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maine, anywhere on the east coast. But she would not go to New Jersey and beyond a reasonable doubt would have never stepped foot in New York again.
If she was ever to travel near the state she’d purposefully create a detour, even if it took her three more days to get to whatever destination.
That’s what she had told herself for the last two years.
When her boss called her into a meeting about a month ago, all she saw was spots dancing around the room and clouding her vision. Relocating, she had said, they were relocating. California was a fine enough place for them at the time, but Angella wanted to have some experiences elsewhere. Somewhere she deemed more appropriate for an art business.
Adora had so much student debt, and Angella was her best friend's mom, so she was getting paid more than she would have anywhere else. The words free apartment and raise were enough to shake her out of a trance long enough for her to agree to go with.
Adora had grown up in the midwest, she was used to mass amounts of cornfields and three-hour-long drives to go school clothes shopping because the fancier malls were farther away. And all she had ever wanted to do, at first, was get away from her mom.
So her dream was California, UCLA, to be exact. It had been her dream for a while and that’s where Glimmer and Bow wanted to go as well. She liked it there, she liked the weather, the atmosphere, how familiar it had become.
So, New York was still far enough away from her mom but it was way too close to someone else.
Glimmer had talked her down from making a last-minute decision to stay in California, she had said, there’s no possible way in a state that big, that you would ever run into her. Even if you were in the city, she said, you don’t even know if she’s still there. She said, there is no chance you would run into her.
The thought was still paralyzing, not just because she did not want to see her, but because she knew that, no matter what, she’d always be searching for her, just as she did when she was still all the way across the continent.
She tried to keep any form of hope shoved away, even though it seeped into her bones when she wished she’d step off the plane and run into her at the airport. Or what if she was unpacking all of her things and she’d end up being her neighbor. Or maybe Angella’s new assistant in the city would end up being her.
Catra.
Adora knew, rationally, that Catra might be in grad school, or working somewhere extremely fancy doing what she had always wanted to do. She was probably already running things and climbing her way up on the ladder, she was still the smartest person Adora knew. Even after a while.
She unpacked her apartment alone, just with the light of her laptop while it played a movie to keep her company. She had told Glimmer and Bow she’d call them when she got unpacked, but it was too much.
Being back here again, was too much.
But, she wasn’t going to run into her.
Or, that’s what she thought until she met Mermista at an art gallery.
It was around Adora’s second week there, she had finally gotten her apartment set up the way she liked it, but she was still so lonely.
Within the past two years, she had acquired the ability to enjoy alone time, she cherished it, even. But it was different when you didn’t have any other choice.
Angella would invite her to fancy dinners and she’d oblige and then sit on facetime with Glimmer and Bow until they all fell asleep. That had been her usual routine for her first couple of weeks.
But that day, she had decided to look nice, and actually go to scout out art pieces with Angella.
“Oh, hey.” Mermista looked up from her phone and looked Adora up and down. “You look a little out of place here.” She chuckled at the end of her sentence, making Adora tense up.
“Fuck,” Adora tugged on the collar of her shirt, she already had felt like she’d be sweating profusely for way too long. “I thought this outfit was okay-”
“No,” Mermista rolled her eyes and shoved a glass over toward her. “I mean, you look a little young to be here. Outfit is fine, drink that.”
Adora sniffed it and cringed, but drank it anyway. Taking alcohol from strangers, definitely something she should have thought more through.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” Mermista tipped her head to the side, “I go to a lot of these things, my boyfriend does the same type of thing you do.”
“Uh,” Adora took another sip before sliding the glass back over. “I just moved here.”
Mermista nodded and seemed to be mulling it over as they sat in silence. Adora felt rooted in place, This was the first time she had been at a gallery since she moved here, she’d barely set foot outside of her place unless Angella needed her. She just ordered takeout and watched movies, she still couldn’t get herself to walk around or familiarize herself with things.
“You look so familiar,” Mermista leaned in closer to her and narrowed her eyes, “Fuck, I know that I know you somehow.”
Adora scratched the back of her head and shrugged, if she wasn’t sweating enough before, she definitely was now. She searched the crowd to see if she could locate Angella, maybe she could leave early if she begged hard enough.
“Oh my god,” Mermista let out a cackle and shook her head. She slid her phone over to her across the table and Adora instantly felt nauseous. “You’re my ex-girlfriend's ex. Cat?”
Adora stared at the photo of Catra and Mermista that was pulled up on her phone. Catra was leaning over to kiss Mermista’s cheek and they had their arms around each other. People who Adora didn’t recognize at all scattered around them.
They looked happy.
“I have… To go,” Adora blurted out and turned on her heels, walking as fast as she could to the bathroom, quickly apologizing to every person she bumped into on the way.
“The city is so big,” Adora said, mocking herself as she closed the door to the bathroom. “You’ll never see her, fuck you past me.”
Cat. Adora thought as she leaned up against the door. That was new, that was something she had never heard her referred to as before. Cat. Not Catra, someone knew her as something other than Catra.
Someone knew Catra after Catra had been with Adora, a part of her Adora didn’t know.
Two years later, and it still hurt just as much as the day after.
Adora knew it most likely always would.
When she finally got herself to calm down, she left the bathroom, already having an apology text drafted to Angella saying she got sick and needed to go home.
“Adora?” Mermista said hesitantly like she didn’t know if she was getting her name right.
“Hey,” Adora nodded, her voice cracking as she failed at coming off casually.
“I didn’t mean to, like, stir something in you there.” Mermista laughed uncomfortably, “Sorry if she’s a touchy subject-”
“She’s not,” Adora said quickly, “She’s not.”
“Sure,” Mermista rolled her eyes, “Whatever you say. I totally run away when someone mentions my ex.”
Adora snorted, “I just wasn’t expecting it,” She let out a laugh, surprised she could feel anything at all.
With the overwhelming feeling plaguing her mind, she decided she no longer wanted alone time.
“Look, I’m here with my boss. I just have to scout out some art pieces or check-in with her but we should… Hang out? I have no friends here.”
Mermista smirked, “I’d love that.”
So, they got drunk at the art gallery. Sea Hawk, Mermista’s boyfriend, ended up having to drive both of them home. Adora shoved the word Catra to the back of her mind, in a tiny neat box where it had laid for so long, and tried to enjoy herself.
“You know,” Mermista stared at her, “I know where she lives.”
“What-”
She put a hand up, “Adora, I know where she lives. I’ll text you her address if you ever want to see her.”
“That’s… Not necessary,” Adora blew a strand of hair that had fallen out of place. “She’s moved on… Clearly, and so have I.”
“I don’t know you well, but I think it’s going to drive you crazy unless you at least know where she is in proximity to you. I can just feel that type of control freak energy radiating off of you.”
“She’s moved on,” Adora said again, the words felt heavy in her mouth like they were dripping out as slowly as syrup and ruining all of her clothes.
Mermista grabbed Adora’s hand and started writing on the back of it. “Adora, I recognized you so quickly.”
“So?” Mouth still heavy.
“Do you know how much she must have talked about you, for me to remember who you were within three minutes of meeting you?”
“How long ago did you break up?” Adora whispered, trying to save what Mermista said to process later.
“Maybe eight months ago? We’re still friends, though.”
“Please don’t-”
“I won’t tell her about this. I wrote her address on your hand. It’s up to you.”
Adora stumbled into her apartment later that night. It felt emptier than usual. There were barely any pictures hung up on the wall, and the space felt like it was crushing her. Clearly this big of an apartment was meant for more than one person.
She was fine, fine about everything.
She had a new friend now, someone to go to, even if it was Catra’s ex-girlfriend.
That definitely wouldn’t be weird.
Adora knew she was supposed to be caught up in moving somewhere new, being blown away by the lights at night or the skyline or the abundance of everything that she had.
But, none of it was enough.
Because the city would never feel the same without Catra.
It was all hollow without her there.
--
Catra had collapsed in the backroom after Adora had left, she was no stranger to crying near the freezer at work, but this was different. She was hyperventilating and sobbing as she tore off her apron and sat on the floor.
“Woah, Woah,” Scorpia ran in after Catra and kneeled down in front of her. “What was that?”
Catra stopped crying about Adora maybe a year ago, she didn’t let it happen anymore. Even though her therapist said holding in your tears and avoiding your feelings would only make it worse down the line.
Maybe this is what she meant by that.
It was like a pipe burst in the back of her brain, nothing could stop the waterworks anytime soon.
“Please,” Catra breathed through her tears, “Can I please go home?”
“Of course,” Scorpia squeezed Catra’s knee in reassurance and helped her stand up. “I’ll ask Lonnie to take over and I’ll give you a ride home.”
Catra nodded and wiped her tears with her forearm as they continued to spill out of her eyes. She grabbed her stuff and dragged her feet out the door and followed Scorpia to her car.
“We played softball together,” Catra whispered as she buckled her seatbelt.
“What?” Scorpia looked over at her, concern swelled up in her eyes.
“Me and… Adora. That customer. We were both in softball in high school. Our teams always played against each other.”
“Okay…” Scorpia said tentatively, clearly not believing that was the whole story.
“I, um,” Catra sniffled, “I just haven’t seen her in a while.”
Scorpia seemed like she was waiting for Catra to divulge something else, but Catra clamped her mouth shut.
All of her friends from Princeton knew about Adora, they had dated all four years of college. Even though they had been long-distance the whole time, everyone still knew her. She’d sometimes come to surprise Catra, or they met her over FaceTime. Catra’s friends were basically Adora’s friends and vice versa.
But Catra moved to New York, specifically New York City because she had gotten an internship her last year of undergrad. She was in grad school now, studying to be a hydrologist, while working part-time at the coffee shop to support herself.
No one in New York knew about Adora, besides Mermista.
And that was purposeful.
She wanted to keep Adora out of her new life as much as possible.
Even though every time Catra turned a new corner she saw a place that they used to go to. They’d always come here to visit, to act like tourists and go to fancy places and stay in fancy hotels even if it was just for a night.
New York was dripping with Adora, Catra didn’t need anything more to solidify that.
It was another great reason to move out of New Jersey, it was even worse there.
“Do you have your keys?” Scorpia asked as she parked the car outside of their apartment.
Catra was lucky enough that Scorpia had asked her to move in with her after she saw Catra was basically living in a cupboard. Catra, Lonnie, Scorpia, and Kyle (And Rogelio on weekends) all lived in an apartment that was a little too small for all of them but still worked.
“I do,” Catra double-checked her pockets and gave Scorpia a thumbs up. “Thanks… For driving me home.” She said and attempted a half-smile.
“Don’t mention it,” Scorpia smiled reassuringly and waved before she drove away.
Catra took a deep breath in, more tears fell to her cheeks as she walked to their place. She went straight for her room after grabbing a box of Oreos and a glass of water.
She hadn’t even thought about the fact that Mermista had sent her a text earlier until she was face down on her bed scrolling through every social media app available.
Mermista: heyyy…. don’t be mad - but i met adora. i may have told her where u live just a heads up
“What?” Catra cackled out loud and ate another Oreo. Her immediate reaction was to laugh, it was actually the absolute last thing she thought Mermista would be texting her about. There was truly no way to comprehend it.
All she could do was laugh.
Catra: why the fuck would you do that
She sent back and threw her phone to the ground. She didn’t want to think of what scenario would have caused the two of them to meet, her first thought was a dating app. And if she thought too hard on that one she’d throw up.
Adora had her address, definitely not creepy at all.
Catra realized she hadn’t even questioned it before, what Adora had been saying about wanting to surprise her. But even now it didn’t seem like something totally out of the ordinary.
It was such an Adora thing to do.
Somehow the weirdest part was that she had gotten her address from Mermista.
Catra was just glad she intercepted it all before Adora had actually shown up at her place.
She didn’t want her to infect everything she worked so hard to build without her.
Catra pushed herself up enough to grab her phone again. She stared at her lock screen for a long time before taking a deep breath and opening Instagram. She hated that she remembered Adora’s username without even having to think, and she decided to unblock her.
She held the phone carefully in her hands, making explicit moves with her fingers so she wouldn't accidentally like any of her posts.
There were so many dumb things she had posted, so many photos from art galleries, pictures of her in suits, workout pictures that made Catra’s heart hurt. Photos of her with Glimmer and Bow, people Catra also hadn’t seen in two years. She always wrote dumb inspirational quotes as her captions and used too many emojis.
And she hadn’t deleted the photos of them together.
Not even the ones at prom.
That, that alone was enough. Catra hit the block button again, threw her phone on the floor, and turned over to try and take a nap.
--
Adora walked back to her place with both of the cups in hand. She had decided halfway home that she was just going to dump both of them out.
The coffee order wasn’t something special, it was just theirs. They always got the same thing, which annoyed probably everyone around them. It was an oat milk vanilla latte, always extra hot. Adora hadn’t even found it in herself to drink oat milk at all anymore. She actually had to switch to soy.
The fact that she spoke to Catra at all was bewildering, and the fact that Catra didn’t even want to look at her was… It was a lot. Adora could tell she was incredibly upset by just looking at her, Catra didn't have to say anything for Adora to know what she was feeling. She was clearly still angry.
And Adora guessed she deserved that.
Adora was, after all, the one who had ended it.
Truthfully, she didn’t work that close to her, but she worked close enough that she could swing it with Angella and go there whenever she could.
“Is that not a little creepy?” Glimmer said on the phone with her. Adora was sitting on the couch eating takeout and watching a movie.
“What?” Adora sputtered and sat up a bit, “Why would it be?”
“You were going to show up at her place without seeing her for… Two whole years.”
“But…” Adora’s voice trailed off and she let out a heavy sigh, the reason wasn’t going to make sense to anyone else. It could barely be put into words, and Adora knew Glimmer would only know the surface of it all.
“It’s me and it’s Catra.”
Glimmer hesitated on the other end of the phone, “I know…” She said gently, Adora could picture the look on her face. “But I don’t know if that unspoken understanding is there anymore, Adora.”
Adora fell silent and started picking at the side of her thumb, she was never going to be used to that.
“You’ve tried dating other people, Adora. It’s been two years, maybe it’s best to leave this one alone.”
“I don’t want to,” She whispered, her voice felt like it immediately shrunk three sizes smaller.
“And also,” Glimmer’s voice perked into another worried tone, “I’m saying this with love, she didn’t seem like she wanted you to… Be at her work.”
“It’s a coffee shop close to my work, it makes sense for me to be there.”
“It’s still a little creepy.”
Adora was stabbing the food in the styrofoam box with her fork but couldn’t bring herself to take a bite of any of it. “She won't even talk to me, so I'll just go to get coffee... And, I just kind of want to see her.”
“That’s... Understandable.”
Adora knew the tone Glimmer was speaking in all too well. The tone she used for so long after her breakup with Catra. Trying to be a voice of reason with Adora when she started to do things like this.
“Can I ask you a question?” Glimmer whispered.
“Okay,” Adora choked out.
“Do you want to get back together with her?”
Adora hesitated and squeezed her eyes shut, “I don’t know, but I at least want to know her again.”