The kitchen is alive with the scent of simmering tomatoes and basil tonight. A pot of risotto sits on the stove, the rice absorbing its broth one ladle at a time. He stirs it with deliberate patience, his free hand balancing a glass of wine.

“Risotto’s a needy thing,” he says, glancing toward the table where you’re sitting. “It demands attention. You can’t rush it, can’t walk away. You just have to keep stirring and trust it’ll come together.”

He pauses, letting the rhythm of the spoon against the pan fill the quiet.

“She reminded me of risotto,” he says finally. “That girl. The one who came in around the same time every evening for weeks. Nineteen, maybe. Messy bun, oversized hoodie, the kind of dark circles under her eyes you don’t get from just one bad night of sleep.”

---

I noticed her the first time she came in. Not because she made a scene—she didn’t. She ordered a black tea and sat by the far wall, where the light is softer. She carried a mountain of books with her, all jumbled and mismatched, like they didn’t belong to her life.

At first, she was quiet. Studying, scribbling notes. The usual. But it didn’t take long to see the signs.

“She started showing up in that same hoodie every time,” I say, sprinkling salt into the risotto. “Hair tied up in a bun that got messier by the day. Her eyes would dart over her notes, then her phone, then back again. Like she was trying to catch something that kept slipping away.”

And then there were her hands.

“She tapped her pen against the table, always in the same rhythm. Tap, tap, pause. Tap, tap, pause. It wasn’t annoying—it was desperate. Like she was trying to ground herself but didn’t even realize it.”

The signs were clear: she was burning out.

---

One night, she ordered something different.

“She came to the counter and just stood there for a moment,” I say, pouring another ladle of broth into the risotto. “Like she was trying to remember why she was there at all. Finally, she asked for a pastry. Didn’t even look at the display case, just pointed. That’s when I asked her.”

“‘Long night?’ I said, and she laughed. Not a happy laugh. One of those brittle ones, like she was trying to shrug off the weight of the world.”

She said something about exams, about feeling like she was never doing enough. I let her talk, and when she finished, I slid her pastry across the counter.

“‘You know,’ I told her, ‘almost nobody sticks with their first course. You’d be amazed how many people change halfway through—or even after they graduate. You think anyone really knows what they’re doing at nineteen?’”

Her face shifted at that. Not relief, exactly. More like... perspective.

“I didn’t sugarcoat it,” I say, stirring the risotto again. “Didn’t tell her she was fine, or that it’d all be perfect. Just told her the truth. That even if she failed, even if she decided tomorrow to scrap the whole thing, she’d still land on her feet. I told her she needed to breathe, maybe even have some fun. What’s the point of working yourself into the ground if you’re not even living?”

She didn’t say much after that, just nodded and took her pastry. But the next time she came in, she asked if I could surprise her.

---

He takes the pot off the heat now, adding a knob of butter and a handful of grated Parmesan. The risotto turns creamy, golden, fragrant.

“She left me a note,” he says, leaning back against the counter. “A little folded square of paper. On it, she’d written a list: no coffee, nothing too sweet, and ‘I like cinnamon.’”

Every time she came in after that, I’d make her something new. A chai latte one day, an apple tart the next. She’d hand me a new note each time, and each note revealed something about her, that I then started to use for her surprise beverage and pastry.

“She liked spicy things, but not too spicy. Said cinnamon reminded her of her grandmother. She hated raisins, loved mangoes, and said lavender made her think of summers when she didn’t have to worry about anything.”

And me? I started to see the pieces of her life in those notes. Little fragments of herself she didn’t know she was leaving behind.

---

One day, she came in with friends.

“They were loud, laughing, dragging chairs across the floor to squeeze around one tiny table,” I say, scooping the risotto onto a plate. “She looked different that day. Hair down, bright eyes, wearing something that wasn’t that hoodie. And her laugh—it wasn’t brittle anymore. It was big, real, the kind that fills a room and makes people look.”

It didn’t take long to figure out why.

“She didn’t say anything about the exams, but the way she smiled? The way her shoulders were loose for the first time in weeks? It was obvious. She passed.”

I made them something on the house. A tray of little tarts—pear and almond, dusted with powdered sugar. Sweet, but not too sweet. She smiled at me when I brought it over, mouthing a quiet ‘thank you.’

And then they were gone, just like that.

---

He’s quiet for a moment now, his gaze settling on the risotto as it cools on the counter.

“She hasn’t come back since,” he says softly. “Not yet, anyway. But I still have her notes. Folded up in a little box under the counter. I don’t know why I keep them. Maybe because it felt like she was giving me pieces of her soul, and I didn’t want to throw them away.”

He sets the plate on the table, the risotto steaming gently, the scent of tomatoes and basil filling the room.

“Risotto’s a lot like life,” he says finally, his voice thoughtful. “It takes time. You can’t rush it, can’t ignore it. But if you keep at it—if you’re patient—it turns into something soft, something warm. Something worth all the effort.”

He nods toward the plate, stepping back with a faint smile.

“Go on. Try it. See if it feels like her.”