Following my guest, a stunning sea breeze burst into the coffee shop. So exciting and intoxicating, so... infinitely free.

  I placed a cup of hot coffee on the table. The drink carried a clear aroma of rum. Next to it were cherries sprinkled with sharp crystals of sea salt. Everything was prepared so that the guest could fully experience the depth of... her emotions.

  "I was like everyone else. Or rather, I always tried to be. After all, that’s the right thing to do.

  No need to stand out. When other children were playing on the playground, there was no need to sit alone on the swings and stare at the sky. But I could do that for hours. I was never bored with my thoughts, alone with myself and my worlds.

  No need to stand out. Why arrive at school almost an hour early? Probably because the empty school corridors were one of the few places where you could find at least a little silence. Alone with yourself.

  The only place where I wasn’t chased away, where I wasn’t yelled at, where I didn’t have to be like everyone else — was the sea. I saw it for the first time when I was fifteen, the most turbulent age. And I fell in love. Once and for all. With the sea.

  I didn’t even realize it right away. The understanding came much, much later... years later.

  I returned with a vague yearning. Age? Hormones? A desperate sadness about the past summer. For the sea

  The year was like a fog. And I ran back at the first opportunity. With a guy I barely knew, hitchhiking, with just a backpack on my shoulders. Mom cried so much…

  I came back. I had to. I didn’t know then, I didn’t understand that it could be different…

  And then everything was like everyone else’s... relationships, family, children.

  And by the will of fate I escaped to the sea. Not to where I had been in my youth — another part of the continent. I was met by a squall wind and icy water, literally tearing at my skin. But I was happy.

  There I went on my first sea excursion. The ship was like a miniature copy of a pirate vessel — with a sail, rope rigging, and all those incomprehensible, unknown-to-a-landlubber things. And it was amazing. I still sincerely regret and cannot understand the people who stayed on the shore that day. Some were too cold, others said they were seasick, others preferred other leisure activities. Fools.

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  I left with a heavy heart. Something inside me was stirring and resisting. I wanted desperately to stay, but I couldn’t… I had to go on living like everyone else. Years of a gray, harsh life like everyone else’s. It wasn’t even calm. It was an endless doom in a thick, sticky fog.

  And again — a sudden, forced move... So why not to the sea?

  I was just a little short. I hadn’t had enough strength, money, or inner drive. I hadn’t had enough quiet time, free from calls and reports to relatives.

  A stop in the mountains. I have never liked mountains. They are something cold and alien. You can only resign yourself to them for a while, pretending that around you there are not frozen blocks of stone but sea waves.

  The forced stop dragged on. First for a month, then for six. The earth so quickly puts down roots in you. You start to accumulate things again, to devote yourself once more to everyday life, children, simple leisure. A walk with a view of the mountains, a trip to the store, a hated job just to cover food and rent.

  And yet, the sea was only six hours’ drive away...

  I couldn’t stand it by late autumn. Snow fell in the mountains. And, surprisingly, that gray haze only deepened their resemblance to sea waves.

  I left them. Left the children. Alone in a strange city. Left my mother on the other side of the country. Left my husband, from whom for years I had heard nothing but reproaches and accusations of abnormality. After all, your man is supposed to be one of the closest people. Someone you are constantly with. And it is so difficult to hide your essence from such a person. So difficult to pretend that everything is normal, that I am like everyone else...

  And, you know, I don’t regret it!"

  The guest abruptly set her cup down on the saucer and looked up at me. Her eyes darkened, as if a storm were brewing in them. Was she expecting condemnation? In vain. I remain silent. My task is to serve coffee.

  "I just left then. I left my phone, my jewelry, my documents. Everything. I didn’t even write a note to the kids.

  And with every step toward the sea, the dust of the years I had lived flew off me. I no longer needed to pretend that I was like everyone else. I no longer needed to pretend.

  Getting to the sea turned out to be surprisingly easy. Just a couple of hitchhikes — and the endless salty horizon finally opened before me. The sea at the end of autumn was grey, like mercury. Even the reflection of the sky drowned in that endless depth.

  I fell to my knees and cried. For the first time, I cried bitterly. And I simply crawled forward, scratching my palms and knees on the sharp pebbles. I sobbed and asked for forgiveness with bated breath. I asked the sea for forgiveness. For leaving it then. For not returning for almost twenty years.

  The sea is generous. It forgave..."

  The guest smiled — so warmly, so brightly. How could anyone blame her for finally finding her happiness?

  On the table, around the empty coffee cup left by my guest, scales still glittered…