i can order it now, their drink, the exact one, without the deep thrum of sorrow vibrating through my bones, and that's both a victory and a betrayal all at once, this strange new capacity to just exist in a restaurant and point at the menu without my chest collapsing inward, the taste still snaps me back, the tartness, the faint fizz on my tongue, a reflex almost, like my hand instinctively reaching for the other coffee mug that isn't there, and i even thought for a second, a fleeting fragment, that i'd ask about 's group at st. mark's, about what they'd make of this, this bizarre lightness clinging to the edges of the familiar ache, because everyone else just moved on, didn't they, they found their new ways to be, and i'm just here, taking my sips, remembering how i used to clench my jaw, how every swallow was a battle, and now it's just a drink, just a taste, and the tremor is only in my fingers, barely there, but enough to know what it meant, what it still means, even as i just... drink it.