It was the day before New Year's Eve when she first met him. By luck or perhaps a curse, she didn't know. Nor did she care. She was cold, and he was warm. She was scared and lonely, and he had the ability to comfort her. That was all she needed.

Their meeting wasn't exactly what you would call fairy-tale perfect. It was a bit more complicated than that. She'd had a rough day at work and was on her way home when she decided that home wasn't the place where she wanted to be. Home, at the time, held too many things, too many memories that she couldn't bare to see unless she wanted to cry for a few more hours, days, months... Who knew how long it would be before she would recover from the tragic things that had occurred that week? None of it was her fault, yet she blamed herself for everything. In her mind, everything was her fault and no one could convince her of anything different.

She decided to go the Crystal Springs Cafe downtown and have a cup of coffee.

The past few days she had become addicted to coffee. She wasn't a particularly big fan of coffee. In fact, she never had been, but with the short amount of sleep she was getting, it was all she could depend on to be able to stay awake during the 6 hours she had to spend in the mornings working at Wendy's for very little pay. She knew she should have obeyed her parents...while they were still alive... and went to college, got a degree and a good or at least a little better paying job than what she had. But she hadn't and she was poor. So poor that she had to turn the heat off in her tiny one-room apartment and nearly freeze to death just so the monthly bill wasn't as high and she could have enough food to survive. She had already lost a lot of weight. Nearly thirty-five pounds in the last month and a half.

She needed help. And she found it that night when she ran herself right into a man and spilled her coffee all over his dark green v-neck.

"Ah!" The man yelled as her hot coffee ran down his shirt, flowing all the way down to his crotch.

"Oh my gosh!" She gasped and immediately ran to get napkins from the nearest table. "I am so sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I'm so sorry."

She handed him the napkins as tears began to dim her eyes.

"It's fine. I apologize too. I was too busy to notice where I..." He looked up from cleaning his shirt and noticed the tears falling from her eyes. "Hey, why are you crying? I'm fine! It was just a little coffee. No big deal, right?"

She didn't look at him. She didn't say anything. She just let the tears roll down her cheeks as he took her into his big arms. It may have been strange, hugging and crying into a stranger's shoulder, not even bothering to tell him why you're even crying, but it was nice. She had needed to cry, to let everything that she had let build up inside of her out, to breathe easily again.

Finally she let go of the man and took a deep breath. He gave her a minute, allowed her to relax a little bit before he said anything to her.

She spoke first.

"I'm sorry. Again." She wiped the tears from her eyes. "I didn't pay attention to where I was going or see you standing there and it's been a rough week and I just needed to..."

"Hey, it's all okay." He gave her a reassuring smile and then everything inside of her seemed to slow down, finally relaxing for just a moment. "I'm glad I could be a shoulder to cry on. Especially for a fine girl like you." He winked so perfectly at her and that's when everything inside of her began to speed up again, only this time it was a good feeling. Not panicked. Not sad, angry, or depressed. Something much better, something she hadn't felt in a long, long time, but she couldn't quite grasp onto it or figure out what it was.

She smiled. For the first time in forever, she smiled. Not a fake smile that she just put on for young customers or her manager. An actual, real smile.

"Well, I should get going." She said, not really needing to go, not really wanting to go. It was just the first thing that came out of her mouth when she attempted ending the silence that had fallen between them.

"Yeah, uh, I should too," the man said, shaking his head, realizing that he had been staring at her for a while. Her hair was a mess, her big, blue eyes were puffy and red from crying, and her poorly-done makeup had smeared down her blotchy cheeks with the tears and yet, to him, she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

With that she turned to leave, that smile still glued to her face. The man hesitated a bit before going after her.

"Ma'am, wait!!" He called when she reached the door of the Cafe. She turned back to see him running towards her.

"I want to know... what is your name?"

"Oh, um, Cadence." she answered. "Cadence Sylvestri."

"Okay. Uh thanks. I'm Mitchell." He rubbed the back of his neck, which had suddenly gotten hot. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Cadence. Have a good night! I'll pray that I'll see you soon."

Cadence flinched when he said the word 'pray'. She never believed in prayer. It obviously didn't work or else she would be rich and live in a nice home with a good job and a family. God clearly didn't care enough to help her, but still she smiled at him and said, "It was nice meeting you too, Mitchell." She awkwardly pushed out the door. "G'night!"

As soon as she left, Mitchell slumped into one of the booths, looked down at his stained shirt, and sighed with a smile. He couldn't wait to run into her again.

Cadence, the second the door of the cafe closed behind her, squealed, something she had never done, at least in a while. Mitchell was absolutely perfect! She couldn't wait to run into him again.