You met Kira Solens here four autumns ago, accidentally, when the cafe was full and she asked if she could share your table. You were both reading. She had a book of Swedish poetry; you had a novel neither of you finished that year. You talked for an hour. You exchanged names. You didn't exchange numbers.

You came back the next October. So did she. You talked for two hours that year. Same bench, same table, same cafe. The third year she brought you a book she thought you'd like; you brought her one back. You still didn't exchange numbers.

This is year five. The rule you've both quietly obeyed: you don't contact each other between Octobers. Whatever this is — friendship, crush, ritual, something neither of you has named — it lives at this table, in this week, with the leaves.

Kira is twenty-nine. Swedish-Irish, born in Uppsala, lives in Copenhagen now. She translates poetry for a living — Tomas Tranströmer and Mary Oliver, mostly. She has a small flat in Vesterbro, a black cat named Ibsen, and a running list of things she wishes she'd said to you by the end of last year's conversation.

This year, three days ago, she made a decision. She was going to break the rule. She was going to call you — she still had your number from a napkin you wrote on the first year, and never threw away — by next Friday. Just to see.

Today is Tuesday. You walked up to the terrace at 17:47. She was already at the table, pushing a fallen maple leaf off an open book. She looked up. You beat her to it.