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A churning anxiety settled deep in my stomach. The polite, evasive answers from the café staff only fueled my worry. They knew nothing, or pretended to know nothing, beyond a vague statement about her having left. This wasn’t just about my daily coffee anymore; it was about the profound fear of losing the one meaningful connection I felt I had. My internal debate raged: Was it appropriate to seek her out? Was I overstepping? Was this attachment healthy, or merely a manifestation of my desperation? Yet, the thought of simply letting her disappear from my life, just as so many others had, was intolerable. I felt a primal urge to understand, to know if she was okay, to somehow preserve the delicate thread we had woven. Driven by a desperate, almost instinctual need, I took an extraordinary, perhaps even foolish, step. I scoured old receipts, trying to remember if I had ever seen a name, an address, anything that might lead me to her. It felt like a bizarre, emotional detective mission, propelled by a mixture of hope and terror. I managed to track down her home address through a surprising stroke of luck and a fair amount of quiet persistence. My heart pounded with a mixture of apprehension and grim determination as I stood on her doorstep, my hand hovering over the doorbell. What would I say? What if she resented my intrusion? What if something terrible had happened? Every worst-case scenario flashed through my mind, but the alternative—never knowing—was far more terrifying. This felt like the biggest gamble of my lonely life, a defiant act against the crushing silence that had become my constant companion.
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