The first time Filip appeared outside her office, Lana thought him romantic. The second time he brought coffee to the very park where she sat reading. The third time he entered a café she had never mentioned, smiling like a man constantly favored by coincidence. They had been together eight months. Lana told friends he was attentive while beginning to feel a strange unease whenever she sat anywhere alone.
During an outing they had enabled location sharing to find each other more easily when the group took different paths. Lana forgot it remained active. Filip did not. When she asked how he knew about the café, he said he had been passing. The street was not on his route, so she asked again. Then he admitted sometimes checking her whereabouts to surprise her. He expected a smile for his effort. She closed her book and remained silent.
The problem was not merely that he had come that day. It was that he lied about the meetings being accidental and turned information intended for one outing into a view of her daily life. Filip replied that she had nothing to hide if everything was fine. Lana said the right to an afternoon without an audience did not depend on having a secret. It was not a sentence she had previously needed to say to a man with whom she planned vacations and kept toothbrushes in the same bathroom.
She switched off sharing and said she wanted several days without meeting. Filip sent messages about only wanting to be close. He did not mention his lie. Lana spoke with a friend and arranged to exchange belongings in a public place. She did not want to wait for her unease to become a larger event before she was allowed to take it seriously. Filip was offended at the meeting, especially when she refused his offer to drive her home. She returned his key and left by tram herself.
Several weeks later she sat in the same café again. When the door opened she instinctively raised her head, then continued reading. She did not immediately feel completely calm. Still, she stayed until finishing the chapter, ordered another coffee, and explained to nobody why she had changed her afternoon plan. That evening she told a friend by message that her day had been good. She shared as much as she wanted with someone she trusted and discovered how much she had missed that simple possibility of choice.