Although it may seem like it, it this isn't a love story. I am not aware of any explicit rules of when a set of incidents qualify as one, but I am sure there must be some unsaid ones. For example, in this story: The girl already had a boyfriend. I had already been “rejected” by means of the above fact having been communicated firsthand. She was a co-worker – a golden rule that I was afraid of breaking but didn’t have to thanks to the first 2 rules. I had a personal rule of no

Once upon a heartbreak, I lost a tea-shop to the very romance that had led me to it. She-who-shall-not-be-named lived close-by, and before I’d drop her home after our dates, we’d share a cup of tea, holding each other, by the side of the road, just outside it. By lost, I mean - collaterally damaged - by memories around it that turned into those of a bitter ending. But this phenomena wasn’t limited to just one place like that. It wasn’t even limited to one breakup! Cafes, park