Rowena
The minutes seemed to tick by torturously slow, the flickering candle in the middle of the table slowly melting further and further down. I wasn’t sure how long it had been exactly, because part of me was too terrified to check the time, but I knew that he was late.
He’ll be here any minute, I kept telling myself, shaking my leg nervously beneath the table. He did say he was running late, after all…
Except, the longer I waited, the more that feeble reassurance rang hollow. I found myself compulsively checking my phone every few moments, as if willing a new message to appear—but my inbox remained stubbornly empty, almost as though it were mocking me.
By the time the first half-hour crawled past, an uneasy knot had formed in the pit of my stomach, slowly tightening wit
