☕ Coffee and Quiet with Derek Wolf
The Call I Did Not Want to Make
The kitchen is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the soft tick of the clock above the stove. Papers spread across the table like a small storm that has settled but not passed. The coffee in her mug has gone cold. A file folder rests half open, a pen balanced on its edge. The phone sits face up beside it, the screen dark but heavy with waiting.
Outside, the streetlights hum through the thin curtains. A car passes. The sound fades. Inside, stillness stretches until it becomes its own kind of noise. She looks at the phone again. Her thumb hovers near the edge. The call has waited long enough. The deadline is not on paper this time. It is in the body, in the tension that builds every hour she avoids what she knows she must do.
She exhales and looks at the mess of work in front of her. Numbers, signatures, notes in the margin that once felt urgent but now blur into background static. Everything on the table says progress, yet nothing feels like movement. Avoidance is a master of disguise. It wears the face of responsibility. It whispers that one more review, one more draft, one more night of thinking will make it easier.
If today isn’t the day, remember us when your moment opens.
Buy Me a Coffee
The truth is simpler. She is waiting because she does not want to be seen in the moment that follows the call. She does not want to hear what silence might say on the other end.
The refrigerator hums louder, then clicks off. The silence that follows lands like a weight. The house feels bigger than it is, full of old echoes of decisions postponed. She rubs the back of her neck and catches herself glancing at the clock again. The second hand slides forward without mercy. The longer she waits, the heavier the moment becomes.
She reaches for the pen, writes one line across a yellow notepad, and stares at it. Make the call. The words look too simple for what they hold. Her hand trembles slightly as she sets the pen down. The body tells the truth before the mind admits it. Her shoulders rise. Her breath stays thin. Her heart moves in uneven rhythm. Fear of discomfort has learned to sound like logic.
She stands and walks to the sink. The movement feels like relief, but it is another loop of avoidance. The glass she rinses does not need to be clean. The counter she wipes is already clear. She leans on her palms and watches her reflection in the dark kitchen window. The woman staring back is not indecisive. She is just tired of pretending that waiting is control.
The thought lands with quiet precision: hesitation has its own cost. It drains what could have been strength and turns it into restlessness. Each day she waits, the weight grows a little heavier. The energy that could have been spent acting leaks away through constant reconsideration.
She turns back to the table. The files wait, the phone waits, the night waits. For a moment she listens to the small hums and creaks of the house, the refrigerator returning to life, the soft tick of the clock. The ordinary sounds are grounding. They remind her that time moves forward, even when she does not.
She pulls the chair back and sits. Her hand finds the phone again. The glow of the screen fills the small circle of space around her. The name on the contact list stirs every old hesitation that has lived at the edge of her thoughts. The memory of past calls returns—ones made too late, ones avoided altogether, ones where the right words arrived only after the line went dead.
A deep breath gathers. Not shallow this time. Real. The kind that steadies the spine and clears the noise. She whispers the question that always cuts through illusion. Is this keeping me busy, or moving me forward?
The answer rises in her chest rather than her head. Forward is rarely comfortable. But it is always clean. She presses the call button.
The first ring feels longer than it should. The second makes her heart tighten. By the third, she almost hangs up. Then a click. A voice. Softer than she remembered. Unsure. “I wasn’t sure you’d call.”
Her mouth opens before her thoughts catch up. “I almost didn’t.” There is a pause long enough to feel like confession. “But I needed to.”
The words that follow are not perfect. They do not erase the gap that silence carved between them. They do not fix the old misunderstanding or undo the weeks of avoidance. But they reach across it. That is enough. The conversation lasts less than five minutes. It does not resolve everything. It does not have to.
When the line goes quiet again, the stillness in the kitchen feels different. It is not the suffocating silence of waiting. It is the calm that follows movement. She sets the phone down and lets the sound of her own breathing fill the room. The clock continues its steady rhythm, but now it sounds like accompaniment rather than pressure.
She looks down at the yellow notepad. The line she wrote is still there, but its meaning has changed. Make the call. It no longer commands her. It records something completed. She draws a small circle beside it and closes the folder. The air feels lighter, not because the work has vanished, but because the weight of hesitation has been lifted.
She stands and turns off the lamp above the table. The room falls into shadow except for the faint glow from the window. Outside, a streetlight hums and the world looks quiet again. But inside, something steady has returned. It is not relief. It is presence. The kind that builds when action replaces avoidance.
She walks to the sink, pours a glass of water, and drinks slowly. The coolness clears the last trace of tension in her throat. She can feel her pulse settling, not because everything is fixed, but because she finally stopped circling. Her shoulders loosen. The air feels open again.
The phone buzzes once with a short message. Thank you for calling. She reads it twice and smiles. Not from pride, but from quiet understanding. The hardest step was never the call itself. It was choosing to end the waiting.
She turns off the light and walks toward the bedroom. The table behind her stays in soft silhouette, files stacked neatly, pen still resting across the folder. It looks like any ordinary space, yet something in it has changed. Energy has shifted. The night feels clean again.
The Truth Beneath
Clarity does not wait for courage. It appears in the moment you stop negotiating with hesitation. Deadlines are not enemies. They are invitations to presence. Every avoided act collects a weight that grows until it breaks your balance. Every small action taken restores it.
Courage rarely feels grand. It often arrives as quiet honesty, a single phone call, a choice to begin. Action clears the fog that thought alone cannot touch. The relief that follows is not from perfection, but from participation. Waiting holds you in the same room. Acting lets the air move again.
Stories written in the quiet hours.
Derek Wolf.
“The Truth Beneath”
The Call I Did Not Want to Make
The kitchen is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the soft tick of the clock above the stove. Papers spread across the table like a small storm that has settled but not passed. The coffee in her mug has gone cold. A file folder rests half open, a pen balanced on its edge. The phone sits face up beside it, the screen dark but heavy with waiting.
Outside, the streetlights hum through the thin curtains. A car passes. The sound fades. Inside, stillness stretches until it becomes its own kind of noise. She looks at the phone again. Her thumb hovers near the edge. The call has waited long enough. The deadline is not on paper this time. It is in the body, in the tension that builds every hour she avoids what she knows she must do.
She exhales and looks at the mess of work in front of her. Numbers, signatures, notes in the margin that once felt urgent but now blur into background static. Everything on the table says progress, yet nothing feels like movement. Avoidance is a master of disguise. It wears the face of responsibility. It whispers that one more review, one more draft, one more night of thinking will make it easier.
If today isn’t the day, remember us when your moment opens.
Buy Me a Coffee
The truth is simpler. She is waiting because she does not want to be seen in the moment that follows the call. She does not want to hear what silence might say on the other end.
The refrigerator hums louder, then clicks off. The silence that follows lands like a weight. The house feels bigger than it is, full of old echoes of decisions postponed. She rubs the back of her neck and catches herself glancing at the clock again. The second hand slides forward without mercy. The longer she waits, the heavier the moment becomes.
She reaches for the pen, writes one line across a yellow notepad, and stares at it. Make the call. The words look too simple for what they hold. Her hand trembles slightly as she sets the pen down. The body tells the truth before the mind admits it. Her shoulders rise. Her breath stays thin. Her heart moves in uneven rhythm. Fear of discomfort has learned to sound like logic.
She stands and walks to the sink. The movement feels like relief, but it is another loop of avoidance. The glass she rinses does not need to be clean. The counter she wipes is already clear. She leans on her palms and watches her reflection in the dark kitchen window. The woman staring back is not indecisive. She is just tired of pretending that waiting is control.
The thought lands with quiet precision: hesitation has its own cost. It drains what could have been strength and turns it into restlessness. Each day she waits, the weight grows a little heavier. The energy that could have been spent acting leaks away through constant reconsideration.
She turns back to the table. The files wait, the phone waits, the night waits. For a moment she listens to the small hums and creaks of the house, the refrigerator returning to life, the soft tick of the clock. The ordinary sounds are grounding. They remind her that time moves forward, even when she does not.
She pulls the chair back and sits. Her hand finds the phone again. The glow of the screen fills the small circle of space around her. The name on the contact list stirs every old hesitation that has lived at the edge of her thoughts. The memory of past calls returns—ones made too late, ones avoided altogether, ones where the right words arrived only after the line went dead.
A deep breath gathers. Not shallow this time. Real. The kind that steadies the spine and clears the noise. She whispers the question that always cuts through illusion. Is this keeping me busy, or moving me forward?
The answer rises in her chest rather than her head. Forward is rarely comfortable. But it is always clean. She presses the call button.
The first ring feels longer than it should. The second makes her heart tighten. By the third, she almost hangs up. Then a click. A voice. Softer than she remembered. Unsure. “I wasn’t sure you’d call.”
Her mouth opens before her thoughts catch up. “I almost didn’t.” There is a pause long enough to feel like confession. “But I needed to.”
The words that follow are not perfect. They do not erase the gap that silence carved between them. They do not fix the old misunderstanding or undo the weeks of avoidance. But they reach across it. That is enough. The conversation lasts less than five minutes. It does not resolve everything. It does not have to.
When the line goes quiet again, the stillness in the kitchen feels different. It is not the suffocating silence of waiting. It is the calm that follows movement. She sets the phone down and lets the sound of her own breathing fill the room. The clock continues its steady rhythm, but now it sounds like accompaniment rather than pressure.
She looks down at the yellow notepad. The line she wrote is still there, but its meaning has changed. Make the call. It no longer commands her. It records something completed. She draws a small circle beside it and closes the folder. The air feels lighter, not because the work has vanished, but because the weight of hesitation has been lifted.
She stands and turns off the lamp above the table. The room falls into shadow except for the faint glow from the window. Outside, a streetlight hums and the world looks quiet again. But inside, something steady has returned. It is not relief. It is presence. The kind that builds when action replaces avoidance.
She walks to the sink, pours a glass of water, and drinks slowly. The coolness clears the last trace of tension in her throat. She can feel her pulse settling, not because everything is fixed, but because she finally stopped circling. Her shoulders loosen. The air feels open again.
The phone buzzes once with a short message. Thank you for calling. She reads it twice and smiles. Not from pride, but from quiet understanding. The hardest step was never the call itself. It was choosing to end the waiting.
She turns off the light and walks toward the bedroom. The table behind her stays in soft silhouette, files stacked neatly, pen still resting across the folder. It looks like any ordinary space, yet something in it has changed. Energy has shifted. The night feels clean again.
The Truth Beneath
Clarity does not wait for courage. It appears in the moment you stop negotiating with hesitation. Deadlines are not enemies. They are invitations to presence. Every avoided act collects a weight that grows until it breaks your balance. Every small action taken restores it.
Courage rarely feels grand. It often arrives as quiet honesty, a single phone call, a choice to begin. Action clears the fog that thought alone cannot touch. The relief that follows is not from perfection, but from participation. Waiting holds you in the same room. Acting lets the air move again.
Stories written in the quiet hours.
Derek Wolf.
“The Truth Beneath”
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