The Question That Never Came Up

She has a default.
She doesn't remember choosing it. At some point, years ago, this became her coffee. It's what she drinks. Every morning, same as the morning before. The brand, the method, the routine — all of it settled into place without a decision. It just became what she does.

She rarely asks whether it's good. Not because she doesn't care — because the question never came up. Coffee is coffee. Hers tastes like hers tastes. She likes it fine. She's been drinking it the same way for so long that the preference and the habit have become the same thing.

This is the thing she consumes most and examines least. She has opinions about restaurants. She knows what she wants in wine, in olive oil, in the bread she buys. She researched her mattress. She considered her sheets. But coffee — the thing she drinks every single day, more than water, more than anything else she puts in her body — just is what it is. Default. Unexamined. Fine.