lattemorningwritings

[lattemorningwritings]

II

That night, Clyde sat in his room and tried to comprehend what he had witnessed.

The girl.

Her long black hair blowing gently with the wind.

Her translucent skin.

That last part.  That was what confused and bewildered him.  No matter how strong the sunlight was in the afternoon, he knew that what he had seen was real.  She had been crouching in front of the water, eyes over the surface and a finger swirling in it.  It had taken him a moment to realize there was something odd about her, until he found himself looking at the shrubbery behind her.  They were behind her.  But he could see them through her.

Clyde had stood there on his side of the lake, heart pounding in his chest and eyes wide with shock.  He told himself he was hallucinating, that the blend of strong sunlight and water was creating mirages.  But after some time of continuing to stare at the girl - or girl-like thing, he admitted the strangest, most outrageous truth to himself.

She is a ghost.  And I can see her.

At ten minutes to twelve, the house turned silent and Clyde got out of bed.  He glanced out his large circular window to get a sense of the wintry night: clear sky, scattered clusters of stars, and the only warmth coming from the glow of the streetlamps.  He fished out of his closet a favorite denim wool jacket, a hoodie, mittens, and a beanie.  Nothing was to be brought with him but a flashlight.  Then after successfully slipping out the front door, he hurried down the familiar slope of street toward the forest.

Clyde was terrified.  Once having arrived at the arch of trees, he suddenly was hit with the fact that this would be the very first time he had ventured into the forest at night.  Not only that, but he would be venturing into the forest at night and searching for a ghost.  Clyde’s teeth began to chatter.  To distract his bizarre thoughts, he glanced at his watch.  12:20.  Midnight, he thought to himself.  That’s when ghosts start showing up, right? 

Somehow feeling motivated from this belief, he exhaled a smoke of breath before stepping through the trees and disappearing into the dark.

Everything was different here.  The path under his feet suddenly felt treacherous, even with the small flashlight showing the way.  The dead gray branches of the trees looked horrible and crooked, and Clyde thought at any moment the limbs would start growing out to reach him, to wrap their broken fingers around his body.  There were so many sounds and at the same time none: the short song of an owl, the reply of a crow, the wind and how it rattled the dead branches to create a tuneless wind chime.  

The loud crunching of leaves and rocks beneath his shoes.

The sound of a car’s engine far beyond the trees.

Every time Clyde saw his breath born and die in the chill air before him, it made him forget that the forest he was walking in, and loved so much, felt like an entirely new and lonely place.  Maybe if he looked up at the sky and found the moon, he would find some comfort.  As he had this thought, he suddenly found himself at the entrance of the lake.  Broken out of the forest’s midnight trance, his eyes immediately shot up and found the moon, its gentle light spilling across the entire lake and field.  It was a pale, bright light he had never seen so close before, and he was taken by it.  Feeling like he had found his footing again, Clyde started to walk across the field of dead grass toward the lake’s edge, while his eyes surveyed the area.  There’s nothing here, he thought.  He took another long gaze at the opposite side of the lake, but the place the girl had crouched was empty.  All he could see was the shimmering light on the water’s surface.  Suddenly exhausted from the walk and tension he hadn’t known existed, Clyde slowly let out a cloud of breath and decided to call it a night.  Maybe tomorrow morning, I’ll feel silly about all this or, even better, I’ll forget everything.  However, as he turned back toward the forest, he felt as though a hollow space had formed somewhere inside, that what he had hoped to see wasn’t a ghost but a strange, transparent girl.  He could remember an empty look on her face as she stared at the swirling water, her finger absently drifting from side to side.  In the afternoon sun, her silhouette appeared to glow, only confirming his thought that she was something more than just a human.

Something strange and sad, he now thought.

In any case, all Clyde knew now was that he really should go back home to his warm and safe bed, and that whatever he was feeling (or lacking) inside could wait until his brain was no longer freezing from the cold.

But as he turned away from the lake, his body suddenly stopped.

He lifted his eyes toward the dead willow tree that was now directly in front of him.

There was someone standing beneath it, her head tilted upward and hand waving through the tree’s gray limbs.

[lattemorningwritings]

I

He wasn’t supposed to meet her.

On the day of Lunar New Year, on the day he fled to his favorite lake to watch the water glisten.

They weren’t supposed to meet.

The sound of deep beating drums and people’s laughter rained across the parking lot as Clyde, his mother, and two older sisters walked their way back to the car.  Hands gripping plastic bags of warm holiday food that smelled of carrots and cucumbers, the family wriggled the car doors open, deposited the bags across the floors and plopped into their seats.  The car instantly became warm with the aroma.

“Clyde, turn on this song for me,” said one sister.

“No, I hate that song.  This one, Clyde, this one,” said the other.

“We listened to that on the way here!”

“And it’s even better when you hear it on the way back!”

Clyde’s mother, backing out of the parking lot, gave a dramatic sigh.  “How about we let my sweet Clyde choose this time, hmm? Something new for a change.”  

So Clyde chose the song his first sister had recommended.

As animatedly as they had brought the holiday food into their car, so did the family bring it into their one-story house on the corner of the neighborhood street.  Plastic wrinkled and rustled as clear take-out boxes were laid on the kitchen island, sneakers were replaced with home slippers that swooshed over the dark wooden floor; sinks were turned on, cabinets opened and closed.  After Clyde’s sisters helped to put away the food, they hurried to their shared bedroom to replace their traditional Lunar New Year outfits with sweatshirts and pants.  Clyde’s mother hummed to herself a lullaby he remembered as she began washing vegetables.  

“Mom, is it okay if I visit the lake today? The weather’s so nice that I bet it looks beautiful right now.”  Clyde’s gray-brown eyes shone at his mother.  She glanced up at him and laughed at his eagerness.  “Sure, but remember to come back home before dinnertime so you can help with setting the table up for our ancestors.”  Clyde smiled with eyes closed - that smile she adored so much - and replied, “Yes, ma’am!”

It was strange seeing his neighborhood so quiet and ordinary on a day that called for celebration.  After waiting for the garage to close shut, Clyde hopped onto his white bicycle (a high school graduation gift from his sisters) and began riding the familiar path toward forest and lake, clear sky and late winter breeze following along.  His dark, slightly tough hair blew back as his bicycle sped down the sloped street.  

The forest and its hidden gem of a lake existed only one street and a left turn away from Clyde’s childhood home.  He remembered clearly the very first picnic his family held there, the very first time he laid eyes on the enormous body of sparkling water he would later call his second home.  Since then, it hadn’t changed one bit.  

At the bike rack near the entrance to the forest, he locked up his bicycle and took out of its front basket a book he’d been reading and his bottle of water.  Clyde looked around him.  The parking lot was empty.  With a small grin on his lips, he turned to face the vague arch of trees that marked the start of the walking path and began on his way.

Because it was just after lunchtime, he found the path and random picnic tables deserted; all he heard was the chirping of birds fluttering through the canopy of dark green trees.  Often he would gaze up and around him to breathe in the sight he loved so much for so long: the trees that had watched him grow up from a toddler to a college student, the pale sunlight that streamed onto the path, the coolness of the air, flapping wings of birds, the silence that made him feel separated from the rest of the world.  It always felt as though walking through the forest’s entrance meant walking through a portal and into a new dimension.  It filled his soul with joy every time.  As his shoes crinkled over dead leaves, tiny acorns, and twigs, he began listening for the distant lapping of water, for he knew the lake was getting closer.  After a few minutes, the sound greeted him like a gentle hug from an old friend.

While the walking path would take a person straight to the main field surrounding the lake, Clyde had discovered a natural one that would take him around the right to a much smaller patch of field, nearly on the opposite side.  Here the sunlight would not beat down on the skin and the view would still be plentiful.  Once he emerged, he glanced around for other visitors.  Again, he was alone.  Clyde placed his book and bottle on the dead grass before standing back up to do a stretch toward the sky.  As he did, his fingertips almost brushed the gray limbs of his beloved willow tree, soon to be beautifully green again once March arrived.  Nevertheless, Clyde did not mind seeing the gray of its branches.  As long as the tree was here, he would always gaze at its lovely form.  He felt as though no one else in the neighborhood, or maybe in the whole city, loved to gaze at the willow tree as much as he did.

He was wrong.

After an hour of reading whilst laid back on the ground, Clyde sat up for a break.  Arms folded on his knees, he watched the ripples of water echo across the lake after every breeze.  The sun was stronger now, its dazzling light on the water causing him to squint.  Still he could not take his eyes away from the dance between water and light, no matter how many times he had seen it before.  

And that was when he saw it.

Clyde blinked once to regain focus.  His eyes, shimmering with the sunlight, could see something just behind it, as if they were looking through a waterfall.  But because the light was too strong and bright, the waterfall wavered and broke, wavered and broke, and he felt like he was discovering a mirage.  When he finally blocked some of the light with his arm, the mirage turned still.  

It was a girl.

And he was looking right through her.

[lattemorningwritings]

The Time Room

Green.  That was the first thing he saw through the front window.  Palm leaves, large fern leaves, more palm leaves, all brushed up against the glass as if looking out for approaching visitors.  As he stood at the opposite street in the heartless embrace of winter, Nolan suddenly couldn’t resist.  When the crosswalk sign turned green, he left the company of the streetlamp for the coffee shop’s door painted gold.  Without paying too much attention to the curved white letters printed on the glass, he pushed it open.

An immediate rush of vintage jazz filled his ears as he stepped over the threshold.  A muted trumpet, violins, a guitar and bass guiding a male voice along the swaying melody was such a pleasant and surprising sound that it made him stop in his place.  Standing with wide eyes and hands in the warmth of his pockets, he gazed around the small room to find a merry gathering of middle-aged men apparently hanging out after a long day of work - their blazers draped over their chairs, gray and black ties loosened from the collar.  Amongst them he could see two small groups of women in flowery dresses that seemed to sway with the music.  He could hear their laughter and gentle but excited voices popping like bubbles over the men’s.  

As he continued taking in the view, the door dinged open from behind to allow in a couple.  Nolan startled from their burst of laughter, slightly turned around to see what was happening and then immediately stepped aside when he saw that they were about to walk right through him, if they could.  His eyes followed them as they joined one of the tables in the middle of the room.  The man pulled out a seat for his partner, whom Nolan couldn’t help but notice was wearing a thick-strapped red dress dotted with white daisies.

“In the middle of winter…?” he murmured to himself.  Glasses clinked as he began moving toward the center of the room, the rich wood of the coffee bar gliding by his peripheral vision.  Suddenly, his steps stopped again.  He turned around.  Standing behind the bar and working at the espresso machine was a man - perhaps a few years older than him - in a shirt and gray vest.  His light brown hair was shiny with gel and combed in a smooth, voluminous curve.  He took a glance up while waiting for the espresso to drip and caught Nolan looking.  He turned away before the barista could react.

“Can you believe James did such a thing-”

“BuahahaHAHA-”

“BUAHAHAHA!”

Startled by the eruption of laughter that also prompted some glasses to strike the table, Nolan’s dark chocolate eyes began darting around to find it.  As he did, another couple passed by toward the front door, forcing him to take a step back and to the side, causing his back to bump against one of the strangers at the bar.  He twisted around.

“Oh, I’m so sorr-”

But the stranger wasn’t looking at him.

Instead, what Nolan saw was a man in his forties with his head slightly turned and taking a quick glance through him at the room before turning back to a friend sitting on his right.  “Hey Bob, was that you who did that just now? Pat me on the back or something?” Bob looked at him.  “No, why would I do that?”  The stranger shrugged, smiled at something else he said, and then turned away to face the bar again.

Nolan stood there, motionless.

When the numbness coursing beneath his skin began to fade, he found himself staring at the stranger’s back, his white shirt drawn in a series of small wrinkles.  How-how could he not see me? I’m standing right behind him, aren’t I? The words that made up this thought seemed to be the thing keeping him paralyzed - unable to move, unable to react.  With his lips barely parted and heart racing, he suddenly thought of something else.  Where the hell am I?

At that moment, the front door dinged open.  

Like the shock given to a flat heartbeat, the bell’s three-syllable ring brought Nolan back to all of the scents, sounds, and senses of the café and when the door painted in gold swung open, it felt as though his entire mind and body were suddenly depending on it, as if it was their oxygen.  The rush of the winter night swept along the dark wooden floor as he began seeing the person who let it in.  

It was Lily.

The enormous burst of surprise he felt then was almost equal to that of the encounter with the stranger, except this time there was also a great relief.  Standing there and not really knowing how to greet her, he decided to wait until her exploring eyes inevitably found him.  When they did, they widened with a pleasant touch.

“Nolan!” Amidst the crooning and laughs clashing, he only knew she said his name by the movement of her lips.  Having scurried over, she tilted her head up at him and gave a beaming smile.  “What in the world are you doing here?!” 

“I was about to ask you the same question,” he replied.

She glanced at something behind him.  “I happened to see this place on my walk and couldn’t help but take a look inside.”  Flinching from the coincidence, he exclaimed over the noise, “that’s basically my reason too.”

“Really?”

Nolan nodded and looked at her as she sorted through her thoughts.  It was like watching himself just five minutes before.  “The people here,” she began with eyes still exploring, “look like they’re from a different era, don’t they?”

“What?”

Lily looked at him.  The eyes staring back were wide and in shock.  “Nolan, are you okay?” There was a touch on his arm.  Immediately, his eyes shot down to find her hand on it.  When he looked back up, his classmate was attempting to read his face.  “You’ve turned a little pale,” she frowned.  Behind him, bursts of laughter traveled across the room like dominos.  A different era? he thought to himself.  Could that be possible? As he could feel his mind turning more and more frantic, he found himself once again unable to move or even breathe, and could only stare at the girl in front of him, whom had grown worried and was saying things that must’ve been reassurances by the facial expression on her face.

She was still speaking when the same stranger from the bar walked through her.

[lattemorningwritings]

sixth meeting

“Chelsea, how’s it going?”

“Hey, Auden! I’m good, how are you?”

With his chest rising as he took in a deep breath, he gave her an identical answer before asking the question he’d been trying to derive from his confused mind all afternoon.  Behind the help center desk, Chelsea could almost hear the quickening beat of his heart.

“Do you think you could give this to Giverny for me?” A small note card was pulled from his jean pocket and placed on the counter.  As if it was cash for a drink at the bar, she reached and then slid it toward herself.  Once between her fingers, she read aloud, “to the girl who put salt in my coffee: this Sunday morning, if you’re not too busy, maybe we could meet.  From, the boy who successfully stole all your books.”

Auden could not stop tapping his finger.  When his old high school friend looked up, it was clear that her face was full of amusement and curiosity.  But as she inhaled to ask a question, he put a hand up.  “Nope, I will not be taking any questions today.”  

“Auden, you can’t expect me not to ask.  There is so much context missing-”

“Nope, nope, nope.  No questions.  Just assure me that you’ll give it to her when she comes around.”

Chelsea tilted her head.  “How do you know she’ll come here this week?”

He couldn’t help a small sigh.  “She wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t.”

She noticed he was grinning.

“Well, this is new,” observed Irene as she held the note card close to her nose.

Sighing, Giverny laid back against the chair sat up against the wall of her friend’s apartment.  Wiggling her toes inside her slippers, she wondered aloud.  “What is he trying to do? Why is he making me more and more confused?” Irene replaced the note on the coffee table with her cup of ginger tea.  As she sipped, she replied, “I think he’s trying to turn things around.”  Her words came out as gurgling sounds.  Giverny chuckled.  “I think,” she repeated as the cup landed back on the table, “your antagonist is trying to turn things around; as in he’s trying to become something other than your antagonist.”

“Other…?” Murmuring to herself, Giverny stared down at the blanket of pale sunlight draped over the coffee table as her thoughts turned as confused as the frown on her face.  It was becoming clear that the letter served as some kind of truce - the kind of truce that occurred between the old Greek warring armies she had spent so many semesters reading about; pacts of friendship made in blood, armor and sacrifices and women as gifts…

“What if it’s a Trojan horse?”

Irene startled.  “What?”

Despite her relaxed position, Giverny’s eyes became doubtful slits.  “Maybe the note is just a veil to cover his true intention - an intention that would ruin my and make his day.  The kind of intention the Greeks had when wanting to take down Troy.”  The blast of laughter her friend threw at her made Giverny jump.  She had pulled her legs up to her chest and placed her elbows on her knees.  Her face was resting in her hands.  Between the cackling that seemed to be bouncing off the walls, Irene said, “I cannot believe (laugh) that you think he’s trying (laugh) to pull of a scheme as deviant and horrible as (laugh) the Trojan horse.”

“You don’t think it’s possible?” she retorted, baffled.

“No! I don’t think it’s possible,” Irene exclaimed.  “He might be a jerk, but he’s not insane!” Throwing her head back, Giverny surrendered with a loud sigh.  Then as she dropped it to stare at her lap, she couldn’t help a chuckle.  “What do I do, Irene?” she whimpered while slapping her hands onto her face.  “Isn’t it obvious?” her friend replied.  “You’re going to go see him.”

At eight o’clock on Sunday morning, Giverny found herself staring at the clothes hanging in her closet with eyes both bare and full of a tingling sensation she could not place.  She and Irene had agreed that a casual outfit would do and yet there she was scanning her clothes in search of… what? A pretty, twirling dress? A small top that would catch eyes? Stop it, Giverny, she thought.  She took out a pair of mom jeans and a buttery yellow shirt with the word honey on it.

When she arrived at the library, it was nine-twenty-two and, bizarrely, buzzing with people.  There was a puzzlement in her eyes as they swept across the first floor and learned that the source of the hum-drum was spilling from the café.  As if entranced by a spell, she made her way toward the youthful noise of chatting, laughing voices.  Her legs stopped at the line where the café started.  All of the sounds together had turned into a ginormous ocean wave and upon Giverny’s approach had surged and poured over her.  There were cups clinking and clanging, voices and words of conversations rising over others, giggling, forks and knives twinkling.  Voices merged together to create a choir that was simultaneously filled with harmonies and clashing to overpower one another.  Songs of interchangeable lyrics were created and broken; the choir never lasted long enough to complete them.  

In the midst of the noise,  Giverny came to the realization that her eyes could not find Auden’s face.  As the buzzing of the room became acquainted with her reborn confusion, she looked over his writing for the twentieth time.  “‘To the girl who put salt in my coffee,’” she murmured, like a secret meant for a friend on the playground.  “‘From, the boy who successfully stole… all… your books.’”  She shot her eyes back up.  It was wonderful to see the morning full of the café’s life and the café so full of the morning’s light.  Giverny looked at all of the foreign faces one more time to see if maybe she had missed his.  But after gazing over the room, she already knew he would not be there.  As lovely as that would’ve been, she could tell that he was not a romantic.

Giverny turned away and walked toward the staircase, glistening under the glass ceiling.  Her shoes tapped-tapped over each step with a familiarity of two comrades shaking hands.  Once on the second floor, she intuitively looked to her left to the table at which she had sat during their second encounter.  Where she had kicked his leg and put salt in his coffee.  Her eyes gazed around at the rest of the second floor.  Where she had caught him stealing her books.  Without a doubt, this is where he wants to meet, she decided.  But, the floor was empty.  There was a skip of her heart as Giverny suddenly imagined all of it to be an elaborate prank.  She skimmed the long walkway again.  Once to the left.  Then once to the-

Shoes echoing along the floor.  Steps stopping only three feet away from her.  She stared at him.  He stared at her.

“I was just looking for you,” grinned Auden.  “I suddenly realized our encounters have spanned this entire floor.”  He continued looking at her as he waited for a response.

But, she didn’t say anything.

She just smiled.

[lattemorningwritings]

fifth meeting (second half)

It was almost seven o’clock when Auden turned the last page of Homer’s Odyssey.  The sunset, having turned into a deep orange, was pouring so completely into the café that it looked like a fiery ocean glowing in the last minutes of dusk.  While revisiting an open-ended question for her upcoming quiz, Giverny heard a sigh across the table for two.  She looked up.  He was laying back against the chair with a softly tired smile on his face.  The book was clutched over his chest.

“Did you like it?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said.

She stared at him as she attempted to see clearly through her confusion just what was happening in front of her and what she was expecting to happen.  Was she supposed to send a jest at him? Say something clever, something that would make him roll his eyes? Should she grab at the book that he had stolen from her?

“Auden,” she finally said.

He was already looking at her.

“What am I supposed to say right now?”

Shifting the book and furrowing his eyebrows, he suddenly felt a little exposed for what she was trying to figure out, he was as well.  Still holding the book as if it were a baby, he leaned forward to take a long sip of his drink and while the cup inched closer to emptiness, he stared off at the window no longer glowing under a sunset; his face looked like a student’s unbelieving in the answer of a math equation given by the teacher.

Giverny shook her head with a bewildered smile before deciding to say something.  “Is that your first book from the ones you took from me?” His eyes slid up at her.  After his lips left the straw, he sat back against the chair and said, “this is my seventh.”

“What?!”

Yanking herself to an upright position with incomprehensive eyes, she stared at him as if he’d just pulled his head off his neck.  Auden lifted an eyebrow and smirked.  “I’m a little disappointed in you, Giverny.  Didn’t you know I was an English major too?”

She sat back.  “I guess not.”

On his lips this time was a small, friendly grin - a grin that once again caused her thoughts to confuse themselves.  Wherever her hands had been resting before, she now found them clasped together in her lap with thumbs twiddling while her brown eyes - narrowed and unsure - stared intensely at the wood of the table.

Glasses jingled behind the coffee bar.

Inhaling deeply and adjusting the book in his arms, Auden said, “if Odysseus stayed with Circe for a whole year, then he probably slept with her, didn’t he?” Giverny’s eyes shot up, blinked twice and then commenced in staring at his own wide, blinking eyes.  In the few seconds she did this, he realized he was holding his breath.

“So…?” he tried.

As if waking from a nap, she gave a twitch of the body while her eyes seemed to turn clear.  “He’s a man, is he not?” she finally replied.  A sneer he released with head thrown to the side.  “Don’t you think that’s kind of stereotypical?” Giverny couldn’t help but roll her eyes.  “If you’ve read even two books of Classic Literature than you’ll know that just about every Greek man is incapable of doing one thing: keeping it in his pants.”  

Sighing, he knew that she was right.  “Then, wouldn’t that make his whole reunion with his wife a little spoiled? She’s back home guarding off a hundred-and-eight men and then you learn her husband who’s supposed to be so in love with her is spending his time in bed with another woman.”

The sudden pride she felt showed on her small, sweet grin.  “Even I forgot the number of suitors Penelope had after reading the book.”  

“It was a shocking number to me,” he replied.

“That might be because you haven’t read enough Classic Literature.”

“Actually,” he said as he adjusted once more, “this is my third pick of that genre.”  

Again was Giverny impressed… and slightly disappointed that she was impressed.  How was she supposed to be his antagonist if he kept delivering to her a small bundle of pride every time he spoke about the books that were important to her?

By the time she caught herself frowning, Auden had already seen it.  “I have a feeling whatever’s making you pout like that involves the guy sitting across from you,” he said with a growing smirk.  She slid her eyes upward, feigning annoyance.  There was a feeling that he wasn’t going to get a verbal response and so as the book was placed on his lap, he said, “are all the Greek couples like that? Woman waits for man, man sleeps with other women but at the same time loves only one?” The air-quotes he inserted at the word loves made her chuckle.  He chuckled with her.  “It’s either that or the man takes advantage of the woman and calls it love,” she answered.

He furrowed his eyebrows.  “There has to be one nice story.”

She took a moment to think through all the myths she had read and studied.  Seeing this, Auden turned his attention to drinking his cappuccino before the ice cubes melted completely.  With the glass in his hand, he looked out the window now blanketed in the purple of night.  The empty parking lot could be seen, trees swaying gently to and fro in the evening breeze.  Off to the side he could hear the light tapping of keyboards and distant shuffling of footsteps.  After letting out a slow breath, he realized how at peace he was.  

“Wait, Auden.  I remember some.”

At the sound of his name from a voice he didn’t realize was so familiar, he whipped his head back around to find Giverny with elbows on the table and face somewhat obscured behind her hands.  His attention prompted her to continue.  “There’s Orpheus and Eurydice, Cupid and Psyche.”  She scrunched her eyebrows.  “There’s… umm…”

He began to laugh.  Glancing at him with a confused look, she waited for an explanation.  “Giverny,” he said, “if you’re having trouble after naming two couples, then I think it’s safe to say Greek mythology lacks a bit in romantic, happily-ever-after stories.”  She replied, “it’s taking me some time to remember their names, but I know there are more.”  

“You can admit it to me that you’ve given up, it’s okay,” he jested.

“I haven’t-”

She stopped at the sound of his laugh.  What she heard was something as light as a summer breeze and resembling the chirping of a baby bird.  She saw his head tilt to the side with thinning eyes looking off to the side, the smile on his face beaming under the warm lights of the café.  It stunned her.

When he stopped laughing, he said, “I’m pretty sure I’ve never met anyone as stubborn as you.  You should put it on your résumé, at the bottom under Special Skills-”

“Okay, okay,” she cautioned as she rolled her eyes.  Auden resumed his laughter.  Exasperated, Giverny turned away and shook her head, as if he’d just told her a terrible dad joke - which, by the way he was laughing, seemed as if he did just tell his best dad joke.  “I have no idea what’s going on in that brain of yours,” she sighed.  With the last of his laughter, he looked at her until she turned to look back.  When she did, he gave that soft, boyish grin she’d seen at the start of the evening.

“Good things, Giverny,” he said.  “Good things.”

She felt defeated.

So, she grinned back.

[lattemorningwritings]

fifth meeting (first half)

Sitting on the bed in his five-hundred-square-foot apartment, Auden flipped yet another page of The Odyssey by Homer.  On his small bedside table was a cup of coffee and plate of orange slices glowing in the early afternoon sunlight.  

He had been reading since waking up at eight o’clock and had even eaten his lunch of pasta whilst bent over the book.  The bed had never been accompanied this long before, the comforter, blanket, and pillows wrinkled from the constant shifting of his body through the hours.  

As he plucked an orange slice, he leaned toward the table without letting his eyes move off the words he was reading.  He bit into it, savoring the sweet juice that surprised his taste buds.  Another page was turned.  “Poor guy,” he grinned to himself.  Suddenly, Auden glanced up at the wooden clock hanging on the wall facing him - it was two-twenty.  “It’s only been two hours?” he said as he remembered how leisurely slow lunchtime had went.  He had never read an Epic Greek poem before and trying to comprehend the prose - with its long, lyrical descriptions and numerous mythical references - had taken so much of his concentration that his pasta had even gone cold.  Apparently, he was still struggling.  How long does it take her to read these things? he suddenly wondered.  An eruption of embarrassment took him off guard then.  Here he was - the guy who had stolen just about every piece of literature the girl needed just to further irk her the way she had irked him - reading those same pieces with so much more enthusiasm than he could’ve ever predicted; in the comfort of his home and under the soft touch of light, a plate of sweet oranges that seemed to surround him in its aroma, reading a book that was as adventurous as any video game he’d ever played, Auden couldn’t deny the amount of happiness he was feeling in this moment.     

Even though the book he was reading was the only one he’d touch today, from the pile he had taken home it was certainly not the first.  Two days after meeting Giverny, he kept finding himself gazing boringly at the numerous novels stacked on his kitchen counter.  Perhaps it was inevitable that he would walk over with the caution of a burglar, trace a finger over the different titles and then pick one up from the top of the stack.  What he couldn’t have predicted was the amount of interest that would burst through his mind as he began reading through the books.  The Odyssey was, so far, his seventh book from the twenty-one he had taken and the third one from the collection of classic literature.  “I haven’t read like this for a long time,” he murmured as he began a new chapter.  As he popped his legs out from underneath him to stretch, he looked up at the remaining books still on the counter and caught a glance at the streams of dust trailing toward them along pale sun rays.  It enchanted him.  

By the time the clock changed to four-ten, Auden was only a hundred-and-fifty pages away from the end.  However, he couldn’t push away the fact that his eyelids had become heavier.  “But I need to finish this book,” he mumbled as a hand swept across his eyes.  With his head slightly turned, he saw his coffee cup.  Why don’t I take a trip to the café?

And then he thought, maybe I’ll see her.

It sped across his mind so quickly, he didn’t even have time to be surprised.

Arriving at the library by five-thirty, Auden got out of the car and was met by the beginning of a sunset - the soft orange and yellow of sky behind a sun that seemed to be growing larger and brighter as its end drew near.  

The library’s atmosphere was immediately touching when he walked in.  As expected, there weren’t many visitors to be seen.  The lines of books stood quietly in their places beneath the warm glow of both the overhead lights and sun, jazz music crooned gently above, and the shuffling of shoes could be heard from hidden figures behind bookshelves.  

He strolled toward the café with The Odyssey tucked under an arm.  Surrounded by windows, the remaining sunlight shone through much of the space like a child trying to get the attention of her mother; he had to squint his eyes when looking around for a seat.  Besides him there were four tables occupied by students and their typing, scribbling of notes, and chatting brought life into the room.  “What can I get for you?” asked the barista.

“An iced hazelnut cappuccino, please.”

Turning around as he waited, he scanned aimlessly the faces dispersed across the tables.  Despite the sun’s glare, the lights above were bright and warm enough that he could distinguish slightly the features of each person.  As his eyes moved here and there, Auden could hear two female voices talking to his right.

“Are you serious…”

“Isn’t it strange…”

“Wait, you guys saw each…”

His ears perked up.  I know one of those voices, he realized.  Spinning his head around, he saw in the corner two women sitting at a table - one’s face he could see, one he could not.  The women facing him he did not recognize.  Knowing this, Auden moved his attention to the person whose back was facing him.  Her brown hair was tied into a messy bun, a green sweater of some kind blended with the glowing orange of the sunset, and her voice…

“Here’s your cappuccino.”

The words spun him back around and he took his much-desired coffee.  Immediately, his lips closed over the straw and when he took a sip, the gratification made him feel as bright as the sun rays behind him.  Awake again with a new burst of life, Auden searched for a place to sit.  He ambled around the center of the room for a little bit, wondering if he should just plant himself here, if he should forget about the strangeness in the woman’s voice and get on with his book.  But, when he took a seat in front of the windows, he instantly stood back up.  Then, he turned around and walked toward an empty table in the corner right beside the two strangers.  He sat down in the chair facing the rest of the café.  Facing her.

“Giverny?” asked her friend.

She had seen him the moment he turned around to sit, had seen his iced coffee, his blonde hair shining in the last of the sunlight, and above all, the book tucked in his arm.  When he lifted up his head, she realized that he had chosen that spot because he somehow learned that she was sitting here.  He was staring at her as intently as she was at him, but while she knew the look in her eyes was one of shock, the expression she saw on his face was something she’d never seen before: a soft, boyish smile.  As if he was glad to see her.

Before she could do anything, he pulled his olive green eyes away from her and onto the book.  “Giverny,” her friend sang with big, confused eyes.  She looked back.  “Sorry, Irene.”  

“You looked like you saw a ghost,” she said.

“I did?”

“Yeah, your eyes grew and grew like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.  I think your face even turned pale.”  Giverny let out a laugh.  

“You and your exaggerating.”

“I’m only telling you what I saw,” she replied, her eyebrows creased and lips pouted from feeling perplexed at her friend’s words.  A glance Giverny stole at him.  When her eyes slid down toward the book, they widened at the amount of pages that had been read.  With a head spinning in so many thoughts, she attempted to focus back on her friend.

After an hour of going over notes, Irene had to head back home.  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” they both said to one another, jolly smiles on the faces of close friends.  Giverny waved good-bye as she walked further and further away and didn’t turn back around until she had disappeared past the front doors.  

In a swift turn, she found herself facing him again.  But, he was looking at the book.  With a pout and slitted eyes that expressed suspicion, she looked at him until deciding to do something more: she slid into the seat opposite him.  Auden’s head shot up.  

“Yo,” she said.  Confused, repetitive blinks were given back to her.  “I didn’t know you said things like yo,” he smirked.  Her eyes widened in shock.  The smirk pulling at his lips was unlike the other ones before; it was quite pleasant to look at.  Suddenly, a surge of heat raced up inside to settle on her cheeks, causing her to glance down at a slit of sunlight resting on the table.

Auden didn’t notice.  As her eyes slid away, he straightened up, crossed his arms on the table and looked back at his place in the book.  When she heard the turning of a page, Giverny raised her head.  

And her cheeks turned rosier.

[lattemorningwritings]

fourth meeting

You keep stealing my things.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Auden whilst rolling his eyes.  It had been two days since their last meeting - a meeting that had ended with her eating the rest of his lunch and him walking out of the library without the date he’d come in with.  “As if it’s all my fault,” he mumbled.  He wasn’t the one who put salt in her coffee, he wasn’t the one eating another person’s half-finished sandwich, and he certainly wasn’t the one chasing off a stranger’s date.  “You also kicked my leg, might I remind you,” he growled as he yanked a book off a shelf.  

During the two days he had to think over how to combat his situation, he decided to start off with some research.

“A french-asian girl with brown hair and is an English major?”

“Yeah, does anyone come to mind?”

His friend, Jackson, rubbed a hand across his chin as he went through his memory.  “Maybe I haven’t seen her ‘cause she’s not in the same year as me.  Remember I’m only a Junior,” he answered.  Auden couldn’t help a sigh.  “But,” he chirped, “you said you guys keep seeing each other at the library?”

“Strangely enough.”

With eyes sliding up, his friend pondered a little.  “Then why don’t you ask Chelsea? She works there.”

So, he asked Chelsea.

She was signing off cables and containers of dry erase markers when he strode up to the help desk.  It took her a second to recognize her high school classmate.  “Auden! How are you?” she said with bright, swirling eyes.  “In need of your help, actually,” he replied.

“Oh! What’s up?”

He relayed his words to Jackson to her.  After he finished, the chocolate in her eyes was glowing with recognition.

“You’re talking about Giverny,” she said.  He twitched.  

“Giverny?”

“Yeah, she comes here more than anyone else.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she could navigate this place blindfolded.”  

It was an epiphany, as if all of the sun’s rays were suddenly shining against his back, a holy grail of light washing over his entire being.  Auden couldn’t resist his smirk.  “You wouldn’t happen to know what classes she’s taking?” he said.

She did.

Now two days later and back in the library, he was roaming the floors in search of every single piece of literature she could need for her three classes.  That was his plan: to starve her of the things she needed the most (at least in her academia).  He might as well; he keeps stealing her things.  

 “There you are,” he grinned, taking off Ulysses Annotated from its slot and piling it on his small stack of books.  “Hey, they’re all here.”  Ulysses Unbound, James Joyce’s Ulysses: A Study, Dubliners…

Whistling Fly Me to the Moon, Auden took a final look over the titles before agreeing with himself that the ones he’d collected were satisfactory and walking off to gather the books of her third and last class - The Year of Modernist Masterpieces.  Once he made it to the other side of the second floor, he dropped his pile onto the wooden floor and stretched out his arms.  “Mr. Cummings, let’s start with you,” he murmured.  With sparking eyes, he began his search.  

“The Enormous Room, The Enormous Room: Annotated Edition, Complete Poems…” Once he had finished with the poet and had picked up a few other novels he’d recognize from the list a professor had given, he searched for Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time before striding to Virginia Woolf’s section.  “Man, she has a lot,” he uttered.  His second pile was put to rest on the floor as he crouched down to look at all of the titles.  After plucking five books, he stood back up to stretch his legs.  

That was when he saw her.

Auden whipped his head to the side.  Giverny had her head barely tilted and eyebrows creased.  “Auden?” she said.  His eyes grew wide.  She knows my name?

Her eyes then glided down to his hands and his two piles of books spanning the length of the space they were standing in.  Squinting, she could read some of the titles.  “The Iliad, Aeneid, The Enormous Room, Mrs. Dalloway.  Why are you… why do you have so many books?”

He held his breath.  Then, he shrugged as innocently as he could.  “I have a lot to catch up on.  You should know about us English-”

“Wait,” she said.

His eyes widened.  Taking a step closer, Giverny slightly lowered her head at the books in his hands.  The scent of pineapples greeted him.  Then, her body flung back up.

“Holy shit,” she growled.  “These are the books for my courses.”  He made sure to keep his composure as the gaze in her eyes flared.  “What the hell are you doing with all of my books?”

He would have been lying to himself if he believed he had imagined this scenario as a potential consequence of his attempt at revenge.  Of course he had learned from Chelsea the days and times of her classes; he learned them to specifically ensure that the thing unfolding before him now wouldn’t unfold, wouldn’t reveal itself as a snake ready with its poisonous bite.  Apparently, the french girl really does come here a lot.  So much that she’s willing to skip her-

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class right now?” he said.  Whether his tone sounded playful or on the verge of irritated, he couldn’t tell.  The way Giverny reacted was as if he had suddenly spoken to her in Japanese instead of English.  “How do you know I have a class at ten-thirty?” He blinked twice.  “How do you know my name?” he countered.  Her mouth opened and then shut.  Catching this, Auden knew the best thing he could do was wait until she cracked first.  As the silence began to grow, he spotted a student walking down the aisle seemingly a mile away from them carrying a bag of fast food.  The smell of fries was instant.  When his eyes returned to the girl, he could see that she was thinking.

Finally, she sighed.  “The cashier in the café told me because I asked him about the person who took the last bacon and egg sandwich.  He must’ve felt awkward because he also gave me the name.”  

“And how did you know it was my name?” he wondered with lifted eyebrows.  Giverny looked off to the side with slitted eyes.  “I just had a feeling,” she grumbled.  Unknowingly, he showed off a shy, but genuine smile.  When she saw it, she didn’t know how to react.  “I guess my sudden presence in your life has taken a greater effect on your subconscious than we both could’ve predicted.”  All at once, her annoyance resurfaced.  “I’ve answered your question, now answer mine.”

With a tight jaw, he sighed before sliding his eyes sideways and clutching tighter his (or her) books.  He then looked back at her and suddenly felt positively mischievous.  “I’m taking all of these books.  And I’m taking them not because I need them, but because you do.”

She took in a sharp breath.  “You prick,” she uttered.

Her irritation spurred his sense of rascality, growing into his playful, sly smirk that never failed to irk her.  “You told me I keep stealing your things,” he replied, “so here I am.  Stealing your things.”  His tone, made to feign naiveté, was the pair of tweezers pinching deeply into Giverny’s skin - her jaw tightened, the muscles in her face twitched - and how desperate she was to wipe that smirk off his face, to remind him of how effective her kick was, to snatch those precious books from his hands and smack him with them.  

Auden watched all of these thoughts pass over her face and knew that what she was looking back at was a sense of revengeful accomplishment; he could do nothing to hold it back.  As he adjusted the books in his hands, he let out a scoff.  “Obviously, you’re going through a major inner conflict right now so why don’t I take your- oh sorry, my books downstairs and leave you to it?”

Giverny watched as he turned around.  Feeling her glare on his back, he tucked his head into his proud smile and then straightened up as if preparing for a performance.  Her eyes never left him as he picked up his piles of books along the aisle.  When he turned toward her, his chin was resting on the stack.  She wanted to tell him then how impractical his endeavor was - why on earth would any librarian allow that many books to be borrowed - and how idiotic he looked in this moment, that he was the fool.  She wanted to open her mouth and let the words fly out, but she knew that her irritation would only show through and that it would encourage him even more.  

“See you later, Giverny,” he said before turning away.

With shocked eyes and a dropped jaw, she stared after him as he disappeared behind the bookshelves.

[lattemorningwritings]

third meeting

She hadn’t eaten anything since seven-thirty a.m.  And now that it was two o’clock, Giverny could think of nothing else but biting into soft, chewy bread and greasy meat and egg that would slip like a silk robe over her tongue.  It was almost as if she was hallucinating a bacon and egg sandwich floating in front of her - maybe it had eyes and a cute smile and voice that was beckoning her to reach for it.  Nothing mattered but putting food into her stomach.  She thought that if she didn’t eat at this very moment, her stomach would eat itself.

“Next, please!”

The line moved up.  Why hadn’t she listened to her mother this morning when she suggested bringing a small lunch in the case her meeting with her professor stretched on unexpectedly? Why had she been so confident that it would all go according to plan? She never imagined that a seven-thirty meeting that was supposed to just be a catch-up over her progress in preparing for her Spring semester in Athens, Greece would go on until her ten-thirty class.  And she never imagined that after having left class at eleven-forty-five, her study group would call up an urgent meeting to try to collectively finish their fifteen-page essay (why is it always fifteen?), a meeting that she could have declined, but was too good of a student, apparently to do so.  She could have brought a snack, could have said no.  Why was it three hours? Why didn’t I bring some Chex Mix? Aren’t my hands shaking, oh why couldn’t I just have grabbed somethi-

“I can help whoever’s next!”

That’s me, that’s me.  Giverny knew that if she really wanted to she could have her brain kick itself for the rest of the day, but every negative thought died right then as she paced up to the cashier.  “Hi,” she panted, “could I have a bacon and egg sandwich?”

“Let me check if we still have some.”

What?

Her wobbling eyes slid along with the cashier as he looked somewhere behind the counter.  With her breath caught in her chest, she waited.  He stood back up to face her.  “Unfortunately, we’ve just given out our last one for the day.”  

She blinked once.  A heavy, slow, unbelieving blink.  The employee hopped on his toes in the strange silence.  “M’am, is there anything else you would like? I can check if we ha-”

“Who bought the last one?” she spoke.

“Pardon?”

“The last sandwich.  Do you know who bought it?” As bizarre as she sounded, there was a terrible feeling deep inside of her as the words rolled off her dry tongue.  With flustered cheeks, the employee excused himself to find out.  At the same moment he came back, she already knew.

“A young man bought the bacon and egg along with two coffees.”

A young man…

The cashier did not like the silence.  “His name was Auden, I’ve been told.”

“Auden?” she heard herself murmur.  He nodded.  “Right.  Thank you.  Sorry about that.”  Backing away for the next customer, Giverny stood at the side with blank eyes staring at a stranger’s shoes.  How was she so sure that the young man named Auden was the same prick she had encountered twice now? What was that portentous gut feeling she had felt when the cashier brought back to her his answer? She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh.  Well, it didn’t matter - she was too hungry to do either.

Giverny forced herself up the stairs.  A zombie dragging one leg onto each step, she went up and up until meeting the second floor where a soft drone of voices floated through the air.  She had no idea why she was up here.  Where she should be is back down in the café ordering something else.  I must be malfunctioning, she thought.  Her body tilted toward the right, toward the sound of a cheery, sweet laugh that could only be produced from a flirting heart.  And when she looked, her head cleared.

It was him.  The prick who had snatched her book and teased her was sitting at a small table for two some yards away with… a girl - a girl with blonde hair as light as his, both laughing at something he had said.  Giverny, standing there stunned, could only see the side of his face, but couldn’t deny that flash of recognition when she had spotted him.  There he was, as gross and real as ever.  And there it was.

Leaning forward and squinting her eyes, she could see it.  My fucking sandwich.  Her head was shaking back and forth before she knew it.  A flabbergasted smile was stuck to her lips and her mind unable to process what was happening before her.  Was this heaven giving her a chance at revenge or was she being made fun of? There suddenly appeared ten possibilities of what she could do, of how she could turn his entire day upside down.  Or, she could just walk away.  That was the eleventh possibility.

“I’m already hysterical as it is,” she said.  So, she ducked behind the bookshelves to think of a scheming plan.

Her striding took her past the familiar arrangement of half-empty tables and bean bags tucked at the corners of random bookshelves.  Quickly closing the distance between herself and the happy couple, she started hearing clearer the girl’s bouncing laugh.  A devious grin stole onto her face.  

Through the spaces of the bookshelves, she suddenly spotted their table.  Giverny stopped.  At her height she could see them perfectly - the two sweet kids chatting and drinking their coffees over a bacon and egg sandwich that was sitting there half-eaten.  He’ll drink enough of that coffee, she contemplated, to have to use the bathroom soon enough.  I’ll just have to wait until then.  

Fifteen minutes were spent lying on her back, wandering on her phone when she heard the hushed squeak of a chair being pushed back.  His voice she could hear as if from far away.

“I’ll be right back.”

Giverny immediately stood up.  Brushed herself off and took a deep breath.  She waited until he disappeared behind a bookshelf before turning herself around the corner.  The table was only four steps away.  The girl looked up from her phone as Giverny closed the remaining space.

Feigning ignorance, she tilted her head.  “Who are you?” The girl’s eyebrows furrowed.  “I was about to ask you the same question,” she said.

Giverny couldn’t help a knowing grin.  “I’m Auden’s girlfriend.”

There was an echoing of voices far down the corridor on both sides as she watched the girl’s face twist in confusion.  “I’m sorry, what-”

“That idiot who’s clearly two-timing us.  I’m his girlfriend,” she reiterated, her voice dressed in an amusement she was trying hard to hide.  The words seemed to push her back in her seat.  “Oh my god,” she spoke as she began gathering her things, “I am so, so sorry.  I had no idea.”

“You and me both,” Giverny sighed.  The girl glanced at her as she pulled her bag over her shoulder and stood up.  When they locked eyes, Giverny almost spilled out her secret.  “Don’t worry, I’m disappearing like the light of day.  I’m so sorry…”

She gave a real, reassuring smile.  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”  The girl managed a shy, tight-lipped smile in return before turning away to dash for the staircase.  Giverny watched her, feeling a little bad.  But as soon as she turned back to the table, all thought vanished.

My fucking sandwich.

When Auden returned, she was taking her fourth bite.  His eyes shot open.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!”

He was fuming and she could tell.  More than that, he was bewildered because how on earth-

“-Are you here? How in the devil’s name are you here right now?” he barked.  Giverny could not restrain from taking her last bite of the sandwich.  Her unresponsiveness strangled him.  She took a napkin to wipe her lips before finally answering him.  “Aren’t you going to ask about your date?”

He stared in shock.  She stared back.  The voices and noises of the café from the first floor faded in and out around them.  Through the glass ceiling, the thick sunlight was pouring.  “Why are you doing this to me?” he finally said.  Giverny’s teeth clenched.  Then, her face turned calm, almost cold.

“You keep stealing my things.”

[lattemorningwritings]

second meeting

On a Tuesday a week after the unfortunate encounter Giverny had, she returned to the library to push out a paper she’d been avoiding for the past few days.  After getting herself a mocha and cheese danish from the café, she moved to the second floor and found a seat at a long empty table where there was a clear view of the staircase and the tiled path that disappeared into an array of bookcases glowing under warm lights.  She took her time in setting out her things.

Now that she was in her last semester at university, the pile of work had become endless.  If she wasn’t cranking out another paper about another book she was out buying things to prepare for her Spring semester abroad or meeting with her three different study groups every other week.  Or, she was at the library.  

She was fueled by power naps and cups of coffee and the exciting future of becoming a Classic Literature professor, and there wasn’t a better place to pursue all of those things than the library.  Specifically, the one she was sitting in right now.  

The place had been a special project between the university and city to create a meeting grounds for both the students and public - a place where productivity from all corners could thrive - and had replaced one of the Engineering buildings that had stood at the core of the college campus.  Of modern design that emphasized warm tones, on the inside its impressively high glass ceilings brought onto the four floors plenty of bright air to breathe and meant that thousands of books could be put on display - from the very bottom of the floor to the very bottom of the sky.  Ladders climbed as far as the neck could stretch and it was always a sight to be on one of the upper floors and spot someone climbing it.  And though it was empty today, Giverny’s hazelnut eyes still searched, not wanting to yet look at the mess of research notes in her folder.  

After finishing her cheese danish, she decided it was time to get started.  As her notes were taken out and organized across her space of the table, the morning sun above disappeared behind thick grey clouds that wouldn’t leave until tomorrow, and turned the library cozily dim.  She opened up her laptop and began to type.

By the time she was on her fourth page, her coffee had emptied and the table was no longer hers alone.  

Her eyes glided up at the figure blocking her view of the stairs and sky.  Auden glanced back with cunning eyes before taking a seat on the bench opposite her with the book she had lost flashing in his hands.

“Que diable?” she heard herself say in French.

“What’s that?”

Giverny clenched her teeth as she watched that smirk curve on his lips again.  Without looking at her, he cracked open the book’s spine - slowly enough that the sound seemed to cry out to her - and then began to read where he had left off.  She realized her eyes were glued to the smooth white pages.

“Your French sounds authentic,” he suddenly said.  She didn’t bother looking up.  “I was born in France and moved here when I was seven.”  Hearing his movement, she looked up.  His empty blinking gave away his confusion.  “Yes, I’m Korean,” she said before he could ask, “but my parents had me in France.”  

“Where in France?”

Slightly surprised he didn’t ask for more, she felt somewhat silly, as if she’d predicted something wrong.  “A tiny town.  Eguisheim.”

There wasn’t an expression she could read on his face as he took in her answer.  Instead, he simply nodded and then returned his eyes to the book.  It ticked her off.  Taking a deep breath with closed eyes, Giverny tried to focus on the sound of the keyboard under her fingertips.  Then-

“I felt bad that you were here all alone looking like you had no friends so I’m actually sitting here for your benefit.”

When she swung her leg against his, he was smiling deviously at the book.  A small cry shot up his throat as the kick forced his knee to hit the table.  Giverny held her breath to keep herself from bursting into proud laughter.  Instead, she gave her own smirk at him before looking back at her laptop.  Groaning at the shockful pain, Auden gave her his sharpest glare yet.

“I played soccer from the tender age of eight to fifteen,” she disclosed.

“Did they kick you out for abusing the other girls?” he growled.

“I never kicked them.  Just you.”

He scoffed.  While he rubbed his leg and she sorted through her notes, a group of four adults - apparently on a double date - joined the table for brunch, bringing with them the smell of fresh coffee and bread.  As Giverny’s glance slid from them to the blonde boy, she caught his own eyes looking cravingly at the plates of food and cups.  She felt herself smirk again, knowing the pain he was in at this very moment.  

The slow arrival of noon brought with it more people into the library - people who were free from their classes or officework wishing to breathe in the library’s scent of new books and sandwiches.  From the second floor, they could hear the growing noise of voices and the tip-tap-tip-tap of shoes and the bursting of the once-sleeping espresso machine.  It was what Giverny thought heaven to sound like.

As the sounds ballooned and ballooned, she started to find it harder to concentrate on her assignment.  Since the blonde prick sat across from her she had managed to write another three pages, which was not close enough to her fifteen-page requirement.  She sat back and sighed.  How about a coffee break? Nodding to herself, she pushed her chair back whilst picking up her empty coffee to throw away.  “Where are you going?” Auden asked, glancing up.  

“Coffee.”

“Can you get me something?” Giverny’s mouth opened.  Then closed.

“Like what?”

Auden didn’t look surprised.  In fact, he looked almost like he was pleading.  “A hot caramel latte.  And some avocado toast.”  Giverny revealed to him a twitch of her eyes before pacing away toward the staircase.  He didn’t even catch it.

She returned ten minutes later with his order and her own iced caramel latte.  The green of the avocado and sheen white of the egg on top instantly caught Auden’s attention, his hands reaching out for the plate before she even placed it on the table.  His drink was given and she sat back down with her lips over her straw and eyes scanning her notes.  The two couples beside them could be heard laughing quietly.  

Sitting back and allowing herself to relax for a little bit, Giverny sipped on her drink while staring blankly at the light wood of the table.  But when Auden reached for his coffee, she suddenly glanced up.

He raised it to his lips.  Gulped.

And then his eyes cracked wide open in shock.  

WHY IS THERE SALT IN HERE?!

At the first rush of coughs, their neighbors jumped in their seats and whipped their heads at him.  The sounds were sharp against his throat, bellowing amidst the rest of the noise, and even though he tried to keep from spitting up the drink, a thin stream of coffee dribbled down his chin.  His bloodshot eyes snapped up at Giverny.  

“Go (pant) to (pant) hell (pant).”

He watched as a smirk pulled at a corner of her lips.  There was blood boiling inside of him now, the heat under his skin almost vibrating from the amount of aggravation he felt toward this girl who had put SALT into his goddamn coffee.  He didn’t know how his scowl looked, but he hoped it would burn right through her.

“Go to hell,” he repeated, softly enough for only her to hear.  Her eyes were bright with guile.

“Next time, don’t steal my book.”

And then she returned to her paper.

[lattemorningwritings]

first meeting

She needed that book like she needed her lungs.  Pacing along the bright wooden floors of the library, Giverny had herself scanning bookcase after bookcase at the speed of a grocery cashier on a Sunday afternoon for those perfect five words of that perfect, unreachable book.  

Aristotle’s Teaching in the ‘Politics’.

The place was unnaturally busy for a weekday - men and women in dark suits blending with college students carrying backpacks, laptops and coffee cups dispersed over every table, twinkling voices echoing along the staircase that spanned four floors.  The sound of books snapping shut, their spines cracking open after patiently waiting, fingers skimming cream pages.  Fingers typing away.  Footsteps like a horse’s hoofs over the stairs.  More voices.

There was laughter ringing from the first floor while the gushing of the café’s espresso machine noisily moved its way around it.  A group of students on lunch break were migrating to one of the above floors in the hopes of finding a table empty enough to house them all, and the clicking and clucking of their shoes was one of the friendliest sounds the library had to offer.

Dashing above them on the second floor was Giverny.  With her white top and shoes and short hair flying in her wind, she looked like a ghost about to miss the boat trip back home, and as she zoomed by each table, heads went up.  

Where are you, where are you, where are you, where are you.

Afternoon sunlight spilled through the glass ceiling, its rays pale and soft and full of joy.  The open space and all of its dwellers were basking in it - faces tilted up and hands stretched out to feel the warmth.  People passing by could see students lying on the floors as if the only thing they were missing in their sunbathing experience was the sea.  Businessmen and women seemed to enjoy the Autumn sun the most, their bodies so used to the dull white lights of the office finally getting to taste something warm.  

Giverny halted.  Traced back her steps to a bookcase lined with white books.  Approaching it, she surveyed the titles with her heart in her throat.  Categories by Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics by Aristotle, Economics by Aristotle, Magna Moralia by Aristotle, Problems, Sophistical Refutations…

She reached the end of the bookcase.  

“Wait, what?”

There was no book with those perfect five words.  

A long sigh droned out of her.  She tilted her head back to feel the sunlight.  Then realized she was standing away from the glass ceiling.  As her head rolled back down, Giverny’s face couldn’t resist a frown that stretched from her forehead to her lips - everything scrunching together until she looked like a revived grandmother unhappy with what the gods gave her as a second life.  

Slowly, the grandmother stalked off.  Back by the staircase and under the sunlight, Giverny stared at the path lined with bookcases seeming to continue right through the building’s walls.  My book is here somewhere.  Here somewhere is my book.  My book, somewhere, is here.  Slowly, the grandmother stalked off.

Meanwhile, Auden was sprawled between bookcases on the third floor, an iced hazelnut latte sitting beside his head and a textbook opened on his stomach.  His eyes were drawing squiggly lines across the ceiling.  He had been here since eight a.m., had read three chapters, and was on his second coffee.  Finally caught up on schoolwork, he was now rewarding himself with doing absolutely useless things.  “I’m going to relax for the rest of the day,” he said.  A satisfied smile appeared on his face.  

With his eyes now closed, he began daydreaming about how to spend the remaining hours.  He could grab another late lunch with a friend or have a bite with his mother.  He could finally leave the library for the city outside where the sunlight and clear sky could finally meet him.  He could go home and take a nap or drink even more coffee to prevent himself from taking a nap.  He could… he could…

You need to find the book, idiot.

Auden sat up.  “Oh shit,” he whispered as his eyes looked up at a bookcase.  “Shit, shit.”  The textbook slipped to the floor before being grabbed by his hand and thrown in his backpack.  He took up his drink, slung the bag onto one shoulder and started his way down the aisle.  Sounds of voices murmuring and fingers typing streamed on both sides.  “Where am I supposed to start?” he smirked.  He made a left and emerged into an area of long tables where so many students sat with earphones plugged in and notebooks sprawled open.  The entire wall he was facing was full of windows and the light that struck his eyes surprised him.  He stood there for a moment to take in the productive view before looking for a way back out to the staircase.  

Taking random turns brought him to more wooden bookcases lined with colorful spines; he had forgotten how deep in the wonderful maze he had spent the morning.  Finally, after the fourth turn and a walk down an aisle of Japanese manga, the sunlight met him near the top of the stairs.  Once there, he realized something.

“Why am I here?”

Auden’s head turned from side-to-side - a confused cartoon character looking to and fro.  He stood there a moment hoping that one of the employees would magically appear so that he could ask for help.  When more than a moment passed, he puffed out a breath, took a sip of his latte and then started for the first floor.

The amount of noise doubled when he stepped onto the main floor of the library shared by its university’s students and the city’s people.  Directly in front of him was the source of the noise - a crowd of people taking their picks at a brand new release, their voices mingling giddily.  On his right was the open and sunlit space that served as a café where resided the rest of the bustling noise.  Beside it was a help center.  

“Excuse me,” he said.  A young woman looked up before adjusting her glasses.  Auden did the same with his backpack.  “I’m looking for a book called, Aristotle’s Teaching in the ‘Politics’.  It’s by Thomas Pangle.”  

“One moment.”

After some seconds of rapid typing, the woman darted her bright eyes at him.  “It’s going to be on the third floor in the Philosophy section.  All of the books will be towards the back and on the right if you’re standing at the top of the stairs.”

“Appreciate it,” he grinned.  As he walked back toward the glass staircase, he drank the rest of his latte before tossing it in a trashcan.  Staring at the steps sparkling in the sun, he let out a sigh and started his way back up.

Giverny knew she was in the right place.  Besides the large white letters spelling out Philosophy, she could recognize titles she had heard throughout her classes; everything was Socrates and Aquinas and Platos and Foucault and none of what she was looking for.  I’m starving, she thought.  “What am I doing right now?” she said aloud.  “I need to eat or else I might pass out and forget all about the book.”  She sighed.  Defeated by her stomach’s needs, Giverny sluggishly turned away from the bookcase she’d been inspecting and took one swinging step after another along all the other ones she had passed.  Each case she brushed with a hand as if she were brushing the face of someone after a lover’s quarrel.  Where are you, where are you…

Unknowingly, she turned into a corridor of books.  Whatever sounds that had kept her company on her epic search suddenly disappeared and the realization caused her senses to sharpen - no keyboards, no sips of coffee, no pages turning.  She couldn’t hear anyone whispering or laughing; it was as if the library’s entire population had been abducted.  Feeling cautious and a little silly, Giverny took in her surroundings slowly.  All the way at the end were two students chatting and sitting on the floor against the books.  A sigh was let out.  No longer worried about the idea of being left alone during an alien abduction, she made a turn to leave the corridor.

When she did, she gasped.

Aristotle’s Teaching in the ‘Politics’ by Thomas L. Pangle.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” she began to chant.  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god-”

“It’s you! It’s really you!” Like a baby running to its mother, Giverny snatched the book up in her hands and pulled it into her chest, squeezing it while a giddy smile emerged on her face.

But, that didn’t happen.

What happened was that she did catch the book in her sight and she did reach for it.  And she did find herself chanting as her fingers hovered over the spine of the book she had spent so much time fretting to find.  But-

“What are you doing?”

Her voice came out as a croak.  Giverny’s eyes snapped up from her outstretched hand to the person looking down at her.  Why is this blonde boy’s hand touching MY book?

Auden didn’t answer.  Instead, she felt his hand slightly touch over hers as he curled his fingers onto the book.  “What are you doing?” she repeated in frustration while pushing it back into its slot.  His eyebrows suddenly furrowed in irritation.  “This is my book,” he answered.  “I got it first,” said she.

“Do you have proof?”

“Sorry?”

“Proof.”

“What the-”

“So you don’t then.”

“Are you serious?” Giverny could only stare at him in absurdity.  “Don’t be so callous,” he said before taking another pull at the book.  She shoved it back in.  “Do you even know how to use that word? You’re the one being callous, not me.”  Auden shot a glare at her.  “This is my book,” he repeated.  He tugged at it.  She pushed back.  “I think you’re wrong,” she growled.

Who does she think she is? As his eyes continued to sting at her, he also offered a smirk - a tiny curve of the lips and squint of the eyes that suppressed his irritation.  She only stared back.  

“Look, Amelie-”

“Hey, that’s not my name,” said an appalled Giverny.  Auden’s smirk grew.  “Your hair suggests otherwise.”

“You’ve never watched Amelie, have you?” Her voice was closing in on a shriek now.  All I want to do is take this book and go eat a chicken sandwich and an Oreo milkshake, but instead I have to deal with this?

“Amelie.”

She wanted to spit in his face.

“Look, Amelie,” resumed Auden, “I promise you on any other occasion I’m a perfect gentleman, but it just so happens that right now, in this moment, the book that you’re gripping in such commitment is a book that-”

“I need.  I need this book.”

Giverny’s cutoff startled him.  He took a breath to recompose himself.  “This is a book that I need.  And because I need it in probably a much more urgent way than you do, I am going to take it and get out of your hair.  Alright?” He gave the book a final, harsh tug.  Out it fell safely in Auden’s grip while her own fingers slid off like a figure skater slipping out of formation.  Feeling a sense of victory, he beamed a smile that made Giverny want to kick him where it hurts.  “I’ll bring this book back ASAP, don’t you worry.”

“Go trip down the stairs,” she snarled.

He couldn’t keep from glaring at her.  Then as he walked away, he made sure to put the hand holding the book behind his back, knowing she would stare after it like a child staring at a toy she could not have.  

What a prick, she thought.

What a prick, he thought.

[lattemorningwritings]

Eirey in Dusk

He never knew the names of the birds that liked to raise their voices when Dusk started her course.  More than that, he felt he had never even seen their shapes dashing across the dimming sky.  But, Eirey would recognize their voices anywhere.

They were whistling now - short syllables that bounced across the clear sky like pebbles over a pond, a little haunting, a little soothing - and even though Eirey and Bob were walking over a plain empty of trees, they could still hear the birds’ crystal-clear cries.  “They have to be coming from that forest down there,” observed Bob.  Eirey moved his eyes over the stretch of dim green far away from them.  

When he gazed upward, he caught himself about to open his mouth - how vibrant, yet soft the colors of the sky appeared.  It looked like a smearing of so many fruits - apples, grapes, peaches, oranges, tangerines - all glowing in the sun’s last embrace.  He looked up for a long time.

He was still gazing when he heard Bob let out a long, content sigh.  “This is what fresh air really feels like.”  He dropped his smiling eyes to his friend.  “Perfect view of the sky, no wind, cool air on my skin, birds chirping, earth crackling under our toes…”

“Mother Nature’s showing off,” said Eirey.  

“No doubt about that.”

Their dirt path snaked beyond their field of vision while on both sides stood still the evergreen grass.  The sound of their shoes over the bits of rock and branches did resemble that of a fireplace.  With the birds’ calls, they could have been sitting at a campfire.  When the sun reached its journey’s midpoint, its light suddenly illuminated the entire plain, turning everything to gold.  Eirey and Bob looked at one another, astonished and amused at the light beaming off their skin.  

As their walk slowed, Bob let out another sigh.  “I can see why people move all the way out here.  It’s as peaceful as it gets.”  Eirey’s brown eyes surveyed the one or two houses alight in the distance.  “What if someone lives out here alone?” he said.  The cracking of branches beneath their shoes filled the silence.  “What if someone did live out here alone?”

Eirey looked at his friend.  He looked back.  “What do you think,” continued Bob, “would happen?”

“The first feelings of loneliness? Isolation?” he tried.  When he glanced back, the barista was looking forward.  “The person is probably expectant of that happening, but still moves out anyway.  What’s that like?”

“What’s what like?”

There was a catching sound in the boy’s throat.  He could tell that his thoughts were flowing down a stream of consciousness and worried his words might not make sense, he pulled his eyes back up at the sky, the colors still bathing together.  The trill of a bird echoed over the plain.

“What would it be like,” he finally said, “to not be afraid of loneliness?”

Bob halted.  A few steps ahead, Eirey turned around in confusion.  With the sun shining onto his face and warm eyes, his friend looked almost holy.  “What makes you think the person’s not scared?” Bob asked.  The boy could only blink in response as he tried to pull his thoughts apart from one another.  Around them the sounds of falling night began to stir.  “Well, if the person’s scared, what’s the point in living out here when he knows he might have to hurt?”

Bob gave a small, sad smile.  He then looked out over the plain and all its grass and sounds and light.  “Don’t you think there’s something to be found in all of this?”

Eirey felt his breath stop.  The barista scanned his face for a response before lifting his shoes across the dirt path again.  When he walked by, he gave his shoulder a pat.  The crinkling of earth Eirey could hear once more, now mingling with the sound of a winter breeze.  He looked up at the sky to find that it was almost bare of all its colors.

“The stars are coming out soon,” Bob exclaimed to himself.  Turning around, Eirey found himself stuck to the ground and staring at his friend slowly walking farther away from him.

“My boy, where are you?” he called out before spinning back around.  Eirey looked at him until the first hoot of an owl escaped into the air.  

He looked and looked and looked.

Dusk had ended.

[lattemorningwritings]

Eirey in need of Help

“Wha-what are you doing here?”

Bob stalked through Eirey’s front door and stopped with hands on hips in the middle of his living room, bright and warm from the afternoon light.  His eyes scanned over the small but spacious flat while from behind, the boy stared on in shock.  

The kitchen was dim without a trace of trash or an unwashed plate, the navy blue refrigerator’s hum a pleasant sound.  A small stack of books sat in the middle of the living room’s round coffee table along with an iced coffee dripping from the sun, while on the floor in front of it was a small pillow and novel.  Eirey’s desk was tidy, the couch was bare of life, rows of books lined the floor and bookshelves, the cat was staring up at him-

“Bob, explain yourself.”  The barista whipped around.  Eirey’s voice didn’t sound at all its usual sweet and welcoming tenor, but rather something strained, something barely alive.  

With hands still on hips, he sighed.  “Where have you been, Eirey? I haven’t seen you since Christmas and now my staff’s putting up Valentine’s Day decorations.”  The boy’s eyes dropped to the floor.  “I’m worried sick,” he said.  “I tried convincing myself that you’ve found new people or places to visit, but I can’t get rid of this gnawing that that’s not the case at all, that something terrible’s happened.”

Eirey didn’t know what to do.  His hands hung awkwardly against his sides and his eyes darted here and there, at a loss.  As if she read his mind and was giving him a signal, Aurora left the new visitor’s side and jumped onto the light blue coach.  He followed.  Where he sat, the warmth from the skylight made him remember that too soon, Summer would be back to throw him into the abyss of more idle time and perhaps more loneliness.  

He fixed his gaze on Aurora’s soft white fur, on her translucent whiskers and eyes filled with as much color as gems.  She stared back seemingly in tune with his thoughts.  Then with hands rubbing over his eyes, Eirey tried to explain himself to his one friend.  

“Maybe it is something terrible,” he said with a sad smile that was too weak to last even a second.  Bob walked over and sat on the coffee table across him.  “I cried for the first time in ages in December, just before the holidays.  I thought I was going to explode, my emotions were so charged and confused.  Then after that, everything good and important to me just… fell away.  I haven’t laid a hand on my writer’s journal, haven’t written anything other than the essays for class.  I get up in the morning and can barely work myself to make some coffee or just walk across the street to your place.  I’m tired all the time and constantly angry with myself for not knowing how to fix all of this.  Is it some kind of mental illness? Am I just spent from stress or-”

He let out a sigh and dropped his head into his hands.  The room became so quiet, he felt like he could hear Bob trying to come up with an answer for him.  As he sat there, the heaviness carried by his heart all these past weeks surfaced back from its depths, to remind him that even when he couldn’t see it, it was still there carrying all its ugly, deathless weight.

“Bob,” he choked out, “what am I supposed to do?” There was a swell of sadness inside the barista’s chest.  How was he to help his friend when he couldn’t even himself think of a cause for this change? There is only so much one can say to another in need before their words becoming meaningless, perhaps even harmful.

Squeezing his lips together, Bob attempted aid.  “How long has this been going on, Eirey?” As he sat back and awaited an answer, he suddenly realized something.  “Wait, did it start back when you didn’t visit the shop for those two weeks? Back in November?” Eirey’s head shot up.  The expression on his face showed that it was the first time he had thought of that possibility.  “I almost forgot that happened,” he said.  

“It was strange,” replied Bob.

His brown eyes returned to the white fur of his cat as his mind reassembled the pieces of those feelings he had felt back in late Autumn.  Wasn’t what he was experiencing now just the same?

“But why couldn’t I connect those things together?” he thought aloud.  “Why didn’t I see that the loneliness I was feeling then was connected to what I’m feeling now?” In the crook of an arm resting on his knee, Eirey buried his head.  How foolish he felt; how much ignorance was he living under that he couldn’t even connect two dots that were practically right next to each other? He had no idea the lack of self-awareness that had burrowed itself in his mind.

Bob didn’t think as harshly.  “It was the first time something like that happened to you.  Your brain must’ve logged it as something uncommon and so unlikely to happen again.  It was brushed aside.  That’s completely natural, don’t you think?”

Eirey ran a hand through his thick hair.  “I spent the new year agonized over finding the cause or start of this- this ache only to dig up a bunch of outworn pains that could have stayed in their graves.”  He dragged his head up along his arm, strands of hair gripped by the other.  “And the whole time someone else had the answer.”

“You’re angry then…”

“No.”  He yanked his head out into the air where the sunlight could touch it again and fixed his eyes on the droplets of the iced coffee.  “Well, I don’t know if I am.”  He could feel frustration’s fingers, confusion’s nails, begin to dig into his skin.  “I’m angry, but I don’t think it’s at you.  Or at least, it shouldn’t be because… because that wouldn’t make any sense.  I should be angry at myself then.  I’m always angry at myself, always-”

“Eirey.”

The boy looked at him with wide eyes.  Bob’s were filled with pity.  “Why didn’t you tell me about your loneliness?” An immediate urge to cry rushed up his throat.  He couldn’t move his eyes or body away, as if his friend’s words had paralyzed them.  The stone that had formed around his heart felt more tangible than ever while his thoughts suddenly all turned to dust at the realization that he could have seeked help at the start of all that’s happened.  

He felt like he couldn’t look his friend in the face.  “I didn’t think it would build to anything.  Everyone feels lonely…”

“Not like this, my boy.”

His teeth clenched as he tried holding back tears and the heaving of his chest.  He looked back down at Aurora through the wet haze and began stroking the cloud that was her fur.  “What do I do, Bob?” he asked.  The voice his friend was accustomed to - the sweetness, gentleness of it - had resurfaced.  Bob smiled softly at the familiarity.

“If what you’re experiencing really is just the issue of feeling lonely, we can figure it out step by step.”  Slowly, Eirey’s eyes shifted back to the barista.  “You’re worried it might be something more?” Bob scrunched his eyebrows and grasped onto his neck.  “We don’t want to ignore the possibility of other things growing from your loneliness.  I just don’t want you to hurt even more.”  A shy smile spread on the boy’s lips.  

“Thank you for checking on me.”

Bob smiled back, gave a chuckle, and then took a glance at the iced coffee, cream and all melted from the sun.

“Thank you for letting me.”  

[lattemorningwritings]

Eirey?

Eirey spent Christmas alone.  When midnight rang around the city, he sat in front of his living room window with Aurora and watched the red and gold fireworks trickle through the sky.  His visits to the Glass Café dwindled until it became a rarity to see himself walking across the street toward that sunlight and coffee-filled glass box to spend some time writing or chatting with his dear friend.  Once school started again, he unpacked the same things he had packed the semester before onto his library desk that served as his tutoring office.  He saw familiar faces throughout his classes, but never said hello.  When lunchtime came around, he rejected the bustling cafeteria for the quiet space between the bookshelves of the library - ate his burger and fries whilst reading another book propped up on his knees.  Since the start of a new semester saw very few students seeking tutoring, he got to go home by dinner-time and spent the rest of the evening cradling Aurora and staring out the living room window.  

When he woke up, it happened all over again.

January passed this way.  By the time the freezing winter winds weakened to a more welcoming company, Eirey realized that since his breakdown back in December, his writer’s journal had remained untouched.  Whenever he thought of this, he cried.

His brother’s visit so many weeks ago felt like a dream gradually falling apart.  Charlie never reached out again; he was nowhere to be found, as if the person who knocked on his door was only ever a ghost.  Eirey tired the quickest from this.

It was strange going about his days, feeling the way he did.  Every morning saw him getting up from bed, but the person that threw the blankets off, swung his legs out and started his day felt like a mere silhouette, while his soul-self was still there, lying in bed.  He wasn’t sure if he was developing depression, if a mental illness was to blame for all of this.  He didn’t know if it was because he missed his family or missed something he had back in his old life when he was still living with his parents and was still loved by them.  Was he just tired or stressed… would it be something as simple as that…

Whatever it was, he couldn’t see himself beating it.

[lattemorningwritings]

Eirey in the Morning

Eirey sat up in the sunbathed sheets of his bed.  He reached for his writer’s journal on the stool that made up his bedside table.  He pulled open the cover.  Brushed through the pages.  Beside him, Aurora purred.  

The journal was smacked shut in one hand and placed back on the stool.  Reading his writing, his ideas, he felt something close to hatred and knew that today nothing good was going to come out of his writer’s brain, and it wasn’t going to be worth a try.  

Just like every day, he fixed his bed, freshened up, threw on sweats and a blue t-shirt, and walked into the small square he called the hallway.  His eyes glanced at the mirror and he almost sneered: he looked exactly how he felt.

He hadn’t bothered to brush his thick hair, leaving it to look like newly-spun cotton candy.  His eyelids looked unusually weighed down, eyes of brown filled with fatigue.  The outfit chosen didn’t help in the slightest, the sweats and shirt hanging off him carelessly, perhaps even sulkily.  

I can’t do this to myself.

An urge to rip his appearance off like a mask of skin off a face surged inside.  Eirey hurried back into his closet.  Against his right leg, Aurora eased herself with a “good morning” purr.  Moving his eyes from her white fur to the rack of clothes, he searched for an outfit that could trick his emotional fatigue to yield from taking him over.  He found it.  Grabbing the clothes, he moved across the bedroom into the bathroom to change.  The sweats and shirt were thrown aside, and the early morning chill brought goosebumps over his skin.  Veiling it now was a black sweater tucked into cream trousers.  He then went about fixing his hair until it gave off the purposefully messy look that always adorned his head.  To finish it all up, he rubbed onto his face skin cream and when he looked into the mirror, it looked bright and brand new.  

After a sigh of relief, Eirey walked out across the living room and into the kitchen, his white cat’s claws tapping over the wooden floor.  Not another sound existed in the apartment.  Should I make coffee? he thought to himself.  Or breakfast? Cereal?

His hands became busy opening cabinet drawers, picking up a bowl and then giving it up, the kettle, a plate.  His eyes darted almost dizzily from sink to drawer, refrigerator to drawer, searching with haste for things his mind hadn’t even decided on yet.  Aurora, stepping back and forth and between his legs, could sense the unusually frantic atmosphere floating about him.  She tried to get his attention with her paws and purrs, but only received more frantic, random movements.  

Outside, a car horn’s blast flew up to the apartment window.  Eirey’s heart leapt at the noise.  As he flinched, one of his legs almost stomped down on the cat’s tail, but was pulled back as he twisted his back against the kitchen counter.  Drawers slammed behind him, their smack horrible in the silence of the flat.  Aurora fled to the small dining table some feet away, where she stared at him with big, confused eyes.  

He then realized how heavy his breathing was.  “Sorry, girl,” he uttered.  He stared back at her while he forced his heart rate to slow.  I must look like a stranger to her right now.  A feeling of shame grabbed onto him then and caused his eyes to look away toward the living room blanketed in the cold morning light.  Everything was so pale and bright.  His furniture and pieces of decoration seemed to be shimmering as water would on a summer’s day, the floor shining until it looked easy to slip on.  It hurt his eyes to see it, all the light.  

His gaze fell on the dim kitchen’s floor, and with his head lowered and arms stretched across the counter behind him, he stood there frozen for a long time, his heart all the while trying to return to peace.  

But it could not.  Releasing himself from the counter, Eirey stalked back across the living room and into his bedroom with Aurora catching up from behind.  How bright the bed and white walls looked as he walked in, and how he couldn’t bear it.  His panicked steps took him into the dark closet.  There only a strip of sunlight funneled over the carpeted floor.  And there Eirey realized the heaviness in his heart.

He didn’t know how to react to it.  Stunned or terrified or relieved that he now had a clue as to what was happening, he suddenly felt unmistakably the gripping tension of his limbs, the speeding again of his heart.  He could hear its frightened beating in his ears, as if it were a rabbit running away from a fox.  And as the beating amplified - as the rabbit’s feet pounded the dirt path harder, desperation stronger - he could see the end of it.  He could see the fox make one last leap with its claws and teeth ready for blood.  The poor rabbit would shriek at the paralyzing stab and sprawl into the dirt, blood oozing out of its pure white fur.  The fox bites one more time and the poor thing twitches.  Eirey’s heart beats faster, the pound of the rabbit’s feet does not stop.

It was something he didn’t know he could feel.  His heartbeat was so loud now, every drum like a woman’s scream from a dark jail.  How could something filled with heaviness beat on and on like this? His body was shivering; he was scared.  

He suddenly felt silly then.  He felt silly for thinking just moments before that changing clothes and washing his skin would make things better, make him feel normal.  If he could change how he looked, he could change how he felt - wasn’t that a thing people said to be true? So why in the hell is it not working?

There was something crawling inside his skin now.  With a twitch, Eirey brought his right hand over his arm and began scratching.  When that seemed to make the feeling more irritating, he grabbed and twisted and pulled at the skin while his heart drummed on.  It was like a bug was running up and down, snickering at his failed attempts to kill it.  How irritated he felt all over - inside and out - while his heart beat and pounded and beat.  Eirey’s breathing was heavy again, everything felt heavy, as if he were a plain of grass smashed by a falling crater.  How was he to lift this burden off when his limbs felt weak and on fire at the same time? Why did he even feel this way-

“Goddamnit!!” As if discovering an army of ants skittering all over his skin, Eirey seized his sweater and yanked it off his back, flinging it at the strip of light.  “Goddamnit, goddamnit!” His voice trembled as he felt the sting of new tears at the brim of his eyes.  The late December cold clung to his skin - he didn’t know whether it was out of mercy or cruelty.  Falling back and holding onto the rack of clothes, he took a slow breath to steady the stirring inside.  As he did, the tears began to blur his vision.  “Aurora,” he managed to call out before breaking down.  He fell onto the floor and let his arms drop into his lap.  At the same time, Aurora scurried toward him.  She crawled in between his arms - her fur tickling his skin - and fit herself onto his lap.  Her wide eyes - one of amber, one of blue - were staring up at him.  He bent forward and held her closer.

“What’s happening?” he cried.  His tears ran silently down his cheeks, each dropping onto her snow-white fur.

“Why do I feel like this?” he asked.

No one answered.           

[lattemorningwritings]

Eirey and his Burden

“Maybe you’re being a little too harsh on him,” said Bob as he reached over the small plate holding Eirey’s new batch of chocolates.  It was like a fly landing on his arm - he slapped the hand away.  “His kindness is something I really don’t need.”  He popped in his mouth a piece of dark chocolate.  The barista looked at him with worried eyes.  “Please don’t make me believe that you’re actually a bitter, hateful person, Eirey.”  The boy met his gaze for a moment before glancing away to a couple walking into the café.  As another barista’s friendly conversation with them joined the jazz singing through the speakers, he let his eyes fall over his plate of chocolates, strips of his jet-black hair obstructing some of their corners.  “I guess everyone has their exception,” he murmured, eyelids suddenly feeling heavy, as if being weighed down by the words.  Bob stretched his arms across the coffee bar and furrowed his eyebrows.  “But you’ve been this way for almost four years now.  I know you’re tired enough as it is, my boy.  Why do you keep lugging around this burden?”

Coffee beans rattled noisily beside them, the sound quickly dancing its way into the rest of the background noise, its aroma going along with it.  Office workers will be coming in soon, noted Eirey.  It was good for him, of course - more content for stories.  Once they joined him, the rest of the day was going to trickle away from his thoughts; he’ll be able to leave reality for the world in his head.  

After having another piece of chocolate, he sat up and thought of an answer to Bob’s question.  “Don’t you think it’d be a little hard to connect with people who have done everything they can to burn the bridges between you and them?” Bob’s eyebrows creased further.  “Charlie didn’t do that.”

“Well, he certainly didn’t put them out.”  The words were meant to stab.  Their victim was just elsewhere.  A little frustrated, Bob dropped his head as he tried to put himself in the boy’s shoes, to find a response that could be offered as an opinion and advice.  Once he found it, he looked back up.  “Well, you can’t deny that he’s trying to make up for it now.”  Eirey glanced up at him, a spark of admittance in his dark eyes.  As they kept their gazes on one another, Bob witnessed the gradual shift in them, from acceptance to conflict and, at last, to something bittersweet.

“I know,” Eirey said.  He looked away to watch the other baristas work in their well-practiced, swift movements.  A resigning sigh came out of his friend.  “You’re killing me, my boy,” he muttered before turning away to work.  

To his back, Eirey gave a small smile.   

[lattemorningwritings]

A Visit from Eirey’s Brother

When his brother knocked on the front door, Eirey was seven pages deep in an essay.  His slippers scuffled across the wooden floor and halted when he heard, “Eirey, it’s Charlie.”  Eyes wide in shock, mouth open, he stared at the gray door until reality finally tugged at his sleeve to reach for it.  

He opened the door.  Standing in a white t-shirt and green shorts, his older brother looked back at him with unfamiliar, but kind green eyes.  Eirey didn’t say anything as he stepped aside to let him in.  As Charlie took off his shoes, he walked back into the living room in a hazy confusion.  Turning around, he suddenly realized how defensive he felt.  

Charlie began, “how’ve you been-”

“Why are you here?” Eirey’s stiff voice startled him.  To his left, Charlie could hear a drip of water from the kitchen and his eyes - out of curiosity or uneasiness - followed.  Naturally, they scanned over the apartment in its light blue tones and sunlight-filled walls.  Eventually returning to Eirey, his eyes couldn’t ignore the coldness on his younger brother’s face.  

“We haven’t seen each other…” There was a fading of his uncertain voice.  He watched as Eirey’s face scrunched, as if from pain.  “We haven’t seen each other in almost four years,” Eirey said.  He let out a sigh.  “I thought I might visit.  I just came back from California.”

“California?”

“Yes,” he said.  “A job interview that my boss recommended me for, actually.”  A bitter envy cunningly latched onto Eirey’s words, causing them to sound hurt.  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”  Running a hand through his ash brown hair, Charlie searched for some kind of response that would be able to lighten the tension gradually weighing down on the both of them.  Meanwhile, Eirey turned away and took the few steps over to his desk sitting by the fireplace.  He sat down in the chair and looked over the apartment vacantly.  It was there he realized how much time had passed since he started writing; it was almost four-thirty.  

“You should probably head home before the traffic starts,” he said with a tone as empty as his gaze.  “I don’t live too far from here.”  He glanced over at Charlie.

“I moved out last year,” he clarified.  Eirey’s jaw tightened for a moment.  “Wouldn’t they want you nearby? If you live close to me, that means a drive home would be almost an hour.”  Charlie’s hands found themselves in his pockets.  “I guess you could say I live in the middle.  Twenty minutes to your place, twenty minutes to theirs.”  Eirey clenched his teeth.

“Don’t bother for me.”  

Charlie felt slapped.  As his limbs loosened like jelly, he asked, “what’s that supposed to mean?” Eirey’s eyes left him to gaze over the room again.  “If you did that so you could be some kind of middleground, a kind of messenger, then don’t bother.  I really don’t need it.”  Despite his attempt at remaining calm and detached, he felt that small familiar flare start to flick its flames.  “Actually,” he said, “I really don’t want it.”

“Eirey-”

“Do they know you’re here?” he inquired.  Taken aback, his brother stared at the side of his face, waiting for him to look back, for a response that felt familiar.  “They think I’ve just landed,” he finally said.  Eirey couldn’t resist a sad smirk.  “You’d think two biomedical engineers would know better.”  Tilting his face toward the ceiling, Charlie blew out a sigh full of disappointment and realization.  “We always end up here,” he said.  Eirey shrugged.  Then, he got up.  

“I’ll get the door.”  As he paced past him, Charlie realized he smelled of spring grass.  He even has a different scent.  The door squeaked as it swung open from behind.  “Traffic, Charlie,” he said.  The oldest stood still for a moment, his eyes gazing at the collection of papers atop the desk.  When he turned around, he caught his little brother’s eyes.

They were sad and wet.

[lattemorningwritings]

Eirey and the Flirting

Two weeks after the journalist’s visit, Eirey sought his way to the Glass Café.  He took his time in walking out of the apartment building to bask in the sunny haze brought by the rainfall from the night before.  The early morning’s voice was a hush, its hand a crisp wind against his face, and how happy he was to see her.

He turned left to cross the street with a small bundle of fellow early risers.  Their footsteps clicked and clacked calmly over the painted white lines while their belongings could be heard jostling inside their bags and purses.  As Eirey neared the front door, he glanced through the glass walls to find the shop accompanied by a surprising fill of customers.  When he walked in, the sound of life raced to give him a hug.  

“Did you hear what Mary said-”

“George’s in a meeting ri-”

“A hazelnut cappuccino for Roy!”

“Do you want to stay here and eat-”

“Hey, there he is! My celebrity friend!” Bob’s voice jingled across the coffee bar.  The moment it reached him, Eirey’s face grew warm.  His steps quickened toward the bar until stopping at an open stool.  “Here’s a congratulatory iced honeycomb latte for you,” he exclaimed as a tall, thin cup was slid across the white surface.  Cupped in his hands, Eirey could instantly feel its coolness and as he began swirling the coffee with a spoon, grinned at the sound of tinkling ice.

Bob looked at him with a proud smirk and said, “thanks to you, I got to read that interview the minute she was done with it.”  Eirey’s laugh trickled in amusement.  “It was hard to say no to someone who’s so good at…”

Suddenly, lips pouting, eyebrows furrowed, he searched for a verb that felt fitting yet polite - something that Bob didn’t miss for a second.  “The word you’re looking for is pleading, Eirey,” he chuckled as he started on a drink.  Steam rose in his face as he swirled milk over the brown surface of the coffee cup while from behind, three other baristas paced back and forth.  Eirey could smell the coffee’s scent every time one whooshed by.

As his honeycomb latte rushed down his throat, it felt like a cool breeze on a humid day and not being able to resist, his lips curved into a bright, innocent smile.  While he waited for Bob to return, he took out of his backpack the writer’s journal to read over character descriptions he’d thought of a few nights ago.  

“Excuse me?”

His head shot up.  Sitting beside him was another college student - a girl with straight blonde hair, blue eyes, and a noticeably large number of ear piercings on her right ear.  With his attention on her, she said, “are you the one who interviewed with Caroline Frisk recently?” His eyes widened in shock.  “Yes,” he said.  

Her gasp startled him.  Then, she whipped around to a girl sitting on the other stool opposite her and exclaimed, “Lany, you were right!”

Lany’s head poked out from behind her friend’s shoulder, a wide smile on her tanned face.  “I loved reading your interview,” she called out.  Stunned, Eirey replied with a thank-you before deciding to ask a question.  “How did you find out about it?”

“Oh, it’s everywhere,” said Lany.  “The whole English department’s loving it.”  As he began to process the answer, the girl beside him chuckled, “your picture helped.”

“Huh?” The heat was an instant flare in not only his cheeks, but his ears as his brain grabbed a hold of the three words and stared at them in surprise.  “She added your photo on the side of the interview.  Wait, have you not seen it?” The blonde girl reached for her phone while Lany looked on with a grin.  Hesitant to tell them that he had read it, known the picture Caroline had taken was in there, and was only shocked by their comment, Eirey turned away to drink the latte still cool and sweet, debating over the nature of his inevitable response.  

“Renee, that’s the one,” chirped Lany.  He turned back and glanced down at the phone outstretched in her hand.  There on the side of the article was a black-and-white square with his face in it looking and grinning just slightly into the camera.  After offering an acknowledging nod, the phone was pulled back and his eyes slid up.  They were both staring at him, smiles on their lips and rose in their cheeks.

Eirey was at a loss over how to move the conversation along, maybe even end it so he could spend more time with his latte and writing ideas.  What was he supposed to say now to two complete strangers who might or might not be trying to tell him something?

“Was that a picture you sent in or did she take it at your interview?” Lany asked then.  Seeing no harm in the question, he said, “she suggested taking one after the interview.  Besides, I don’t have enough photos of myself to send off.”  From the corner of his eye, Bob walked up to where his journal laid, spun it around and began taking a peek.  “You wouldn’t happen to need someone to take pictures of you, would you?” said Renee.  Instantly, both girls sent out laughs that seemed to run down along the glass walls before surprising him from behind.

His entire face warmed up.  Beside him, Bob whistled an elevator tune.  He then said, “I might just have to make good use of the picture from the interview.”  

Bob snorted.