She's here today.
I can see her sitting at a small table in the corner next to the window. From where I am, next to the coffee counter that runs against the wall, I can see her beautiful face illuminated by the late evening sun. Her green eyes are shining, reflecting the light and contrasting with her fiery cascade of hair. I could stare at her hair all day. Falling in perfect ringlets with a myriad of shades running through it. The sun hit her hair so that it seemed as though the auburn highlights were glowing among the darker shades. Beautiful.
I wish I had the guts to walk over and sit down in the seat across from her. Get to know her. Today I have an excuse, however. Her heart shaped face was set in an expression of concentration as she read her novel. She doesn't always read though. Sometimes she just sits down at her weathered table next to the window and watches people walk by, her eyes glowing as if she had a secret and a wistful expression on her face. When she does read, however, they're normally classics. I've seen her with Jane Eyre, Tess, Pride and Prejudice, etc. The current book that she's reading doesn't have a title on the front. It's just a weathered leather cover.
Although this coffee shop is old, and the tables, chairs, floors- the whole establishment, really- have seen better days, I love this place. I've been coming here since I was fifteen. It was more of an escape back then. A place where I could escape the harsh reality of my home life. I felt anonymous here. I could walk in without having to worry about pitying glances from nosy neighbors or insincere condolences from near strangers. Here, I was just a face in the crowd. Not Jace Morgenstern, "that poor dear who lost his mother in an accident and now has to care for his father, who is slowly but surely killing himself with alcohol".
I miss my mother more than anything because I loved her. But it's even more than that. Things are so much more than what they seem to be on the surface. I miss my mom because she was always there for me, and I miss her for my father's sake. I miss her, because I miss him, too. I miss his smile, I miss the way we played baseball and soccer in the back yard- I miss the relationship that I had with my father. The empty shell of a man who lives ten miles away from me is not my father. He is a stranger.
I lost my mother in the winter when I turned fifteen. It was a drunk driver. Drunk in the middle of the afternoon. No wonder my father disgusts me- look at what he's become. The same slime that was responsible for killing my mother. That's when I started coming to this old coffee shop that I love so much. A bit of a drive, I'll admit, but it was worth it. In my small neighborhood, nothing is sacred. Everyone knows everything- the accident that stole my mother from me had spread like wild fire, and news of the binge of drinking that my father fell into spread even quicker than that.
It was three weeks after her death that I came into town and walked past this old coffee shop. Three long weeks of "I'm fine", "thank you for your condolences", "yes, everything is fine at home"- three long weeks of answering questions from people who didn't want to hear the truth. Three long weeks of me comforting them.
On an impulse I had decided to walk in and at the very least sit down and throw a pity party of epic proportions for myself. I walked inside and sat down and was in the middle of commencing the greatest sulk the world has ever seen when a slender girl with long red hair, porcelain skin and mischievous green eyes sat down across from me.
She was like a mirage in the desert- an angel. I swear, I even saw a halo above her head cast from the light streaming in through the window. Everything about her was a riot of color, a sight for my sore eyes in the midst of the shades of gray and antiques of the coffee shop.
"I'd recognize that look anywhere," she had said in a low voice.
"What look?"
"Like your world has just lost all meaning," she smiled compassionately at me. "My father died last fall. I thought I would never be happy again."
"Are you happy now?"
"Yes. And even though it doesn't seem like it now, you will be, too." She had smiled one last time, and then had gotten up and left me alone.
That was a month ago, and since then I have been coming to this coffee shop. I love this old place, and she is why.
I often think about what she said, about being happy again. I keep waiting for it to happen, but it never does. I think that conversation was the happiest I have been since the accident. She knows what it's like. She had to comfort total strangers, and plaster smiles on to her face, too. She had to walk around like nothing happened for everyone else, while they left her alone to pick up the pieces by herself behind their backs.
Just as they were doing to me. That's not fair, I realized. I want to be better, too. I don't want to feel alone in all of this.
I stand up from and make my way over to where she is sitting. She looks up at me and smiles while I sit down.
"So... When does it get better?"
"Took you long enough," she teased with a grin on her face.
And I do what I have been doing since the accident. I smile for her. For someone else. The only difference is that this time, I mean it.
And suddenly I don'f feel so lonely anymore.