Meanwhile

~o~

Katy swore under her breath. Puffing out her cheeks, she blew sticky strands of hazel hair out her eyes before clenching her jaw and adjusting her grip on the handle. The cranky coffee machine hissed and clanked in retaliation.

"Sorry!" she called over her shoulder to the waiting customer, wrenching the appliance again in desperation. She wondered if kicking it would do the trick. Might make her feel better anyway; god, what a crappy day. She could feel the stress hormones reaching danger zone as the impatient stares and eye-rolling burned into her back from the small queue that had formed next to the counter.

"I'm really sorry, it won't be minute. It's this stupid thing-" she grunted and then sagged in relief as the machine gurgled into life. "It seems to have developed a contentious dislike for me."

"Harsh. I get the same attitude from waffle makers. We're still not speaking."

The waitress grinned in gratitude as she turned around to face the young man whose coffee order was now busy percolating away.

She admitted, when he had first stepped up to the counter she had assumed him to be just another foreign student, doing the bumming-around-Europe thing that she had missed out on; but now that she really looked, that impression suddenly didn't quite fit. He was probably early twenties, same as her, but he was unlike any of her peers. Even in the small, packed café, he seemed to stand alone; observing but strangely disconnected from the world around him. There was something in his manner that felt somewhat defeated and aimless; almost world-weary. His clothes were loose and faded in a way that looked genuinely travel worn rather than artificially styled, and his hair was cropped into messy but striking black spikes. In contrast to the shifting feet and loud chatter behind him, he was waiting calmly with hands shoved in the pockets of heavy jeans, stance relaxed and unhurried, like he had no-one he had to meet or place he needed to be. Katy blinked and refocused. Maybe she was just reading too much into things.

"I keep telling them we need a new one. But I think I'll have to 'accidently' smash it on the floor before that happens."

He smiled in sympathy. Well, it wasn't really a smile in the traditional sense. It was more there in the softening of his features and the tug in the corner of his mouth. Katy was grateful the steam from the coffee maker had already reddened her cheeks. Of course - she'd always had a thing for that accent anyway. She wanted to ask him where about he was from, what brought him to Amesbury, but something stopped her. His cutting eyes were oddly intense. Bright orbs of jade green that glowed warmly yet kept a wary distance, silently warning of a dangerous darkness just behind them. She couldn't explain it; it was just an instinct.

"There you go. One American coffee for one American," she grinned teasingly as she handed the mug over. The boy dug a ripped five pound note out of his pocket and hauled up the rucksack from the floor. There was that almost smile again.

"Gotta do my bit for the cultural clichés."

She was intrigued despite herself. That was probably not a good sign. She had a history of being attracted to guys who were bad for her. She mentally rolled her eyes at her paranoia. He was probably a perfectly nice, harmless guy; just another tourist visiting for the big, boring stones.

He slipped through the busy café and took a lone seat at a small table, at the far end of the counter. She noticed that his movements were unusually graceful for a guy; fluid and lithely balanced, in a way that made Katy think of her tabby cat for some reason.

When she next spared a glance up, she saw that the gently steaming cup had been laid aside, apparently untouched, and those midnight spikes had dipped down as he bent over a small, battered notebook, framed by his arms upon the unpolished tabletop. She wondered what kind of thoughts filled those torn pages, secret from the rest of the world. He didn't seem like the tortured poet type.

Her eyes travelled his downcast profile. Those same haunting eyes were narrowed slightly in concentration as they scanned the page impossibly fast, pencil twitching in his tense hand, the only sign of emotion to escape his stoic features. She couldn't imagine him getting flustered serving coffee. His entire demeanour was one of cool detachment, like an oasis of reasoned calm in the crowded, heated café. She smirked to herself. Maybe she could ask him for Zen classes; this guy seemed to have it down to a fine art.

His fingers tapped distractedly against the tabletop; blunt nails gently rapping out a rhythmic, musing beat in time to his lazy scribe. She smiled as realisation struck her. Oh, a musician. Yeah, that fitted better. She could see him being the mellow but deep music type.

His hand shifted just then, ruffling the threaded bracelet at his wrist and pushing up the sleeve of his shirt. Katy's eyes widened slightly. It was faint, but the light still managed to illuminate the criss-crossing of gleaming white scars that ran along his arm; brutally marking the pale skin. She squinted, trying to see clearer, but with an unconscious gesture, he jerked the loose sleeve back down, covering the wounds from prying eyes. The young waitress quickly returned to her work, feeling horribly guilty but unable to shake the fleeting image from her mind.

~o~

A sudden excited shriek made her jump and nearly sent her neat stack of plates smashing to the floor. Glancing over irritably, her expression softened as she saw the giggling little girl dash through the open glass doors and swish a snapped twig in the direction of the nearest customers.

"Alakbam! Ala-ka-zooo!" She sang loudly, waving her 'wand' with a little flourish. The pointy, black hat flopped about on her head with each excitable bounce, revealing bright red curls underneath. The teenage couple, who were the recipients of the 'spell', gave a wane but polite smile to the little girl. She grinned back toothily.

Katy sighed. She had forgotten the bookshop over the road was holding a Worst Witch signing today. A moment later, a tired looking woman entered the café, promptly gathered up the skipping child, and gently shushing her, led them inside.

The waitress smiled lightly and turned back around. He had finally looked up, his attention momentarily distracted. Katy followed his gaze and found that it lingered on the bubbling little girl who was now dancing around her mother's legs as they queued. For a second she thought maybe he knew them. But then she saw the pained pinch at the edge of his eyes; the fond but bitter shadow to the lift to his mouth; and she slowly realised. It was with a gentle nostalgia that he watched the chirping child yank the witch's hat further down over her forehead, before hugging her mum's waist, begging for attention. There was a hidden memory storming behind those guarded eyes. His slight smile flickered between secret happiness and devastating loss, too quickly to observe.

When the woman reached down to absently stroke through the girl's fiery curls, his eyes hardened and he flinched away. Fragile emotion cracked through his façade and for a few seconds, she could see the past he was running from. The hurt, the anger, the jealousy and destructive despair; all so volatile that they nearly knocked the breath out of her where she stood. The icy darkness, the guilt, the shattered hope and a broken but fiercely enduring love – she glimpsed it all as it ghosted over his features in that weakened heartbeat.

She didn't know what he was reliving, what he'd done or what he'd left behind; but it rocked her to her core. Her gaze turned to the little girl who was happily munching on a small chocolate bar as her mum walked her back to their table. What was it in her that had reminded him so strongly of another time and place; one that he seemed to hate almost as much as he desperately needed.

As fast as it had come, it was gone again. When she glanced back, she found his expression only mildly thoughtful. She watched as he returned the notebook to his rucksack, replacing it with what looked like a heavy, paperback novel. Nimble fingers flicked the pages until the book opened somewhere near the middle and he turned his eyes to the written words there.

Katy stared at the boy who slouched against the wall, intently but harmlessly reading; aura of calm perfectly intact again. Her impressions were all over the place. Forcing her feet to take her to other side of the café, she tried to concentrate on her work and not on mysterious and clearly troubled strangers.

~o~

"…latest footage from the scene….possibility of a massive structural collapse caused by an unrecorded earth tremor…."

Katy eventually looked up as the static fragments became clearer over the lowering noise of the café. Most eyes had turned in the direction of the medium sized TV that hung on the wall above the counter, to where Katy now turned her attention also. The screen was filled with a breaking news bulletin; images jumped about but all featured what looked like a massive, gaping void that had apparently just appeared in the middle of an otherwise plain desertscape. The slightly shocked voice of a BBC presenter intoned the facts of the story in the background, of which there didn't seem to be many. Sounded more like a lot of speculation and wild guesses to her.

"What happened?" she said, stepping up to one of her colleagues who had her eyes likewise glued to the rolling news bulletin.

"So freaky," she replied, voice slightly in awe. "They're saying this whole town just disappeared or something. Got sucked into the ground. Everything - there's nothing left."

Katy felt her eyes grow round. "Oh god, that's awful! All those people…"

But her friend was shaking her head, not breaking her gaze from the images of the devastating, great sink hole that filled the screen. "No, that's the even weirder thing. The place was apparently deserted. Ghost town."

Katy frowned, her eyes drifting back to the TV. A whole town…The scale was hard to grasp from a 40 inch screen, but the chasm that had been ripped in the earth seemed to reach so deep as to disappear into a pit of blackness. "Where?"

"California, I think they said. Sunnyfield or something."

She nodded absently before turning away. The café noise started to build again with intrigued chatter.

Her eyes fell upon an empty table.

A twinge of regret clutched inside her chest. When had he left? Not that it mattered, she muttered to herself. He was gone now and any chance to have a real conversation had left with him. Cursing her lack of initiative, Katy shuffled over to clear the table, but paused as she caught sight of the dropped book. He must have taken off very abruptly.

The volume was thick; the warm pages well thumbed through. She turned it over in her hands. 'The Call of the Wild'. He clearly had more patience then her, she thought wryly; she'd never been able to get through it. Her fingers twitched in hesitation before carefully flipping over the front cover, curiosity getting the better of her. Her snooping was rewarded with the revelation of a single note, written in small, neat script just inside.

I love you

All of you

She couldn't help the nudge of envy and disappointment. Katy thought about her. About the one who had written the private and loving declaration; who had meant so much that he still carried her promise with him. Was she the one he was running from? Was it her behind all that wounded rage and betrayal; guilt and grief? Was it she who that wretched love still burned for? Katy felt angry all of sudden. Upset on the behalf of a boy she didn't know, at an anonymous girl who had destroyed him after claiming to love him so. What kind of person did that? She couldn't imagine this girl being worthy of the love they had shared; the love that was still consuming him.

Glaring at the innocent and intimate words, she snapped the book shut. Moving back behind the counter, she kneeled down and slipped the heavy book into her bag. She would keep it safe. Just in case one day the strange, quiet boy came looking for it. Maybe she'd learn his name and he'd ask hers.

Maybe.

This was my entry to a contest challenge to write from an outsider's perspective. The submitted piece was shorter though, as the limit was 1000 words! But here is the original version. I had a lot of fun and just found out that I tied first place! *skips around* Surprised but so happy!

Reviews are nice things :)