A/N: Hey guys! I'm trying out a brand new writing style with this and I'm super proud of how this turned out! Please tell me what you think because I'm super nervous about posting it, honestly. xD Enjoy! xx
It happened every Monday through Friday at six in the afternoon during school seasons. Six. Never five, never seven. Always six on the dot.
The coffee shop was called Mancini's, a unique name for a not-so unique place. It was like every other coffee shop in London (of which there were a lot), and they both simply went there for the fact that it was closer to their schools than any other place and wasn't as crowded as the Starbucks that was on every other corner.
He knew the girl's first name only because it was written in cursive handwriting with beautiful swoops and a curly 'e' on her cup every evening. Rose. He never could determine her last name.
Sometimes, when he walked by her table he tried to sneak a look at her paper to see her full name. It was either not on the top of the page, or it was too awkward for him to stand still long enough to read it. He felt stupid for stressing about it every time he saw her.
And he assumed she knew his name. That is, if she ever paid attention to him at all. John Smith. She would know his first name, not his last, because it was written on the cup just as hers was.
In the exact same handwriting.
That thought made him content for some reason.
She always ordered a caramel Frappuccino with extra whipped cream. Sometimes, when it was colder outside and she wore skin-clinging beautiful sweaters, she ordered hot chocolate. Three times she had bought something from the bakery. But only three times.
Her homework was usually math, sometimes science, from what he could see. A couple of times he had seen her come in and just scribble in a notebook. Every once and a while she would come in with English homework or some language he couldn't identify from afar, but normally it was math.
And normally she looked frustrated with it.
He wanted more than anything to sit with her and help her through each question.
No – he wanted more than anything to just say a bloody word to her. Why did he have to be so terrified of a girl probably (around, he hoped… What if there was a gaping age different?) the same age as him? He wasn't terrified of girls in general.
But somehow Rose with the curly 'e' on her cup and the beautiful blonde hair and the frustrating homework she was assigned petrified him. He froze up around her. One time she had said 'Excuse me' when she was trying to get by him on a particularly crowded day in the shop, and he had just opened his mouth and gaped at her.
Because she had talked to him! She had spoken to him! Straight to him!
It was only after she had reached her designated table (honestly, it should have her name written on it. She always sat there. It was one of the things he loved about her) that he realized he had probably looked like a gaping fish. After that he had just ordered his coffee and sat down.
He always ordered an ice caramel macchiato.
Sometimes he bought the same drink as her in a stupid and desperate cry for attention. God, he was such an adolescent sometimes. He was far too intelligent to do something like that. But, Rose with the curly 'e' was a special case.
One time, she had come in with a friend. That had been a bit strange. Her name had been Shareen and they had talked about boys the whole time.
John noted that by the time he left the shop with his completed essay, Rose hadn't done a single question on her own homework.
He was unrightfully concerned for her.
The next day she seemed more frustrated than usual, he noticed. There were more papers than usual on her table, too.
God, he wanted to help her.
Their pattern continued for two years – and on the first day of his senior year in high school he was thrilled to see her there. Where she was always sitting.
Today she was wearing a lavender shirt that, when she raised her arms, exposed some of her midriff and some tight fitting jeans. It was too hot outside for jeans, he noted to himself as he watched her order her drink. The man behind the counter said something to her and she laughed, placing her hand on the man's arm.
John wondered if she knew him, or if she was just overly friendly like that.
Her brown boots were sexy and he noticed they were new by the fact that they didn't have a single mark on them. He could see the outline of a price tag on the inside of the neck of her shirt. She must not have noticed.
He wondered what grade she was in. She definitely didn't go to his school; he would have noticed a beautiful girl like that walking around the hallways.
Whenever he thought of Mancini's he thought of the color yellow. Maybe it was the yellow tablecloths or maybe it was the blonde of Rose's hair. John could never quite figure it out despite the fact that it was a thought he had dwelled on several times before. That was just how his mind worked – it hopped from one thing to the other.
His friend Donna told him that he was a prodigy from the day he was born.
He was smarter than most people in his grade. He worked hard and could spurt off random facts about just about anything. He could anagram words in a matter of seconds into every possible combination, and he spoke four languages (English, French, Spanish, and he was pretty fluent in German if he did say so himself).
So, yeah, just a bit of a prodigy.
But there was no way he could compare to Rose with the curly 'e'. There was just no way.
She practically lit up the room when she walked inside. She made him happy when she smiled even if she wasn't smiling at her (god, how happy would he be if she ever did smile at him? He would probably implode… That was a thought he would save in his 'ponder on later' collection).
He ordered his coffee and sat down at his usual table. He didn't have much homework, it was the first day of school, after all, but he felt like he was breaking some unspoken tradition by not showing up at Mancini's.
Maybe she felt that way too. She was here, after all, even though she probably had no homework either.
Rose with the curly 'e' pulled a silver laptop out of her adorable polka dotted bag. It was a new laptop. Not the one she used last year.
She took a sip from her drink, her lips surrounding the straw in a way that was somehow tantalizing, and lifted up the laptop screen.
Then she started typing. He realized he was staring at her and the other people in the shop would probably start to take notice and think of him as a stalker soon, so he tore his eyes away from her and looked at the book in front of him instead.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
He had read this book nine times. It never got old. Donna (you know, his previously mentioned friend who constantly called him a 'skinny strip of nothing' as she so eloquently put it) called it childish on occasion, but he knew that deep down she loved the series just as much as he.
He had gotten her into it when they were children. He would know.
An uncalled for image flashed into his mind:
Him reading this book to Rose while they curled up on his small bed in his tiny flat. Her head would be pillowed in his lap and he would read out loud with her hanging onto every word.
Every once and a while she would stop and ask him a question, some having to do with the book and some having to do with his thoughts on it. He didn't mind. They would talk for a bit before he would continue reading from where they had left off.
Eventually, Rose with the curly 'e' would drift off to sleep to the sound of his voice.
He would tuck the covers over her and remove her head from his lap only to wrap his arms around her and be the big spoon to her little. He would kiss her hair and breath in her scent, the scent of a caramel Frappuccino and lovely shampoo and roses.
Would Rose smell like roses? Another thing to add to his ever-increasing 'ponder on later' collection.
Maybe he should start writing these things down.
And, god, he needed to stop these dumb fantasies. They made places on his body stir where they definitely shouldn't be stirring while in a public place.
The Rose of his fantasies was currently smiling and squinting her eyes at her computer screen, rather adorably, might he add.
If only he wasn't so scared of her. If only he could walk up to her, flash her a debonair smile, ask her what was so amusing. Maybe she was looking at a funny post on Facebook or some other social media site. Maybe her friend had sent her something.
Maybe it was her boyfriend, a tiny voice in the back of his mind said.
God, he wanted to stab that little voice sometimes.
Not that it was any of his business if she had a boyfriend. Of course it wasn't. Wasn't his business at all. Though, said boyfriend probably wasn't good enough for. Was there any boy good enough for her?
He barely even knew her. Why was she consuming his every thought?
John closed his book and shoved it in his black backpack, the third pocket down where he always kept whatever he was currently reading (because, of course, he was a man of pure tidiness). He slung the backpack around his left shoulder, grabbed his drink, and left Mancini's.
He could only hope Rose wouldn't notice how early he had left. Perhaps she would just assume that he had had somewhere to go.
Six weeks later the pattern had, surprisingly, changed.
It was October 14th, not too far away from Halloween.
It was approximately 6:03 in the afternoon, and the coffee shop was dismal. Rose with the curly 'e' was absent from her usual table. Instead sitting there was an elderly Chinese woman and her two (he assumed) grandchildren who were intrigued with some sort of action figure.
He wondered if Rose had siblings. He added that onto his surging 'ponder on later' list.
Four days later and there was still no sign of Rose. Where was she? Never in two years had she missed five days in a row like this. Occasionally, of course, there had been days where one of them hadn't shown up. They did have lives, after all. But five days in a row?... Unheard of.
He knew he was being stupid. Perhaps putting his thoughts in something he was better at comprehending would help him understand just how stupid he was being. A list always helped.
1) He barely knew her. Jesus, he was such a stalker.
2) She was probably sick or something. Something was going around his school, why not her school too?
3) She could have found a new coffee shop. She could have never even noticed that he sat at the table next to her every day.
4) Maybe she moved. That was one thing he didn't even want to consider.
5) Something could have happened to her.
6) Maybe she was doing her homework at home instead of buying an overly priced drink and doing it in a noisy, crowded place like Mancini's. That was definitely possible.
Was it wrong for him to pray that it wasn't any of the options besides number two? Sick wouldn't be so bad. At least she would be back soon.
Another fantasy drifted into his stupid, spastic mind:
Rose with the curly 'e' woke up next to him in bed. He kissed her as she awoke slowly, despite her argument that her morning breath was awful and kissing her would probably be awful. He simply laughed at that and kissed her neck instead, nipping lightly at her clavicle, but nowhere near hard enough to leave a mark.
How could she not understand that kissing her would always be perfect?
He wrapped his arms around her back and groped her bum, making her squeal endearingly. Then, she reached down and took his-
Perhaps right now was not the time to have this fantasy.
Or any time. God, he was just so creepy. This girl didn't even know he existed and here he was obsessing over her.
After finishing his homework, which felt as though it took longer than it normally did (even though he had half his usual workload) he went home.
It was raining.
He walked towards his flat with no umbrella, his normally spiky and (if he did say so himself) flawless hair without-volume and dreary. John groaned, he had spent so much time on it this morning, and felt relieved when his flat was in sight.
There was a giggle, and he turned his head.
It wasn't too far away. Underneath the awning of a somewhat ghetto (even though John himself definitely wasn't high class) pub called Tiffany's was Rose with the curly 'e'. Along with another figure.
Squinting through the rain he could make out that it was a boy. That was obvious. Rose was giggling at whatever he had said, rather loudly.
It was none of his business. Of course it wasn't. Whatever she got up to in her spare time was her business.
But was this why she hadn't been at Mancini's the last few days? Was she busy with this… This…
The boy had short, black hair from and a big build from what he could see. He looked like a jock. Self-consciously, John looked in the reflection of the glass window next to him. He was practically the opposite of Rose's possible boyfriend.
John was tall and lanky with the (formerly mentioned, haven't you been paying attention?) amazing hair, but he had no muscular build like that guy. That guy needed a name.
For some reason, the name Bufus seemed to fit him.
Bufus wrapped his beefy arms around Rose slowly and he kissed her roughly on the mouth. Rose got up on her tippy toes to kiss him back. John watched, petrified, as Bufus spun Rose around without warning and practically slammed her into the red brick wall next to them, kissing her harder still.
He could hear Rose's squeak of pain from where he was standing, and he wanted nothing more than to throw Bufus off of her and throw him into the rainy streets where he could possibly get hit by a car. Or even a bus. A bus would be nice.
John wanted to be the hero. However, he realized that Bufus could probably beat him up with the simple flick of his wrist. Besides, Rose must be comfortable with the guy if she was thrusting her tongue into his mouth.
Rose pushed on Bufus's chest with both of her tiny palms, and John was guessing it was to get him to stop. But it was only after another ten seconds of rough, rhythm-less kissing that Bufus finally pulled away.
Rose said something to Bufus, not smiling at all. In fact, she looked somewhat distressed.
Bufus straightened up his chest noticeably and said something back to her in a firm deep tone (John was really starting to abhor this guy) that John could hear, even though the words were incomprehensible. He thought he caught the word 'Ridiculous', but he wasn't one hundred percent sure.
Rose with the curly 'e' mumbled something that looked like an apology before grabbing Bufus's hand and allowing him to drag her down an alleyway close to them.
That alleyway was notorious in this neighborhood. And not for good things like finger painting or slow dancing. Though, it was notorious for a type of dancing.
John shuddered, whether from the cold and the rain or the thought he wasn't sure.
He considered going after them for one brief second, since he knew Rose was obviously uncomfortable with Bufus and he wasn't treating her well… But then again… Maybe she liked it rough? Maybe it was some sort of kink? Like a previously agreed on act of BDSM or something? Maybe he was completely misreading this whole situation?
John went inside before the rain could soak through every page in every book in his bag.
The following afternoon, after a day of difficult classes and thoughts consumed by school, the new episode of "The Walking Dead" that was on in only a couple of days (God, he prayed the Governor would finally die), and Rose with a curly 'e', he was back at Mancini's, as usual.
He pulled out his laptop – he had an essay to write today – but looked at the door every five minutes for her appearance.
It was 6:15 when she walked inside.
Was it bad that he had let out a sigh of relief?
Probably.
He continued to type his essay, barely even noticing her presence. In reality, he was retyping the paragraph he had already written because there was no way he could focus on what he was doing while she was talking.
She smiled but it looked fake this time, unlike her usual brightness. The man behind the counter said something (supposedly humorous given his expression) and Rose simply gave him a kind smile.
She normally laughed.
John loved it when she laughed.
Her drink was the same, though. The 'e' was curly, no surprise there, and he could smell the caramel from his table. Well, it was a coffee shop; it probably wasn't just her drink he smelled.
But that was beside the point.
Rose sat down and pulled out her bag. She produced a blue folder from it and opened it, rubbing at her forehead when she saw the papers inside.
She was wearing a blue semi-turtleneck (if it could be called that, it went part way up her neck, but it definitely wasn't a full out turtle-neck… Was there a name for that? That was now number three on the 'ponder on later' list)today, something that somehow she could make sexy, along with skin-tight black leggings. There was a golden bracelet around her left wrist and a pendant around her neck.
The jewelry matched.
Rose scrambled to pull the papers out of her folder, and when she did she laid them out on the table neatly. There were seven piles.
Probably one for each class that she had, plus an elective and minus study hall.
Rose pulled out a pencil from her backpack and placed it down on the table, her eyes scanning each paper as if she didn't even know where to start.
Then he heard the opening notes to "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey and new that her phone was ringing.
He loved that song, too. Well, maybe he just loved it a little more because it had been her ringtone for years. Or a lot more. Or to the point where he was considering getting a Journey DVD in case they ever became friends and she came to his house.
She picked up the phone and looked up. John quickly darted his eyes back to his computer screen, focusing more on what she was saying than his actual essay.
He was creepy. He could admit it. Normal people didn't mesmerize themselves with people they didn't know. Normal people didn't listen to other people's phone calls, absolutely enthralled in them.
"Hi Jimmy," she said in a cheery voice. Her voice was cheery, but her face had more of an exasperated expression. "Yeah. I'm at Mancini's. No, don't come, I'm doing homework." Rose with the curly 'e' paused. "Seriously. I am so far behind in school. Yeah, I did have fun yesterday. But again?... That's a bit extensive."
She made an absolutely annoyed face, looking as if she wanted to slam her phone against the nearest wall and sacrifice the ashes to some sort of cellular communication god by burning them.
"Jimmy, please. I'm so far behind on school." There was another pause. "Drop out? Me? You know Mum would kill me." Pause number three. Definitely not a good sign. "I can't just drop out of high school based off of some… Some sort of aspiration that your band will take off. I know, I'm not saying it won't…" Her expression turned fearful. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I really didn't mean that at all. That was stupid of me to suggest. I'll consider it, okay? Just… Please don't come to Mancini's right now, though. I need a bit of a break."
John saw her features turn relaxed. "Okay Jimmy, bye. Wait, one more thing, do you know anyone good at Chemistry? I know Shareen dropped out of it, so… No? Okay, bye… Love you too."
Rose hung up her phone and shoved it into her back. She took a sip of her drink and her eyes darted around the coffee shop.
Now was his chance.
Now was his bloody chance.
He had to take it. He HAD to. He didn't think he'd ever forgive himself if he didn't take his shot right here, right now.
He was good at Chemistry. He had taken AP Chemistry two years ago, in fact, and the teacher had called him a bloody prodigy. Perhaps not with the same vulgar language, but nevertheless, he was good at Chemistry. And perhaps helping Rose Tyler would make his Chemistry skills spark to a thousand, since he felt like he could fly when he watched her smile.
A/N: Did you hate it or love it? Hopefully you could even tell that I used a new style. :P Please leave a review and tell me what you think! (It can be negative. I can take it. *cries*).