Over the course of the next week I became completely absorbed in my work, and didn't even think of going back to the café until one day when I had pushed myself too far. At the brink of a nervous break down, I returned to the café with a good book tucked under my arm. A warm cup of coffee and a good book would, I knew, work wonders on the state of my mind.
I was passing by the windows of the café, when I looked in to see someone sitting at my table. The letter didn't even occur to me until I saw the figure stand up, and start walking toward the exit in the back of the shoppe.
I bolted through the front door, and tried to make it to the back in time to grab the stranger's attention, but with a swish of black cape they were gone before I made it halfway across the floor.
Dejected, I sat down at my little table, and, after ordering a large cup of coffee, ceremoniously looked under the napkin holder.
It was there! Over the course of a week it had been coffee stained and ripped a bit, but my writing and the stranger's were still there. Not only was the writing from last week there, but a new reply had been scrawled neatly into a corner.
Mystery Respondent-
Thank you for the kind words on my writing. I enjoy scribbling meaningless passages from time to time. As for your comment, you do not know me, and therefore do not completely understand why no one, I am absolutely certain, will ever love me.
That was, quite possibly, one of the saddest things I had ever heard anyone say about themselves. How would it feel to be completely certain that no one in the world cares about you? I couldn't even begin to imagine.
I read for a good hour and a half, at least, before I realized that I should more than likely be on my way. I still had research to do that evening, and the night ahead was only going to get longer the more I procrastinated. Before I left, I grabbed a pen from my bag, and quickly wrote on another corner of the paper:
To the Author:
I am quite certain that if I were to meet you, I would barely be able to form one negative opinion about you, let alone enough to loathe you so adamantly. No one who writes as beautifully as you do can be completely devoid of a heart.
Quickly, I slipped it under the napkin holder, grabbed my book, and began the process of waiting until next week to check for a reply from the mystery author who was making my life more interesting than it had been since the school days with Harry Potter.
