"Did you write this?" I demanded, the second she sat down at my table the next Sunday. The newspaper, folded back to show the Letters to the Editor section, was already on the table between us. She didn't even have to look to see what I was referring to.
"Yes," she admitted, meekly. "Do you mind?"
Mind? I stared at her with the same disbelief I'd first felt when my brother tossed the paper my way, having spotted our name on his way to the comics page. The letter, polite reproduction of everything I'd told her that day in the far corner, hit me like news of an unexpected jump in stock value. I almost fell out of my chair. And I knew that it had to be Coffee girl, just had to be.
"No," I finally answered. "I don't mind. I was just surprised."
"Well, you said you weren't going to respond. But it seemed so unfair that nobody knew your side of it, so I just told them what you told me." A proud smile sneaked its way across her expression. "I can't believe they actually published it, I've never written a letter to a newspaper before. Oh, I hope you don't mind that I didn't sign my name. My brother would never understand."
I couldn't stop staring at her.
"You wrote this to defend me."
"Well, yeah. I guess."
"Nobody's ever done that before."
Coffee girl blinked, surprised. "Never?"
I shook my head. All his life I've looked out for my little brother, protecting him, but no one looks out for me. No one sticks up for me.
"Why not?"
"I guess… nobody thinks I need it." I could think of a few people who would laugh at the idea. And before I saw this letter, I would have agreed with them.
"Well, I don't think it's a question of 'needing' anything," Coffee girl declared firmly. "I just wanted to. That's all."
She directed her standard sweet smile across the table, astonishingly beautiful. I still wasn't sure if she understood what she'd done for me, if she really understood that those 229 words in the newspaper were more than anyone had ever done for me in my life. I wanted to tell her, again and again, but words failed me. I'm not wise in the way of gratitude.
"Thank you," was all I said, retracting the newpaper in question back to my side of the table.
"You're welcome."
She opened her book and peaceful silence descended to our table. We slipped back into our routine without so much as a hiccup, neither speaking nor needing to about editorials and holding hands. For two hours we engaged in the activity for which we came: reading. And at the end of the two hours there were no arguments or even words exchanged when I left the bookshop with her and gave her a ride home. Cherry blossoms and spring weather were everywhere around us, and it was good. Calm.
For that Sunday and the Sunday following it, anyway. It was the Sunday after that that changed everything yet again, the first Sunday of May.
That was the Sunday I tasted chai.
'division'
It was a day like any other. At 3:00 I arrived, bought my coffee and papers, and started reading. Coffee girl showed up around thirty minutes later, and after a brief exchange of greetings, opened her book.
We read.
Absorbed in a complex article predicting stock market activity, I vaguely noticed when she put her book down and left the table but didn't bother to look up. I finished the article, moved on to the crossword, and it wasn't until I hit 'popular boy band', five letters, that I realized how long she'd been gone.
Odd. She'd made trips to the bathroom before, but this time she'd been gone for more than thirty minutes. I frowned at the book she'd left behind, lasted maybe another three minutes, then stood and left the café. There was no sign of her anywhere on the first floor, and the bathroom was empty of people. Prompted by some nagging intuition, I ascended the stairs and made for our back corner.
I could hear her before I saw her, and so was not surprised to come around the shelves and find her crying softly, hugging her knees to her chest. Coffee girl did not look beautiful when she cried, her face was blotchy and eyes rimmed with red.
"So here you are." Startled, she looked up and blanched when she saw me, leaning casually against the end of the shelf. "I thought you'd gotten lost."
"Oh! I-I'm sorry." Hastily she wiped at her streaked cheeks, looking mortified. "I came up here so I wouldn't bother you."
"Disappearing bothered me. What happened?"
She looked down at her knees again. "Nobody wrote a nasty editorial about me or anything. Compared to your problems it's silly."
"But you're losing reading time. Must be pretty bad." I sauntered closer and dropped to the floor, facing her, arm resting on one drawn-up knee in a posture that said I was ready to sit here as long as I had to. "Again, what happened?"
Another pair of tears rolled down her face, and she sniffled. "I can't believe I'm such a wreck, it's never been like this before. I come here to forget, escape, but today the book wasn't enough. He took me by surprise, it was such a shock."
"Who did?"
"My brother. When we met yesterday it was obvious something was up, he couldn't stop grinning, but when I asked he said it was a secret. We met his friends for an outdoor concert and nothing unusual happened, but today he took me to a downtown residential block close to his college. And he led me inside a building and up the stairs, and opened the door, and I was so clueless, and next thing I knew we were standing inside an empty apartment. I asked him what it was and he said it was ours: the apartment he got for us to share when I graduate high school."
The story tumbled out of her in a rush and she swallowed another sob.
"Oh," was all I had to say. I could see what she meant about the surprise, but I was missing the tragic part. Before I could ask, she continued.
"He looked so happy, and excited, and proud. I knew he'd been putting in extra hours at his part-time job, saving money, but I never dreamed it was for something like this. And all I could do was stare like a complete idiot. I know he expected me to jump on him with a hug and say thank you a million times, but… I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"Mom and I already talked about this months ago, when my college application was approved. The campus is right here in the city, there's no reason to move, and it'll be better for my grades if I just keep living at home. It's already been decided."
Something about the way she phrased that caught my attention. "Did you decide? Or your mother?"
Her eyes refused to meet mine. "She's right, it'll be much easier and cheaper. And without distractions, so I can concentrate on my studies."
"But do you want that?" I pressed, a little impatiently. "Because the way I see it, you're absolutely miserable."
"My mother is a good woman! She works hard for me, she -"
"Won't let you breathe without permission. She barely lets you talk to your own brother, you have to lie about a traffic jam when you're just a few minutes late. Do you like living like that?"
"No!" she blurted, helplessly. "I hate it! I hate it and he knows it, he knows how unhappy I am. My brother got that apartment so I could get out, he thought he was saving me. He looked so hurt when I told him I had to think about it…" Her voice cracked mid-word with another sob and furiously she tried to get control of herself. Again she wiped at a few escaped tears.
"I don't understand. If you're that unhappy living with your mother, then what's to think about?"
"Don't you see? He's put me in an impossible position; now I have to choose. It's bad enough just trying to split Christmas between them, how can I tell one of them that I want to live with the other? No matter what, someone will get hurt."
Tears spent, she propped her chin on one knee and exhaled with a shudder. I braced my palms against the carpet and leaned back, taking in her pitiful appearance.
"Does your family have any idea what they put you through?"
She half-shrugged. "I don't think so, no."
No, of course they wouldn't. Too busy despising each other, scrabbling for influence over her as if she were a prize consumer niche, they wouldn't even bother to notice. Sitting here with her, I had the stray thought that I knew Coffee girl better than any of those who called her by some other name.
"So what about you?" I asked after a few moments of silence. "What do you want? Do you want to live with your brother?"
"I don't know," she confessed. "He's kinder than my mother. He won't spend the day breathing down my neck about my grades. And he loves to have fun. But…"
"But?"
"But he doesn't know how to leave me alone, any more than Mom does. He throws a fit if I wear a skirt that's too short, or lipstick too bright. He won't let me talk to boys. I'll still have a curfew, even if he doesn't call it that. I'll never have any quiet time to myself, not as long as he's in the mood to go out with his friends. I always have to come."
She rolled a disgusted groan down her throat, burying her face in both hands. "Argh, listen to me. I'm terrible, I'm the world's most ungrateful sister! He went to so much trouble and all I can do is complain; after all he's done, now he's giving me a new place to live. How can I tell him no?"
She dropped forehead to knee, her long hair swishing forward to conceal her face like a curtain. Looking at the rows of books behind her, I wondered idly just what she'd meant when she said she couldn't read were it not for her brother.
"You know," I ventured, "I'm an older brother myself. And I've done a lot for my little brother, I've gone through hell like you wouldn't believe for his sake. It wasn't fun but I had to and so I did. And I know he's grateful, but if I ever thought he felt obligated to me – like he had to do something for me because of what I've done for him – I wouldn't like it. That's not how it's supposed to work."
She'd turned her face up sometime while I spoke, watching me with puffy but now-dry eyes. "I'm sure your brother wouldn't like it either."
"You don't know what he did -"
"You're right. I don't. But he didn't do it so you could spend the rest of your life feeling guilty about it, and resenting every minute you're with him. He did it because he wants you to be happy. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."
To that she said nothing, considering my words in silence. Finally a petite sigh escaped her lips. "Maybe you're right."
"I know I'm right."
"My brother wouldn't want me to feel this way, but he'll never understand that I do. He wouldn't even notice, he's not the type to notice things."
"You could talk to him."
"No, I couldn't. He's the same as my mother, they're both so quick to remind me of all the things they've done for me, everything that I owe them. And they're not doing it to make me feel guilty, I know, they're trying to outshine each other. They don't even notice how it makes me feel, always playing the rope in their stupid tug-of-war. I don't think they even bother to wonder what I want, not anymore."
She huffed, a spark of anger flashing across her miserable expression. "My mother made the decision that I should stay at home, she didn't care what I thought about it. My brother got that apartment first, asked me second. No, didn't even ask me. Told me we'd be living there together. They can't stand each other but they're so alike, always making the decisions, always calling the shots, always telling me what to do. The only one in my life that doesn't tell me what to do is -"
Abruptly she cut herself short, and I leaned forward in curiosity.
"Who?"
"You," she whispered.
Though she might as well have shouted it. The word hit me like a blow to the chest, robbing my lungs of breath and effectively crippling any ability to speak. For so many months I'd allowed her to share my table and my reading time, unique in my world because she made no demands. I had never thought to wonder what she saw in me.
The irony was too rich for belief. I, multimillionaire and employer of hundreds, was the only one she knew that had never given her an order, never commanded anything of her. She had so little, was hardly more than a pawn in her own family, but asked me for nothing.
How did we ever find each other?
I had to have her, and so I did. I rocked forward and kissed her, and that's when I tasted chai. She was right, it was good. Sweet and creamy with just a little spice, warm and cozy as this bookshop in winter. She offered no resistance, opening her lips and allowing me in, uttering perhaps just a tiny muffled whimper at the swiftness of it. I kissed her like I do everything in life: thoroughly and well.
We were both breathing a little harder by the time I withdrew. Tears forgotten, she stared at me with round eyes and cheeks flushing a new pink under her blotchy skin. And I, the second male to surprise her that day, stared back and wondered what to say.
"Was that okay?"
She nodded, quickly.
"I am not your family."
She nodded again.
"So I won't tell you what to do. But I will ask you."
Still watching me in silent astonishment, she made no sound.
"Would you like to do that again?"
Once more, she nodded.
And so we did.
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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters
I'd like to pause, at this absurdly romantic and sappy moment, to say just how amazed I am at the response this fic is getting and thank you all for your reviews. Especially those reviews for the 'economic' chapter last time around, you all made me so happy! Even if you disagree with my points, at least you all gave it thought. As an aspiring political writer, nothing could make me more proud. Sorry chapter nine took a little bit longer, but now that emotions have begun to fly the plot is getting trickier. Plus I had a vacation. With any luck, ten will be up before long – I suspect maybe three or four more chapters after that.
Madelina: Touche, you are right on both counts. Typing 'his or her' is such a pain, English should have a unisex pronoun. And can I help it if my boss is a total economic moron, whose idiotic understanding of free trade causes me to storm out of the office before I get myself fired and thus spawns the basic theme of chapter eight? (helpless shrug)
And Blu Lotus: Education is never free. At most it is merely state-sponsored, which means the government provides it, which means they collect taxes to fund it, which means someone, somewhere, pays. I'm not totally sure what that has to do with the argument, either, since starving children will still choose to work in the day rather than spend it reading books in a classroom. Can you blame them?