It's a Love Story

Juliette's POV

“It was so bizarre,” I told my friend Sophie as we took seats at our regular table at Alison Lawrence, the local coffeeshop in town. It was November 1st. Sophie and I had a long-standing tradition of coming here on the first day of every month, ever since seventh grade, just to sit and talk and have coffee—or, rather, when we were younger, hot chocolate. We hadn’t missed a day since we had started, and today was no exception. “I was like, who the hell are you and what have you done with my mother?” I continued, taking a small sip from my hazelnut coffee.

Sophie’s blue eyes were wide with understanding as she nodded. “Maybe, you know, it means she’s getting better?” she suggested.

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “Doubt it.” Sophie was the only one of my friends that I confided in about my mother’s drinking problem. Anyone else, and the news would have spread faster than pictures of Britney Spears shaving her head, and my family would most likely be ostracized by the rest of this stuck-up community. No doubt other families had problems similar, but they were always swept under the rug, kept hidden from the public in order to save face. But that morning, as I blearily stumbled downstairs to the kitchen, I had come across quite an unusual scene—my mother, fully dressed, hair brushed back neatly, pearl earrings in, sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading a magazine as though she had never taken a sip of vodka in her life. I had to blink twice to make sure this sober image wasn’t a figment of my imagination. And it wasn’t.

“My dad’s coming home tonight from Chicago, apparently,” I announced. “I think that might be why she’s been, you know, semi-sober all week.”

My dad had been gone for about a month on a “business trip”. Not that I missed him—to be honest, he didn’t pay much attention to me even when he was home. I knew my mom did care, though, and she particularly hated him being away on trips, where he wasn’t under her eye. My mom wasn’t an idiot. She knew during these “trips” he was doing his secretary not exactly the cleanest business. But she always turned a blind eye to it, just to save her marriage.

“Whatever. Let’s just talk about something else now,” I said, not really looking forward to the prospect of my dad coming home and wanting to keep my mind off it.

“Sure.” Sophie blew a little on her coffee to cool it down. The door behind me chimed as it was opened, and Sophie’s gaze slid past me to see who had just walked in. “Hey, isn’t that that photo teacher that everyone’s in love with?”

I spun around in my chair. “What? Oh. Yeah,” I said as I recognized the back of my teacher as he walked up the counter to order. I turned back to Sophie. “Wait, who’s in love with him?”

“Apparently Miss Kazer has, like, a huge crush on him,” Sophie revealed, naming one of our newest English teachers.

“What? No way!” I laughed.

“No, I’m serious,” Sophie insisted. “I see her all the time flirting with him. It’s so funny.”

I tried and failed to imagine my English teacher and Photo teacher hooking up. Nope, not gonna happen anytime soon. Sophie took a small sip from her coffee and made a face of disgust. “I always tell them to put more milk in it, what the fuck is wrong with them? Do I need to say it every time?” she snapped, standing up. “I’ll be right back.”

“Go ahead.” I smiled a little as she stormed off to the counter. A couple of seconds later, I had the weirdest feeling that someone was standing behind me. I turned around suspiciously.

“Oh. Good, it’s you. I was afraid it wasn’t you and I was just standing behind you like a creeper just watching…okay. Hi, Juliette.”

“Hi, Wolff,” I replied, amused. He was wearing dark jeans, tattered and frayed at the bottom, and a worn and torn leather jacket that gave him a more badass edge that I’d ever noticed in his teacher uniform.

“Sorry, I just ramble when I’m tired,” he mumbled, pushing a strand of hair out of his face. And he did look tired—his expression was exhausted, his body slumped, his face pale, and his eyes were red at the rims, as though he had been drinking all night or—the thought unexpectedly came to me—crying. “I’ve been up all night. I just drove back from Manhattan at, like, five and I’ve just been roaming around since then.” He yawned. “I’ve had about four coffees so far. Mind if I sit for a minute?” He gestured to Sophie’s deserted seat.

“Yeah, sure.” I waited until he was settled, before asking curiously, “Why did you drive out to Manhattan?”

“Oh. Uh, I just couldn’t sleep,” was his brief answer.

“You could have just taken the train, you know,” I told him.

He glanced at me. “Yeah, but…” His voice trailed off for a second. He tapped his cup as he gazed out the window, his brow furrowed as he tried to formulate his thoughts. “When I drive, it feels like…I’m going somewhere, you know? Like I’m not trapped.”

I must have given him a funny look, because he said, “Sorry, I’m not making any sense at all.” But on the contrary, I knew exactly what he was talking about. Sometimes I just felt like I had to get out of this time, like I just needed to run away for a little bit. It was weird, in that moment, it felt like he could understand me completely.

He sighed distractedly, as though he had been thinking of something else, and then refocused on me. “So how are you, Juliette?”

“I’m fine,” I answered him, hiding a smile as he brought his hand up and instinctively ran his hand through his dirty blonde hair. With his hair messy and his exhausted eyes wide as marbles from lack of sleep, he looked almost like a lost little boy for a second; it made my heart melt.

“That’s good…that’s good.” He nodded vaguely, and gave me a brief, but not insincere smile. “I should get going,” he said, more to himself. Just as he stood up, someone accidentally bumped into him, and his cup of coffee spilled all over his shirt. “Shit,” he swore. The woman didn’t even turn around.

“Hey, come back, you just spilled—” He stopped, looking furious. “Did you just see that? Motherfuc—uh, I mean—”

“Wolff, you know kids curse all the time, you don’t need to keep censoring yourself,” I laughed.

He looked embarrassed. “I know. But my sister always tells me I’ve got a dirty mouth.”

The way he said the word dirty, with that slight smirk and intonation, made other images of him being dirty fly in my head. I felt a sudden lurch in my stomach. What the fuck? My throat felt dry. I pushed all twisted and perverted thoughts of my teacher out of my head, trying to breathe normally. Where the fuck did that even come from?

He gave me a crooked smile, almost as though he knew what was going on in my head. My cheeks heated up. “Stay safe, Juliette,” he advised. “I’ll see you in school.”

“Bye, Wolff,” I called out. I felt breathless for a second. What the hell had just happened?

Sophie reappeared and sat in her seat, loudly complaining about her coffee. I barely heard her as my eyes followed Wolff through the window. Well, that was interesting.