Heartstrings

The coffee shop was notorious for hosting the Weekly Breakup.

Every Saturday, I sat by the window of La Rouge Café with a paperback book in hand. I sipped my black coffee and listened to the endless chatter among the customers, until the movie would begin. The showtimes were often spontaneous, but there would always be at least one screening throughout the day. I often read the tattered novel without much interest, until a movie unfolded itself in front of me.

There were men and women of all ages who entered the café with an apathetic expression that concealed any thoughts of worry terribly. It was always obvious how terrified they were inside, for they were all open books with a readable expression. They all knew that something terrible would happen, but they just didn’t know what would happen. Strangely enough, their premonitions were always right. Once they found the table occupied by their boyfriend or girlfriend, their partner would quickly cut to the chase. The callous boyfriend or girlfriend would inject pain into the hearts of his or her former “lover” before he or she would leave the café without any remorse.

I always laughed inaudibly to myself, as I watched the devastated expression of the heartbroken man or woman. The ex-lover should have known better than to date the heartless man or woman, but of course, their naivety concealed any better judgment. They also had no one else to blame but themselves for their self-inflicted pain.

I wondered how it was even remotely possible that anyone could be foolish enough to fall for the three obscured words. Didn’t anyone else know that the three-worded lie meant nothing these days? Well, unless a person accounted their downfall as something worth noting, then perhaps one could consider it as having some twisted meaning.

There was never a time when the breakup wasn’t predictable, but I enjoyed watching the scene nevertheless. Sure, the ending would always result in heartbreak and tears, but how could that ever bore me? The waterworks were the best part of the whole film!

Today wasn’t any different. As soon as I walked through the glass doors of the café, I knew that another breakup would soon occur. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee and just baked pastries greeted me with a knowing smirk. My acquaintances were always proud of their know-it-all attitude, but they never left me out of their endless gossip. They knew how much I enjoyed watching the agonizing effects of breakups and often joined me in my laughter.

I made my way towards the counter and waited in line for my turn to order. The cinnamon buns and butter scones all looked at me with a devilish grin as I smirked in return. I reunited with my acquaintances once again, and the bittersweet feeling was almost heartwarming. Too bad that it would only be short-lived.

“Cassie, you can stop staring at the pastries. They’re not going anywhere,” someone prompted playfully.

“Oh, sorry, Jason,” I apologized, and looked away from the bakery display case. “I’ll have a—”

“—medium cup of coffee with no milk or sugar,” Jason finished for me. He always did know what I wanted. Sometimes I wondered if he was acquainted with the coffee and pastries as well. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was. Then again, he did work at a café every Saturday.

“You know me too well, Jason.” I smiled.

“That may be true, but I just know that you order the same damn thing every time you come here. Don’t you ever get tired of drinking dull coffee?”

“Of course, I don’t! And the coffee is anything but ‘dull.’”

“I beg to differ. Coffee is incomplete without any milk or sugar. And if you’re not going to put in either, than you just have dull coffee.”

“Are we really going to argue about what makes coffee dull or not? Or am I allowed to have my morning cup of coffee?” I asked in a warning tone.

“Oh, right. I forgot that you become the grouchy monster if you don’t get your daily dose of caffeine. One cup of black coffee is coming up!” He quickly ran towards the coffee maker and brought back my order in record time.

I giggled. He always knew how “grouchy” I could be without my coffee, and he definitely didn’t want to see what I would do if he didn’t get me my order. It was strange how useful the weapon of fear truly was, and how effective it could be in spite of how often I took advantage of its power. Well, as long as I got my morning cup of coffee, then everything should be fine. “Thanks, Jason.”

“You’re welcome. My shift is over in ten minutes, so you’ll wait for me, right?” He asked in a hopeful tone.

“It’s only nine o’ clock in the morning, and your shift is going to be over by then?” I asked skeptically, lifting a brow.

“Well, maybe it’s not, but my boss doesn’t need to know that I’m going to take a short break.”

“Right, and your mom isn’t going to yell at you for taking a ‘short break’ when you should be serving angry customers who will be making complaints if you don’t take their orders.”

“She won’t yell at me if you’re here!” he said in a singsong voice.

“Who said that I was going to stay here?”

“I did. Now go sit.”

“I’m not a dog, Jason.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Would you like me to soak your shirt with hot coffee?”

“I take back what I asked.” He said before he served the next customer.

I took the familiar seat by the window as I waited for his shift to be “over.” Jason was always the older brother I wanted, but I settled for being the little sister who enjoyed irritating him to death. I had known Jason since the first day I stepped through the familiar glass doors and ordered my first cup of coffee. We had quickly formed a non-related sibling relationship and continued to annoy each other since I was in eighth grade.

Jason was a senior at my high school who couldn’t wait to graduate and escape this city. He knew that he didn’t want to leave me all by myself while he was gone, but he didn’t know that I could take care of myself without him. Besides, I was best friends with his younger sister whom I was expecting to show up at the coffee shop any moment now.

I lightly touched the fragile pages of the paperback I had bought earlier from the local bookstore in SoHo, New York. I wasn’t sure what the book was about, but I knew that an unknown author had written it in the late eighteen hundreds. The cover was tattered and some of the pages were torn, but I knew that it must have been a good read if it was in this condition. The best paperback novels were always the ones that were torn.

I heard the door suddenly swoosh open, and saw a man in his early twenties enter the café. He had an almost distressed expression on his face and dark circles under his eyes that emphasized his misery even further. His clothes were rumpled and his hair was unruly, twisting in several directions that wouldn’t help him figure out which way wouldn’t lead him to his downfall. He walked towards the farthest table away from the door and approached the unexpected.

There was a woman, who also appeared to be in her early twenties, sitting down on one of the café chairs and looking down at her watch. She had a white blouse on with a black blazer, and wore a matching dull skirt. She must have needed to go somewhere else, because she never took her eyes off her watch until the man approached her. He sat down on the chair across from her before they began to converse.

I was unfortunately too far away to hear their conversation, but I could get the gist of it. The woman soon stood up from the table and clacked her red pumps onto the ground, crushing his heart with each step. Her toxic perfume struck past me as she exited the café, and almost made me feel the heartbreak she scarred him with. Well, at least the woman was no longer tugging on his heartstrings. However, the man began to distort his face into one simple word: heartbroken.

I chuckled at the whole scene before I took a sip of my coffee to muffle my laughter, nearly choking on it in the process. I knew a breakup would soon happen, and this one was certainly the highlight of my morning. I shook my head in disbelief of his foolishness. How could there be so many people out there who were this vulnerable and naïve as him? Did they not know how to guard their own hearts?

I went back to reading the paperback book with more enjoyment, for I had my moment of watching my Saturday movie. The pages began to brush past each other as I reentered the realm of fantasyland and listened to the soft acoustics playing in the background.

Someone came behind me and began to run his fingers through my hair until he made it disheveled. There was only one person I knew who enjoyed doing this, and that person was Jason. He always knew how annoyed I would be if he ruffled my hair, so he took every opportunity he could get to do so.

I scowled at this and raised my coffee cup towards his shirt without taking my eyes off page twenty-two of my book. I could hear him immediately back away from my coffee and sit across from me. When I looked up from the current page, I saw him smiling innocently and fixing his gaze at the intricate design of the wallpaper. He must have found the swirls on the wallpaper to be intriguing, but I found them to be distracting him from the current issue.

“Jason, I hope you know how irritating you truly are.” I smiled, before I took a sip of my black coffee and bookmarked the paperback book. I lay it on the table and neglected it for the rest of our conversation.

We mainly discussed how college applications had taken over his life and how he couldn’t wait for his living nightmare to be over. I tried to direct the conversation towards him so that I wouldn’t have to talk about anything that had been going on in my life, because there really wasn’t anything going on. I didn’t have to worry about finishing my college essay on time or doing well on my interviews. There was nothing important happening lately, and I sometimes wished I were the protagonist in one of my many paperback collections back at home.

“The rain is unbearable!” someone exclaimed, shaking her umbrella vigorously and making water sprinkle onto Jason and me. Jason’s younger sister had finally made her entrance in a rather abrupt manner. She always did know how to make the most dramatic entrances. Then again, she was a bit of a theatre geek.

“It’s not so bad, Scarlet. If it hasn’t harmed you yet, then it’s not going to kill you,” I prompted, dusting off the rain on the sleeves of my shirt.

I noticed that her usually vivacious curls were damp and lacked any volume that they had once held. The black eyeliner had smudged, making her slightly lined eyes look more tired than awake. She was sometimes wary of her appearance and considered the rain as an “unworthy enemy” who enjoyed challenging her resistance to defeat. It was palpable that her nemesis often won, but she would never admit it to me.

“Not yet.” Jason smirked.

She scowled at the both of us before she looked at my hair and laughed. “You may want to brush your hair, Cassandra. It’s a bit disheveled right now.”

Now it was my turn to scowl. I looked at Jason with resentment. “I wonder why it is.”

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know why either,” he said, looking away and trying to evade my gaze.

“Oh, of course you don’t. Why would the person who made it disheveled in the first place be guilty in doing so?”

“Has my brother been annoying you lately?” she asked, as she took the seat next to him.

“Has there ever been a time when he hasn’t?” I wondered incredulously.

“Well, that may be a good point.”

“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” he snapped.

“Then, maybe you should go back to work so that we can talk about you as if you’re really not here,” Scarlet suggested, smirking.

Jason snatched the paperback book off the table and was about to smack Scarlet with it on her head, but I grabbed it from him before he even had the chance to. “Books are not weapons! Especially not the paperbacks that are tattered!”

“Oh, right. I forgot how overprotective you are when it comes to your old books. I don’t understand how you can tolerate the ancient smell it comes with,” he said, planting an amused smirk on his face.

“You of all people should know that books are invaluable. How you are going to survive college next year will always remain a mystery to me. I’ll also be surprised if any college decides to accept you!”

“That hurt, Cassandra. You don’t need to prompt me of the possibility of rejection.” He frowned.

“I’m sure that she meant it in the most lighthearted way as possible,” Scarlet said, trying to comfort him without bursting into a fit of laughter.

“There’s just one problem. I didn’t mean it in the most lighthearted way as possible. It was supposed to sting.”

“You’re really heartless, Cassandra. Your soul is as black as the bitter coffee you drink,” he scoffed.

“Why thank you, Jason. You certainly know how to compliment a girl.”

He grinned. “You’re welcome.”

I shook my head. “I sometimes question your maturity level. On a scale of one to ten, with one being the lowest and ten being the highest, it’s often anywhere between a three and a four. But I think it may be closer to a two today.”

The look on his face humored me. He looked appalled by my comment and grimaced. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a thirty-year-old woman living in a sixteen-year-old girl’s body?”

“No, but now that you’ve mentioned it, you’ve prompted me of my age.”

“You’re still afraid of people reminding you of your age, Cassie?” Scarlet wondered.

“I’m not ‘afraid’ of it. I just don’t like knowing that I’m moving closer to my deathbed.” I grimaced.

“Well, then, your birthday is in two weeks!” Jason exclaimed excitedly.

“Did you not just hear a single word I said?”

“Apparently not.” Scarlet shook her head. “He always did have hearing problems. Whenever I’m talking to him at home, he never seems to hear what I’ve said. Either that or he just chooses to ignore me.”

“It’s the latter,” he said, grinning. “Besides, we all know that no one can stand listening to your rants for longer than a minute.”

“I do not rant!”

“Right, and I’m not good-looking.”

“You aren’t.”

“Well, Cassie thinks I am! Right, Cass?” he asked, sounding hopeful and looking at me with his pleading blue eyes.

I shook my head in disagreement. “I would say that I’m sorry, but I’m not. I don’t want to inflate your oversized ego either.”

“I do not have an ‘oversized’ ego!”

“You keep telling yourself that, but you’re going to have to accept the truth sooner or later.” I smiled before I took a sip of my coffee. The bittersweet taste matched the morning’s events, making me want to fast-forward through the days ahead and play the Weekly Breakup episodes on repeat.