The Best Thing

The petite, young brunette quietly cursed under her breath before quickly squatting down to pick up the broken pieces of glass clustered over the floor of the coffee shop. “Sorry,” she said, slightly embarrassed. She’d not seen him as she was too busy reading her favourite novel.

“No, it’s alright,” the dark haired, waiter said, as he joined the brunette. He took the plain, white tea towel off his shoulder and placed it onto the floor, and the pair placed the broken pieces of glass onto the towel. He wrapped the towel with the glass into a ball. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It was no problem,” she smiled. “It was my fault anyway.”

The waiter chuckled lightly. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?”

The brunette frowned. “Yeah, I am,” she answered. ‘But you say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“Oh, trust me, it’s not a bad thing,” the waiter assured. “I mean, it’s nice to see a fresh face every now and then, but the people here usually don’t help us out with our work.”

The brunette raised her eyebrow in confusion. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“As in, locals don’t help out because waiters are on the bottom of the ladder,” he explained. “They pretty much don’t have any courtesy. They’re all rude when they come in here and try and make our job harder for us.”

The young adult frowned. “That’s awful,” she said. “Why do you even work here then?”

The waiter shrugged nonchalantly. “I need the money,” he answered simply. “Since I’m at college I need to earn enough to pay the fees not to mention the tuition, and back where I’m from, we don’t have much money. I guess I’m desperate.” He chuckled lightly to himself.

“I’m Jennifer Reign, by the way,” the brunette introduced.

“Joe Jonas.”

***

“Are we there yet?” Jennifer laughed as she cautiously walked forwards, blindfolded.

Deep down inside, the young brunette wanted to study for her exam even though they were a month away. She figured if she wanted to the best she could in her final exam then knowing everything thoroughly would be a good way to go out. That’s what her parents liked most out her.

She was always so grounded, as she’d not caused much drama at home when she was younger, and was so hardworking and responsible.

“Almost,” the familiar voice replied.

It was only a couple of steps before Jennifer realised she’d come to a halt. “We’re there already?” she said, somewhat surprised.

Although she couldn’t see anything through the dark coloured blindfold, she craned her neck to her left, then her right, sniffing her surroundings. She could smell beautiful spring flowers as the sun shined down on the pair.

“Yep,” the voice answered. “You can take your blindfold off now.”

Slowly, Jennifer untied the knot behind her head, and peeled the blindfold off her face. At first, a blurry image stood before her as her eyes was not used to the sudden bright light, but soon after, her eyes adjusted and Jennifer began taking in her surroundings.

The pair was now standing before a beautiful, sparkling lake, and watched it as the water smoothly and calmly moved around in circles. Trees and spring flowers that were embedded into the ground and on the tree branches, surrounded the lake were splendidly blossomed.

It was simply beautiful, and she was speechless. He left her speechless.

“Joe…” she managed to get out after a while. She was still trying to figure out what to say to him, but before she could let anymore words out, she was interrupted from doing so.

It happened so slowly. Joe tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled as he slowly leaned in and immediately, Jennifer could feel her heart beating faster. She knew what was going to happen in seconds, but she wasn’t quite sure about it. She was afraid.

“Joe,” she repeated again, but this time, there was a pleading tone in her voice.

The young man stopped and gawped back at her for a moment. “Please…” he begged as he slowly cupped her face in his large hands.

To Jennifer, it felt like forever staring back into his dark brown eyes, but then before she knew it, a soft pair of warm lips crashed into hers, and that’s when she knew – when she was sure and wasn’t afraid anymore. It was only seconds later when the brunette broke it off.

Jennifer gazed back into his dark chocolate brown eyes and smiled warmly at him before speaking softly. “You’re the best thing that’s ever been mine.”

***

“This is your stuff right?” Joe asked as he slowly peered into the small cardboard box on the kitchen bench. “Can I look what’s inside?”

“Joe, we have bills to sort out,” Jennifer reminded as she let out a small, slightly annoyed sigh. She looked down at the piece of paper before her, reading the bill as she spun a pencil between her middle and index fingers.

But Joe went ahead and opened the small cardboard box, as he pulled out a couple of Jennifer’s childhood toys. “I know,” he responded, as he continued to pull out more of his girlfriend-of-five-years-today possessions.

It felt as if it was only yesterday when he kissed her for the first time by the lake after blindfolding her, when in fact, it happened exactly five years ago.

“Joe,” she said more alarmingly. She was getting impatient with him. “Please, we have to get this done by tomorrow otherwise tax collectors are going to come around.”

Except Joe didn’t respond to his girlfriend and continued to pull out everything from the box and placed the objects on the bench. It was only when he reached the last object in the box when he stopped. At first, he looked at his girlfriend before turning back to pull it out.

But before he could, Jennifer quickly jumped out of her seat and ran to where her boyfriend was and pushed him away from the box. “Don’t,” she begged as she closed the flaps of the box down together protectively.

“Jenny,” he said softly, as he frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Just don’t look inside the box anymore,” she begged. “Please, Joe.”

“Let me see,” he said. “Please.”

The petite brunette shook her head and looked down at the floor. It was one of her deepest secrets as she’d never shared it with anyone before.

“What are you hiding, Jen?” he frowned as he gently moved the brunette from the box.

He quickly opened the flaps of the box and pulled out the last object and looked at it. It was a picture of a couple wrapped up in each other’s arms and smiling happily. The dark brown haired man was dressed in a suit with a bow tie and the young, blonde lady in a gorgeous white dress – it was a wedding. There was sticky tape stuck down in the centre of the page, holding the picture to together as it had been obvious the picture had been ripped previously, which split the picture in half – the couple in the photo.

“I was eight when it happened,” Jennifer said quietly after a long silence between the pair. “One night my mom got so mad at my father over something and ripped the picture in half. I was so sure after that fight they had, my mom was going to throw the picture out, but I didn’t want her to. So I got it before she could her hands on it again. I remember sitting in my room that night just trying to fix it. They looked so happy there, and back then, I thought that if I could fix the picture that spelled out ‘love’ and everything I knew about it, then everything would be okay again. But it didn’t get better – it got worse – they got divorced a month later.” Her voice was barely above a whisper as she tried to refrain herself from crying.

It was only then when Joe realised why she’d been so secretive before. He figured it was something so deep inside of her that she was afraid to show, that something being the fact that she was afraid to fall in love because of how her parents ended up – unhappy, divorced.

Joe placed the picture back into the box and wrapped his arms around the beautiful brunette before him. He felt her arms wrap around him as she rested her hand on his chest and he rested his on her shoulder.

“Jenny, we’ll never make your parents’ mistakes,” he whispered softly, then kissed the top of her forehead. “I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said as she hugged him tighter a little longer before pulling away. “Now we’ve got bills to pay.”

“I was hoping you’d forget about that,” Joe chuckled jokingly, as the brunette whacked him playfully.

Jennifer sat back down onto the chair and picked up the pencil and circled the large digit on the bottom of the page. “We still need to pay that much,” she said. “We had three months to get this figured out and we’ve only managed to only get half of that. Joe, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll pay half now, half later,” he suggested simply.

“But you know it doesn’t work like that,” Jennifer frowned. “We’re already way passed our halfway mark to pay half the bill.”

The conversation continued on like this for a couple of hours, as a few suggestions were thrown around but were then crushed by a reason. The pair worked into the early hours of the morning and it was only until half past two when Jennifer had finally gotten fed up with everything.

“Joe, we’ve got nothing figured out,” she said, sighing heavily as she dropped the pencil onto the table.

“No, don’t give up, we’re going to figure out a solution to the bills,” he encouraged, but deep down inside he knew they were stumped.

“I’m not just talking about the bills,” Jennifer revealed as she sniffed a little. “It’s not just bills that we haven’t got figured out. I mean, what about our future? We’re kind of living together and that’s not stable at the moment – we haven’t figured that out. We’re falling, Joe. We’re falling fast.”

“Jennifer-”

She cut him off. “No, don’t try and get all comforting with me.”

Then that was when Joe had, had enough with his girlfriend as he could not believe the words that had just come out from her mouth. “What’s wrong with you, Jen?” he snapped. He was frustrated with her. “You’ve changed so much! Back then when we met, you were so much more carefree about everything. Now it feels like a stick has been shoved up your-”

She’d cut him off again, not bothering to wait for him to finish. Jennifer too, was now also getting frustrated. “Fine, you know what, Joe?” she spat, angrily. “If you don’t like the fact that I’ve changed in the five years we’ve known each other then leave me because I’m pretty damn sure I’m going to be like this for the rest of my life. So if you don’t like it, then leave me.”

Jennifer knew it was a foolish thing to say as she’d given him the option to leave her right there and then, so easily. She knew if Joe would walk out of the house right now she’d regret it, and right now, that was what she was expecting. But much to the brunette’s surprise, the young man before her didn’t move on inch, but spoke instead.

“Jennifer, I’m trying to hold onto everything we have here-” he said, the frustration in his voice.

Once again, the brunette interjected. “And you think I’m not trying to either?” she hissed angrily.

But Joe ignored her and continued on with what he was saying. It continued like this for a while. The pair were talking over one another, raising their voices every so often, and when Jennifer stopped, Joe was still talking.

“… And whether you like it or not, everything’s slipping right out of our hands.”

That was when Jennifer couldn’t take it anymore. Tears began streaming down her face as she ran out of the house and out onto the road of the dark streets. The last couple of words that came out of Joe’s mouth hit her hard in the heart and felt as though her heart broke a little.

It was then when Jennifer began to brace herself for the break up. In fact, that was all she’d ever known from everyone around her. Her parents got married and they broke up in the end. Even her friends’ relationships ended with the famous lines of, it’s not me, it’s you, or we need a break. Relationships always ended. There was never one that had lasted. It was simple, relationships always found its ending whether any of us liked it or not.

She figured she’d take her time calming herself down because when she’d walk right back into the house, she knew he’d be gone. But what Jennifer noticed, was the masculine figure in the distance, slowly approaching her.

“Jennifer,” the voice called out.

The brunette quickly wiped her tears away and realise the figure before her was Joe. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, or what she’d just realised. Her boyfriend of five years followed her out onto the streets when it was freezing cold and dark with a jacket in hand.

Joe gently placed the jacket onto the brunette’s shoulders then pulled the brunette into a quick hug, surprising Jennifer. He then pulled away before staring right back into her eyes. “Don’t be so stupid,” he said gently. “I’ll never leave you alone.” And that was because she was the best thing that’s ever been his.