But You Loved Me

The day was dragging, seriously dragging, although I had expected nothing less. I’d known the moment he’d suggested coffee that it was going to feel like an eternity before I actually saw him again. I tried to keep myself busy, sorting books, stacking shelves, taking down old posters, putting up new ones. I even spent an hour arranging all the money in the register into neat piles, just hoping to fill up the time. But it didn’t happen. My day ticked by, slower than ever, taunting me, and it didn’t help that with every minute that the store stayed empty, I worried more and more about whether he would actually turn up or not.

My lunch hour was the worst, I sat drinking my coffee, alone, probably looking more miserable than I usually did, before heading back to sit in my dim little store, waiting on a customer that would never come, and hoping that I hadn’t made it all up in my head, or that he hadn’t been lying to me, and that he would – at some point – walk through the door, and brighten up my day.

*

I sighed, flicking through the same comic that I had been all day, not paying attention to what was on the page, in fact, the only thing I found myself thinking about was him, not that that was anything new. He’d been all I thought about for years now, and that certainly wasn’t anything I expected to change anytime soon, no matter what happened from here on out.

A gentle cough roused me from my thoughts, and my head snapped up, my eyes widening slightly as they met his, and I couldn’t stop the elated feeling that quickly filled me and he smiled, leaning casually against the counter.

“I believe you owe me a coffee,” he stated, I opened my mouth to answer, but found myself speechless, something that, until recently, had never happened to me, “and a conversation would be nice too,” he added lightly, I smiled, forcing myself to make some sense of my thoughts and create them into a sentence.

“I um…” I glanced up at the clock, feeling relief wash over me when I saw I was mere minutes away from the end of my shift. “I get off in about ten minutes…” I trailed off, he nodded.

“I can wait,” and with one final smile, he disappeared towards the rows of books, and I finally let out the grin that I had been forcing back, not wanting to seem like some love struck teenager, when in reality, that was exactly what I felt like. We may be older, and things may be different between us, but that didn’t change the way he made me feel, honestly, I hoped it never would. It was the only thing in my life that felt good right now.

Of course the next ten minutes seemed to last for hours, and eventually, I stopped waiting and headed towards our staff room to find Brian, knowing he wouldn’t care that I was a few minutes early, honestly, I think if he wasn’t as desperate for the money as I was, he probably would have closed the shop for good by now. I bid him my goodbyes and grabbed my jacket before heading to the front of the store, to find Frank propped up by the counter once more. I smiled.

“Coffee,” I stated, and with one simple nod, he turned for the door, glancing back briefly to check that I was following.

I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t awkward to start with, I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him, I didn’t know where we stood anymore. For all I knew, he could have completely forgotten me, which, based on his behavior, could have well been possible, but who in their right mind would just invite a stranger for coffee? Well... Frank would. Or at least the Frank I knew seven years ago would.

“So,” he broke the silence as I quickly approached the half-empty mark of my coffee cup. “Tell me about you,” he prompted, I floundered, I hated that question, no matter who it came from. I never knew what the hell they were expecting me to say.

“I… um… what?” He smiled

“Well, I don’t really know anything, besides you work in a bookstore, which, looks like it gets maybe one customer a week,” he frowned, I bit my lip, “Why do you work there exactly?” he asked, “You can’t be getting paid much,” he assumed.

“It pays the bills,” I mumbled, adding on an ‘almost’ as an afterthought. I didn’t need to bombard him with my problems. The last thing I wanted was to let on just how pathetic my life had become. He shrugged it off and pressed on, throwing whatever question popped into his mind at me, most of which were frivolous - like, my favorite color, what CD was in my car, what kind of car did I have, did I have any pets - but occasionally he’d thrown in something complex and political, until we’d drunk our way through four and a half coffees and the store was approaching it’s closing time, at which point we stood and headed out into the now dim streets.

“Well, this was nice,” he stated, I nodded, biting back a response, because I knew the only thing that would come out of my mouth, was the only thing that had been on my mind ever since he’d shown up. What the hell was going on? At first, I’d assumed he was just messing me around, and while that could still very well be true, his questions today, had done nothing but confuse me more, and suggest that there was something more to this. “I thought we’d gotten over the speech barrier by now,” he smiled.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, ducking my head as he reduced me to my inner teenage boy again. He chuckled.

“Well, I um… I should go. I’m sure I’ll see you around, I’ll be in need of a new book or two soon,” he told me, and I lifted my head to meet his eyes, knowing that if I didn’t say something now, I might not get the chance. He hesitated and for a moment I thought he’d noticed the way I’d automatically opened my mouth to speak – before closing it quickly – but seconds later he smiled and started to walk away, glancing back for the briefest second before he rounded the corner, leaving me alone, and desperately wanting to kick myself, again.