Those Three Words

The next morning, when I shoved open the door and set off the bell, Derek turned around and smiled at me, the two of us sharing a second of awkward eye contact. I wanted more than anything to reciprocate the joy he had written all over his face, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. I’d just gotten back a grade for a paper I’d passed in a week previously, one that I thought was incredibly done, and I was shocked to find a C grade written at the top of the e-mail. I thought that reading the explanation would make me understand, but it just made me more confused, and I felt incredibly conflicted and moody.

“Hi, Lena,” Derek greeted, clearly trying to snap me out of my annoyed state of mind. “How are you?”

I ignored his question, knowing that if we got off-track, I’d never get around to the question Rachel had demanded I ask. “So, yesterday, when you gave me the wrong order, was that on purpose or by accident?”

His cheeks filled with the lightest pink blush I’d ever seen as he replied, “The girl I took this shift from said that someone with your description got the same thing every day, so when you ordered a vanilla latte, like she warned me that you got, I decided to mix things up a bit. I hope you don’t mind.”

Maybe I would have minded under normal circumstances, but his face looked incredibly innocent and sweet, and I found myself sighing. “So it was on purpose?”

“Yeah.” He smiled and picked out a grande cup, scribbling on the side. “So let’s make this a daily thing and open up your mind to the world of possibilities, okay?”

Before I could agree, he handed off the thermal cup, whispering hurried directions, and rang me up. But unlike the day before, when I handed over my money, he hurried into a back room, leaving me standing there by myself.

Whatever drink Derek had chosen for the day took longer than usual to make, and I was starting to get impatient and nervous. As I tapped my long fingernails against the counter, the little pattering noises filling the silence, I watched the clock carefully, hoping that time would move slower so I wouldn’t be late to class.

“Here you go.” Derek had appeared out of seemingly nowhere, holding out a coffee and a pastry bag. “The brownie’s on me,” he insisted. “You look like you need one.”

I flushed and, despite my bad mood, found myself letting out a short laugh. “Thanks.”

I waited until I was out on the sidewalk, en route to my college campus, to take a sip of the mystery beverage. It tasted way stronger than I was used to, but the taste wasn’t incredibly unpleasant. I looked around the outside of the cup to see what it was called, but he hadn’t given me the benefit of the hint.

I entered my class, noting that I was among the last to arrive, and took my usual seat. Although I rarely ate breakfast because my stomach typically didn’t want food early in the morning and made me feel nauseated as a punishment, I actually found myself wanting the brownie in the bag.

So I unrolled the top and took out the napkin that was thrown in after the dessert, tossing it onto the desk in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some black, scratchy handwriting, the same that had been on my coffee cup the day before.

Knitting my eyebrows together, I picked up the piece of paper and stared at it, taking a minute to decipher what the hieroglyphic-like handwriting was trying to say. But after a bit of work, I could see it: “SMILE! IT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU.”

Biting my lip to hide the grin that threatened to take over my face, I placed the napkin down neatly in front of me and started to pick off pieces of the brownie, popping them into my mouth and loving the feeling of the chocolate melting on my tongue. And the fact that the pastry had been free made it all the more appetizing.



“Wait, really?” Rachel’s face fell and her legs stopped swinging as she stared at me from her place on top of a desk, waiting for Creative Writing Club to start. “It was just a mistake?”

I nodded to confirm the lie I’d just told her. I figured that the situation was complicated enough without having Rachel asking me what Derek had done that day constantly. I loved her, and she was my best friend, but I didn’t want her to hassle me about it, blowing things out of proportion. And telling her about the note he’d given me that morning on the napkin would have made things a hundred times worse.

“That’s really depressing to me.” She let out a long sigh and rested her chin in her hands. “But whatever. We’ll find you someone soon enough.”

“Don’t count on it,” I muttered under my breath, just low enough to avoid her hearing me.

Completely oblivious to my pessimism, she looked over at the door and watched the group of three students pour in, giggling about some story that the brunette in the middle had recently finished sharing. In response, Rachel hopped off the top of the desk and settled down in the chair behind it, pulling out her notebook and knowing that the conversation about Derek was over, since I didn’t want the freshmen to overhear.

About ten minutes later, the last few members piled in, sitting in the seats closest to the door, and the club could begin. “Does anyone want to share anything they wrote since last time?”