Coffee Shop Soundtrack

I woke up to pounding on my front door. Before going to answer it, I looked at the time on my phone. It was already almost one. I sighed and stood up, walking down the stairs to the front door and swinging it open. I thought it would be Ashlyn so I was surprised to see Garrett standing there.

“You’re up, good.” He looked at my face hard. “Are you sober?”

“A bit hungover, actually.” I said, just now feeling my pounding headache. I shut the front door and started towards the kitchen.

“So you haven’t started drinking anything today?” he asked. “John, we don’t want a repeat of last time, I know seeing Makenna last night must have been-”

“Garrett,” I said cutting him off and grabbing a glass from the right cabinet. “I didn’t drink anything. And I don’t plan to.” I filled up the glass with water from the faucet. “At least not yet.”

“That’s not funny, seriously,” he said. “I’m not covering for you with your parents again.”

“Who says I’m joking?” I asked as I took a bottle of aspirin from a cabinet above the fridge. “I was fine until you mentioned her name.” I threw the pills back and washed them down with water.

“What are you going to do, John?” he asked, “Come on, tell me. I’m you’re best friend. You need to work this out in your head. You can’t just get wasted every time you hear her name.”

I was silent for a minute. Garrett was being serious, I couldn’t keep joking around with him. But I wasn’t in a good mood either, and I didn’t really want to talk about this. “I don’t know, Garrett. I’m not going to do anything.”

I sat down at the kitchen table and put my face in my hands. Why did she have to show up at that party last night? And why did she have to run off as soon as she saw me? Now if I see her, things will be more awkward than ever. I was surprised last night, shocked. I didn’t think I would see her. I wasn’t planning on seeing her, I wasn’t mentally prepared for the situation. And because of that, I was a mess for the rest of the night. I’m not surprised Garrett came over to make sure I was okay.

“Maybe I should leave,” I said.

“Leave where?” Garrett asked, sitting down at the table.

“I don’t know,” I looked up at him. “Anywhere. Go back to Florida. Or maybe even take a trip out of the country. Ashlyn could come with me. We could backpack through Europe for a few months.”

“You can’t afford that, John.” He said.

I shrugged. “I’ll figure something out.”

“You can’t keep running away from this, John. You can’t do that to your friends, your family, Shane.” Garrett said. “You can’t do that to Makenna.”

“What are you talking about. She’s the reason I would be doing it.”

“John,” he started, “Have you ever thought for a second about how she might feel. You and Makenna are in the same situation right now. I’m sure seeing you was hard for her too. But she’s not running.”

“Well what do you want me to do, lock myself in the house for the next few months?” I asked.

“No, John. I want you to grow up. Makenna has, why can’t you?”

“Well you’re right about that,” I laughed. “She sure has grown up.”

“Can you please tell me why that’s so funny?” Garrett asked. “So after high school, she went off and did her own thing. Big deal, John. So did you. You need to get over it. Seriously, John, grow the fuck up!”

I didn’t know what to say to him. He was right. He was always right. Makenna had grown up, and I was the one that was still acting immature.

I sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I need to grow up.”

“I know it’s easier said than done, but forget about her.” Garrett stood up and rummaged through the fridge a bit.

I just nodded at his advice. I would try to forget about her. She was nothing to me, at least she should be nothing to me. I had an amazing girl friend, amazing friends, amazing family. I didn’t need to worry about Makenna like this, thinking about her just complicates things. I should be enjoying the time I had home.

“Any plans for today?” Garrett asked, sitting down at the table with a bowl of chopped up strawberries he found in the fridge. “Are you seeing Ashlyn?”

I shook my head. “Nope, nothing.” Someone rang the doorbell and I sighed as I got up. “Great, this is probably another one of the guys coming to check up on me.”

I left Garrett in the kitchen and went to the door. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining that I’m not a drunken mess, again.

As I was opening the front door I was just about to start explaining that I was fine, until I saw that it wasn’t Kennedy, Jared, or Pat there.

“Hi,” she smiled and looked down at her feet, pushing a strand of long brown hair behind her ear before looking back up. You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Kenna...” The entire room felt like it was closing in around me. My heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest and run a few miles away. “What are you doing here?” So much for forgetting about her.

“Um,” she looked at her feet again. She was nervous. I made her nervous. “I really don’t know,” she said, looking at me. “Maybe I should go-”

“Wait,” I said when she started to turn around. “Makenna, don’t leave.”

She stopped and looked up at me. “I don’t know why I came here. This was a bad idea.”

“Makenna, just come inside. We can talk.” I opened the door wider, inviting her in. I wondered how I was being so calm when I just felt like running, sort of like how she did last night. Maybe I was more mature than I thought.

Makenna was hesitant at first, but she stepped inside and waited for me to shut the door. I led her into the kitchen where Garrett was putting the empty bowl in the sink. He turned around and his eyes got wide. He looked at Makenna and then back at me and then back at Makenna. I was just realizing how awkward this really was.

“Hey, Garrett,” she said with a smile.

“Hey,” he smiled back and walked over to her, giving her a hug. “How have you been?”

“Um, I’ve been good,” she said to him. “I’ve been really great.” Hearing that she was doing great hurt a little bit.

“That’s great, it’s great to see you, really,” he said, “I’ve missed you, we all have.” He smiled again and then looked at me. “But, I think I’ll leave you guys alone, I have a lot I need to get done,” he lied. He walked towards the door and we both listened to him leave.

“You can sit down,” I said, waving at the table and taking a seat myself.

“Thanks,” she sat down in the end seat to the right of me. “Um, I guess I came over here to apologize,” she started. “For last night. I knew I would see you eventually, I just didn’t think I was going to see you there.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “Well, I’m sorry for just leaving like that. I should have been more mature about the situation, but I wasn’t.”

“It’s fine,” I said, “You were just surprised. I get it.”

“Right,” she said, “Well, maybe now that we’ve actually seen each other for more than a few seconds, things won’t be so awkward the next time we run into each other.” She put her hands on the table. “Now I get why you called so many times, you were just trying to avoid what happened last night.”

“Yeah, exactly,” I said, even though I really didn’t know why I was calling her. I eyed her hands. The ring finger on her left hand held a simple diamond ring and right underneath there was a thicker silver band. I felt the anger rising inside of me, but I tried my hardest not to let it show, I was trying to be mature after all. She saw what I was looking at and moved her hands from the table. “So it’s actually real, isn’t it?” I asked. “Part of me thought that it was just some big rumor that was being spread around.” More like part of me hoped.

She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, trying to figure out if I was angry or not.

“Makenna Raze, married. Who would have thought, huh?” I smiled, even though I didn’t want to. What I wanted to do was jump in my car and drive to the nearest bar.

She smiled sheepishly, “Actually, it’s James now. Makenna James.”

“Well then, congratulations.” I sounded sarcastic, and I knew she heard the sarcasm in my voice the second it came out.

She stood up. “I didn’t come here to have you be a jerk to me, John.” She sighed. “I’ll see you around.” I watched her leave the kitchen and listened to the front door open and close. Now I needed a drink.