Double-Shot of Ecstasy
~~~~~
I hate caffeine. I despise the smell. I abhor the taste. Despite my aversion to it, I still need it. Staying awake in the day has always been a struggle for me, probably because I sleep way too late. That’s why I order a double-shot espresso every morning at that shabby little cafe down the street from my house, or my mom’s house I guess, even if I gag my way through the entire experience. Not to mention how run down the shop is. The paint is peeling off its walls, the tables are wobbly, and it’s always a gamble if your chair had proper cushioning or not. To say the least, I don’t like this place very much. The atmosphere is dilapidated.
“Double-shot espresso for Ariyan?” The lady working the barista bar places my steaming cup of coffee by the pick-up station.
The barista lady has an oddly placed smile across her face. It’s evident that she’s extremely tired, but there’s joy in her expressions regardless. The people here are another kind of tragic. The light brown paint on her nails is peeling off, and her apron is dirtied with marks of coffee and cocoa powder.
I walk by the countertop, picking up the glass cup of mistakes, and sit down at an empty table in the corner of the shop. The cafe is busier than normal. Usually, there’s maybe three or four people in here, and that’s being generous. They have a full house today, though, so I wonder what that’s all about. It must be tough for the barista and waitress as they seem to be the only workers toda—
“Hey, can I sit here? Sorry, there’s no other open seats.”
My thoughts are interrupted by a guy no older than a junior in college. He looks about my age, maybe a little younger. I don’t recognize him, so he’s definitely not from my campus. However, he looks terrible -as if he just escaped from the grasps of Satan himself. His shoulder-length hair is a mess, there’s deep dark circles under his eyes, and his lips are dried out to the point it’s shedding.
“Oh, yeah, go ahead,” I agreed.
I pull out The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and flip to my bookmark. Before I’m even through the first sentence, the guy across from me opens his mouth again to start rambling about something again. I don’t look up at first, but he makes it clear that he’s speaking to me. What a hassle.
“So yeah, uhm, what about you?”
“Oh. I wasn’t listening. Could you repeat that?”
There’s a heavy feeling in the air. When I look up to satisfy whatever social urges he had, he’s looking at me with dejected eyes, emphasized by the dark moons under his eyes. The voices in the cafe seem to die out, leaving only us two bantering over coffee. The lights shiver above us; the light dims. The atmosphere is suffocating.
“I said I read The Metamorphosis too. I thought the book was kind of boring,” he reiterates, “What about you?”
I blink in response. There’s loud persiflage in the air along with the subtle noises that the coffee machines were making as the liquid pours into a cup. Nobody has ever directly told somebody that they hate a book, especially when that “somebody” is reading that exact book. My tongue runs rampant in my mouth before I found the right words.
“I’m not that far into the book yet,” I challenge, “So I don’t have any thoughts on it yet. I think it’s pretty good so far, though.”
It’s silent for what feels like an eternity until I feel something hot spread across my thighs. Burning hot coffee. I wince at the pain as I get up from my seat, dabbing at my skin with a napkin on the table. My day just can’t get worse can it?
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!” the waitress reaches into her apron for a towel, wiping off the coffee from my legs, “I was in a rush to get this to a waiting customer. I didn’t mean to—”
“Man! You serious?! First I have to wait years for my coffee, then I have this random guy bothering me when I’m just trying to read, and then some inefficient waitress spills her coffee on me. I can’t catch a break around here,” I push her out of the way, knocking my own cup of coffee to the floor so that it spills before walking out of the establishment. Fortunately for them, it doesn’t shatter.
I mean, c’mon. What kind of luck do I have to have for this to happen? There’s just no way that I can go through all of this in such quick succession. I guess I overreacted a little when I knocked my own coffee to the floor, but can anyone even blame me? It’s so early and I just so happen to be extremely irritable in the morning.
The winter sun drifts behind a cloud, and the world is basked in solemn shadows. A numbing freeze flies past me, sending chills down my spine and frost against the walls of my lungs. When I exhale, the colorless mist that escapes my lips dissipates into the air. A hand touches my own, and a voice speaks before I turn.
“Why would you do that?” It’s the guy that bothered me in the cafe.
“Because she deserved it. Why are you even following me?” I twist my wrist away from his grip, watching his arm go limp against his side.
“You clearly don’t have empathy for anyone then. You should stop coming to the cafe. You’re ruining the mood of the place.” His voice is stern and solid. Chilling. Like hail.
“Please,” I scoff, “You don’t own that poor excuse of a building. I don’t even understand why you care so much.”
“That poor excuse of a building is a home for the homeless, warmth for the cold, and a memorial for the omitted.” The pause feels eternal. “And I do own the place. You’re blacklisted as of today. Don’t come back.”
He places $2.50 in my hands, the amount I used to buy the coffee, and takes his leave. His steps are silent, or maybe I choose not to listen. Snow falls. Tiny specs of white blurs stream from dark clouds, threatening to leave a thin layer of frost over any surface it touches. I pull on my scarf, adjusting it securely around my neck. The sleet picks up, and my face lowers into the safety of my scarf; the walls of my coat. I begin walking home, and the atmosphere is gelid.
~~~~~
The door creaks as I open the door. There’s shards of glass on the floor; remnants of what used to be Hennesey. The day barely started, but I don’t feel like going outside anymore. I’ll catch up on my classes online. I just need to get to my room before somebody with severe issues sees me. The T.V is blasting loudly in the background, so I doubt she’s paying attention to me. I’ll just slip past her while she continues to catch up on whatever advertisement she’s indulging in.
“Ariyan.” Nevermind.
“Yes, Mom?” I walk into the living room. It reeks of cigarette smoke.
“Don’t call me that.”
White smoke rises from the pristine, cream colored couch. She clears her throat followed by a series of coughs. The lamp beside the coffee table is dim. Barely even considered lit. The room is a cage, deafening and enclosing. My throat feels like it’s going to constrict. It takes the most valiant courage for me to take another breath.
“What do you want, Marie?”
“What is this?” She gets up from the couch, facing me with a lit cig in her mouth. The fire glows bright in the pale room. A paper is thrown at my feet. My gradebook. “I birthed you, I cared for you, I let you stay in my home, I pay for your college, and this is what I get? A joke of a child that lies to continue mooching off of my things?”
“I’ll get them up. Just give me a few more week—”
Glass shatters on a marble table. A miniature vase just barely misses my face as it collides with the wall behind me, its contents spilling onto the floor. The flowers are wilted. The water has run dry. The once bright red petals have turned into dark crimson. What once was a luscious green stem is now flimsy and ridden with untrimmed thorns. The atmosphere is rotten.
“Get the hell out of my house, you excuse of a child. Find a job, too. You’re on your own starting now.”
“You can’t do this to me! I’m your son. As my mother you cannot—”
“Get that title out of your mouth! I am not your mother! Not since Jared left. He left because you weren’t good enough. Then I had to sacrifice my relationship with him just to raise,” she pauses, “Whatever the hell you’re supposed to be.”
“Seriously? You’re bringing him up again? I thought we were over this topic?” My breaths are heavy. There’s incoherent words in between proper ones. This is pathetic.
“Just get out. You have friends right? Crash at their place. Sell your belongings if you have to. Minimalize your attendance here in this home, or even better, just don’t come back.”
“Fine.”
I hate you. I hate you so much. I hate the penetrable walls. I hate how time passes so slowly here. I hate how the expectations are so high here. I hate how suffocating and damaging it is to be here. I hate that the walls are painted so perfectly when everything is going to shambles. I hate that the furniture is so expensive when the living conditions are so poor. I hate that this place looks so complacent when really everything is so tragic.
I’m tired. I need coffee. Triple-shot.
I head upstairs. I’m just gonna grab my stuff and go. I don’t have much anyways. Marie can keep my old clothes. I’ll collect the essentials and let her clean out the rest of the things I own. The things she owns, according to her, actually. The snow outside is loud against the walls. It’s hailing now. I want today to freeze over.
It doesn’t take long to pack most of my belongings. This childhood bedroom is full of errors I’d rather not remember anyways. Monsters in the closet that were really just family portraits. Monsters under the bed that were really just torn up letters. Monsters in my dreams that were really just unresolved resentments. Monsters in this house that walked upon these polished floorboards, imitating real parents that gave birth to an unprecedented deformity.
I really need coffee. I pull on my shoes and shut the front door behind me.
Winter gales strike me instantaneously. The air weighs tons, and my body feels like it’s going to collapse right here. The snow is somehow already at my ankles during my short period of being inside. The walk to the college dormitories is a little far, but this is fine. Some snow never harmed anybody. I sigh. The atmosphere is forlorn.
~~~~~
It’s really cold.
It’s so cold I don’t know what got into me that made me think I can get to campus in the middle of a blizzard. I can’t even feel my fingertips anymore. My whole body’s going to freeze over soon. Did the storm get stronger when I left or what? Just breathe, Ariyan. It’s gonna be okay. Everything always worked out no matter the situation.
“You should come in.”
I whip my head around. A warm voice invites me into an oddly familiar establishment filled with dim lights and neutral colors. The walls are peeling off. The tables are wobbly. Chairs are missing. The aroma of roasted coffee consumes the air. There’s a lot of people shifting through the tight arrangement of tables. I open my mouth to thank this envoy of God, but nothing comes out of my lips. My vision is a haze, the borders still outlined with piercing white.
“Here.” I’m guided to a table where a cup of scalding coffee is placed before me. “You like it with two shots, right?”
My hands wrap around the cup adorned with floral engravings. The glass is burning. I can feel each of my fingers thaw from its iced state within seconds. It takes even less time for me to bring the cup to my lips, pouring all of its contents into my mouth and down my throat. The burst of heat stings the walls of my mouth and numbs parts of my tongue. Some of it does not make it into my jaws and dribbles down my chin, splattering onto my clothes. I can feel the life reeling back into my body, and it takes only a moment before I fully return to my senses. The atmosphere is tender.
“You good?” It’s the shop owner.
“Yeah. Yeah, uhm, I am. Thanks.”
Deja vu strikes like a bullet. I’m sitting at the very same table, in the very same chair, across from the very same person, drinking from the very same cup, and waiting for the very same awkward silences to pass. My reflection pools in the brown mixture before me, and I can’t bear to look at myself any longer. The ice outside slams into the window beside us, filling the void of our conversation with some type of ambiance. I need to say something.
“Sorry about earlier.” I finally meet his gaze. “It’s not an excuse, but I don’t have an outlet for my anger. I took that out on you guys. My bad.”
“I had a feeling you weren’t a bad person,” he chuckles, cracking a smile immediately afterwards, “Just a bad day, huh? I get that.”
“Thanks for understanding.” I scratch my neck, looking out the window into the frosted afternoon. This is still so awkward. “You think it’s going to stop anytime soon? The storm, I mean.”
“It’s gonna be a while before it slows down even for a bit,” he responds, dropping a cube of sugar into his own cup of coffee, “Why were you out there in the first place?”
“It’s a long story.”
“You’re not planning to go anywhere in this weather, are you? We have a long time to waste.”
That’s the last line he says before I vent out my whole life story—to a complete stranger whose name I don’t even know.
~~~~~
“So that’s how it is.” He looks at me solemnly. “No wonder you’re so irritable.”
“Well, now you know my whole upbringing,” I laugh, “When we haven’t even exchanged names. That’s funny, isn’t it? It’s probably a bad idea to overshare with strangers.”
“You’re Ariyan.” He smiles again. It’s like that expression is the only one he knows. “I’m Cura.”
“You know my name?”
“Mhm. I know you’re Ariyan, the regular at our place who comes by from 11 am to 12 pm and orders the same thing every single time: a double-shot espresso. I know that you choose to sit in the areas of the cafe that are the least populated. I know that you were reading To Kill a Mockingbird last week, and the week before that you were reading The Trial. Am I wrong?”
I blink in confusion. Do I get up from my seat and run? Is this guy a stalker?
“Along with you, I know everyone in this cafe. That waitress who bumped into you? Her name’s Anne, and she spends her days working to support her three daughters. The barista is Lora, and her mother passed a few months ago. The two sitting over there are twins whose parents left them at age seven. That old guy by the counter comes by with his wife every afternoon, but today he only brings a portrait of her. Even that child who’s running carelessly around the cafe, he doesn’t understand why his father comes home late every single night. They’re all regulars, friends of regulars, or acquaintances of friends of regulars.”
“What?” I can’t seem to wrap my head around his sudden confession of his infatuation for prying into other peoples’ lives.
“They all had such different stories. They all come in here asking for coffee, first. We share cappuccinos over the stress that comes with three children. We share affogatos over the memories her mother left her with. We share mochas over why their parents are absent. We share americanos over the stories of his marriage. We share hot chocolate over the stories of his father.” He’s expressionless. “Each person was struggling with something different. Isn’t that beauty among the bad things? They tell their stories with all sorts of emotions, and only afterwards do we exchange names. That applies to you, too.”
“I don’t know if this is extremely sweet or extremely scary.” I cross my arms and lean back into my chair, watching his mouth stretch into that smile of his once again.
“That’s about the same reaction every single one of them had when I told them about my involvement in the cafe. Don’t worry, though, I’m not some weird psycho collecting peoples’ trauma or anything. I just find a lot of joy in hearing people talk about their life, the good and the bad. You get to live so many different lives without even needing to lift a finger – experience so much with the only price for their stories being a cup of grounded coffee beans.”
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty nice,” I admit, “You’re doing something good. You seem to care a lot. That’s commendable. I’m shocked that you really kept track of all the books I read, though. Some real awareness you’ve got.”
“Your acknowledgement is appreciated.” He takes a sip from his cup of coffee, which I realize is also a double-shot. “Gotta say, your go-to coffee is hard to be accustomed to. This stuff is real hard to swallow.”
“Doesn’t that say a lot about the type of person I am?” I share a smile back at him.
“It does, actually.” He drops another cube into his cup, probably to make the taste more bearable. “You’re bitter and reserved, but you can also be sweet and energetic with just the right amount of care.”
Then, he drops a sugarcube into my coffee. I think I know what he’s getting at.
“How about you tell me your story now? I think I have the right to ask you that after all of this philosophical talk.”
“On one condition,” he says, “Guess what’s my favorite kind of coffee. If you’re right, I’ll tell you all about myself. Just saying, nobody’s ever guessed right yet.”
Suddenly, the feeling in the air changes. He wouldn’t challenge me to this if he didn’t have something to hide. You’re dodgy, but I see right through you, Cura.
“You don’t like coffee, do you?”
That awkward silence from the past returns. The blizzard outside seems to get louder and stronger. The branches that were once knocking at our window now pound at it. Silence enwraps the table we’re at. The atmosphere is true.
“Why do you say that?”
“If you can describe each person like a type of coffee, then by that same logic, you do not like coffee, do you?” I try to sound confident because something in me doubts my own answer. “You hate coffee. You hate people. Yet, you feel guilty for hating people; therefore, you purposely try and get closer with every single person you meet. To make you care about them. To give them a sense of character. To not hate them. Am I right?”
The people around us seem to listen in as well. The whirring of the coffee machine slows to eavesdrop on our conversation. His whole attitude has changed since the moment I asked him about himself. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken up.
Cura’s whole face is motionless except for his lips. “My parents owned this cafe. They cared a lot about their customers. Unbeknownst to me, they’d ask and memorize each customer’s name when they ordered from them. I never understood why they cared so much. One day, a regular decided that they were so desperate for money that they needed to rob the most vulnerable institution: the cafe. My parents did not survive while trying to simultaneously defend the cash register and return the customer to his senses. The only possession they had on their will was this stupid cafe, and they gave it to me for some reason. How idiotic.”
I dare not to speak up.
“They said something about continuing their legacy or whatever. They never had one. When they gave me the building, I had to quit high school and take over this establishment. My whole academic life was cut short because of my overly caring parents who spent way too much time on every single person who walked through those sets of double doors. The paint is peeling off because I refuse to spend money to repaint it. The tables are wobbly because I refuse to spend money on better ones. The chairs are broken because I refuse to spend money to buy a new set. I vowed to never be like them.” He drinks the rest of his coffee. “Yet every day, I slowly become more like them. I will never understand their love for carrying on the stories of strangers, but I can understand their love for this coffee shop. That’s the only reason I am still here.”
“That’s,” I pause, my brain looking for the right words to respond, “That’s a story worth telling, too, Cura.”
“Is it? I think I’ll scare people away after they find out just how much I don’t care about them.”
“Well, if you haven’t already scared them off by your borderline stalking, then I think your position is pretty understandable.” I finish my coffee too. “And you can keep telling yourself that you don’t care, but I certainly think you do. Why else would you do so much for everyone?”
“Like you said, out of guilt.”
“Maybe you started doing all of this out of guilt,” I suggest, “But what kept you going was out of genuine interest. Even though I barely paid attention to the people working here, I want to believe that you enjoy supervising this place. Hearing the coffee machines whir to life. Listening to the banter of customers. Spending your days familiarizing with all of them. Those things grew on you.”
“You’re talking as if you know me personally.”
“I don’t have to know you personally to know what type of person you are. You taught me that in the single conversation we had just now.”
Cura laughs. I watch him get up from his seat, and make his way behind the check-out counter. His image fades along with his shadows into the storage room. Did I say something wrong? Sigh, what an interesting interaction. Getting kicked out then having a philosophical talk about coffee with a random person was definitely not on my list of things to do. Before I even realize, Cura comes back and places a piece of paper on the table. A job application sheet.
“You said you were kicked out, right? You can crash at my place, which is just upstairs. In return, you’ll work for the cafe, how about it?”
“Woah woah woah, since when did I say I needed a job?!—”
“You have somewhere else to go?”
I need a job to continue paying for my college. I also need a place to crash at while I work. This might be my best bet, actually.
“Well, no, but—”
“Then fill it out. I enjoyed our conversation.”
“Are you sure? You just met me.”
“Sure, I did, but we just talked with each other like we’ve known one another all our lives, so I might as well treat you like it too. You wanna take the offer or not?”
“Yeah yeah I’ll fill it out. Are you actually looking at it? Because I don’t think I have any prior experience working with coffee.”
“Neither did Lora, but she’s a great barista now. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you the basics, or she can. Fill it out and then go upstairs. The stairs are in the storage room behind the counter. Lora will let you pass if you just say you’re submitting an application.”
Cura leaves me with the application and the sounds of the customers return to my ears. The blizzard outside has not ceased, and the warmth of the coffee still sits comfortably in my stomach. I reach into my bag to pull out a pen, but when my eyes finally land on the paper to actually examine it thoroughly, the urge to laugh overtakes my shock and confusion. This whole application is a joke. What’s your favorite kind of coffee? Do you know how to make it? What’s the most important ingredient in coffee?
~~~~~
I still hate caffeine. I still despise the smell. I still abhor the taste. Despite my aversion to it, I still still need it. Staying awake in the day has always been a struggle for me, probably because I sleep way too late. That’s why I make a double-shot espresso every morning in the shabby little cafe down the street from my old residence, still full of trauma and still owned by a treacherous mother, even if I gag my way through the entire experience. Not to mention how run down the shop still is. The paint is still peeling off its walls, the tables are still wobbly, and it’s still always a gamble if your chair had proper cushioning or not. But to be honest, I love this place. The atmosphere is accepting.
“Can you pass me the matcha powder?”
I hand off the container of matcha to Lora who’s busy attending to some enthusiast. The cafe has a myriad of different people today. Children, teens, adults. Blue hair, red hair, white. The clock on the wall strikes noon. I pull off my apron and begin walking towards the storage room.
“I’m taking my break. You’ve got it right, Lora?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about me. Go rest.”
Two seasons have passed since I began working under Cura. Winter had bestowed upon us a blizzard that lasted well over three weeks. After it had passed, however, the sun shone so bright. Maybe it’s because we all spent three weeks peering into a white wonderland, but the sun had felt the warmest it had ever been. Winter did not cry anymore. Spring came soon after. Cherry blossoms bloomed on bare branches as spring sun melted the remnants of what winter left us with. And, just now, summer debuts with its wet monsoons, decorating the city with light rain. My burdens feel light as a feather, and I haven’t heard from Mom since.
“Already taking a break, Ariyan?” Cura greets me in his home as I emerge from the stairwell and push open the door.
“Today’s slow. Lora won’t mind.” I kick off my shoes and collapse onto the couch, closing my eyes to rest.
“She’s a kind person; she’ll never admit it even if she does mind. You’re taking advantage of that nature.” Cura places what sounds like a glass cup on the coffee table beside the couch. “Don’t nap at noon. You won’t be able to sleep at night.”
“I can smell coffee.” I keep my eyes closed.
“Take the hint. Do you need me to spoon feed it to you too?”
“Shut up.” I get up, sitting at the edge of the cushion. The coffee steam blurs my vision.
It’s a double-shot espresso. I take a sip from the china as I listen to the light tappings of the summer sunshowers. Cura’s wiping down his own coffee machine, which I always found weird. Why invest in a personal machine when you have a whole system just a floor below you? The humming of the machine dances through the air before it suddenly stops, and Cura sits across from me with his own cup of coffee. Double-shot of espresso, but he drops two sugarcubes into it.
“I’m glad I met you, Ariyan.”
The actual hell?
“Where’s this coming from?”
“I had a very one-dimensional way of thinking before I met you. Cliche as it is, you helped me take back control over the direction of my life. If we didn’t have that conversation that day amidst the winter snow, I think I would’ve sold this place soon.”
“Well, thanks? I guess? I’m glad you decided not to sell it, at least. You’re the only coffee shop around here that actually has a coffee shop feel to it.”
“Have you ever tried drinking coffee that’s not bland and bitter?”
That’s a quick change in conversation.
“I don’t think so, actually.”
“Stay here. Let me make you something worth remembering.”
The pitter-patter of his footsteps glide across the living room to the kitchen where he starts making some concoction. My eyes wander off to the walls of the room, examining the countless portraits of Cura’s family. He wears a sunny smile in every single one of them, and his parents smile back. Spending the last six to seven months here with Cura has been fun. I don’t think I see myself leaving anytime soon unless he decides to “fire” me.
“This is a lavender latte. I’m using you as an excuse to try out this new pack of floral ingredients I bought. Tell me how it is,” he says, returning to the table with a steaming cup of his new menu item.
“There’s latte art.” I chuckle. It’s in the shape of a heart. “Since when do you know how to do that?”
“Since always. I just never did it for you because I rarely make lattes for you.” He leans closer to the table, presumably to see my reaction better. “Hurry up and drink it before it gets cold.”
I press my lips to the cup and take in the heat of the coffee before swallowing it. I taste summer’s flowers on my tongue; feel the breeze and zephyrs of rolling hills against the walls. Along with the floral sweetness, feelings of comfort and softness quickly follow.
“I don’t hate it.”
“Really? That’s all? I’m never making you anything that requires an ounce of effort again. You can stick to your nasty and bland espressos.”
“Okay okay calm down,” I jest, putting the glass down, “It’s nice. Different from what I’d usually have, but good nonetheless. Good job.”
“Tch, I hate you.”
There’s an awkward pause in our conversation again. Over the course of these many months, I’ve grown to appreciate it, though. Silence doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing. It just means that you’ve talked to somebody so much that you’ve ran out of topics to talk about. My fingers coil around the handle of the cup to take another sip, and my eyes land on the latte art again.
“Remember when you gave me that job application?”
“How can I forget? It was my greatest mistake in life.”
“You’re not funny.” I stifle a laugh and throw a pillow from the couch at him. “Anyways, I wanted to ask why you chose those questions. Why not a real application?”
“Well, I don’t just hire anyone. I don’t really care for criteria or experience. It’s my business, so I hire whoever I want, specifically the people who I find interesting. If I give them the application, they’re basically already hired. The questions are just for me to get to know them better.”
“They’re stupid questions. Especially the last one. Isn’t the most important ingredient in any type of coffee, coffee?”
“That’s what you wrote for your answer, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Lora wrote ‘the machine’ as her answer. Anne wrote ‘motivation’ as her answer. A lot more sophisticated than just coffee, isn’t it? While you just wrote ‘coffee.’”
“How was I supposed to know I had to answer that question poetically?”
“You weren’t. There’s no wrong answer. I liked yours, actually. It’s straightforward, much akin to you.”
“How would you answer your own questions, then?”
“Y’know curiosity killed the cat?”
“Curiosity got me to where I am now. If I didn’t pry into your life, you wouldn’t have found me interesting and hired me, would you?”
“Persistent as ever. Never change, Ariyan.”
“So are you gonna answer or what?”
“My favorite type of coffee is a galão. Of course I know how to make it.” He looks at me with glitter in his eyes, “And what do you think is the most important ingredient in coffee for me?”
“Do you always have to make me work for answers about your life or personality?”
“What’s the fun in conversing if you aren’t constantly testing if the other person is truly interested in the topic at hand?”
“Fine.” I sigh. “Knowing you, you’re probably thinking of something poetic too.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“No. It’s a statement.” I peer into the lavender latte, and my pondering image peers back. The art has dissipated by now, and the answer comes to me.
“I’m guessing your most important ingredient is care? Like, effort? Something like that, I don’t know.”
“That’s ironic. Are you saying that because of how much I didn’t care about other people?”
“Well, maybe, but also because you take a lot of time with your coffee, no? Like the one you just made. You could’ve just left it as it is, but you spent extra time making a heart.”
Sunlight filters through the windows as his melodic laughter bounces off the walls. I never really considered how mellow his voice is when he’s happy. Genuinely happy. Cura got into the habit of suppressing how he really feels after the passing of his parents, but these moments where I can see him genuinely feel something, it’s ethereal.
“I’m going downstairs to talk to the customers.” He gets up and brushes his unruly hair into a somewhat orderly fashion before heading towards the door.
“Hold up! You’re just gonna leave mid-conversation? You haven’t even told me if I’m right or not!”
“I think you know me better than I know myself, Ariyan. Therefore, I think you know the right answer too. I’ll talk to you later.” Pulling on his shoes, he opens the door and I can hear his footsteps tap against the floor. “Your shift starts in a few minutes, so I expect you downstairs soon too. Rest while you can, Ariyan. Love you.”
His voice frolics in the air around my head, and his words settle down in the room inside my brain. The coffee in my stomach stirs. From under the coffee table, I pull out a book that’s been laying there on the floor since the moment I’ve started living here. My hands reach into my pockets for my earphones and fit them snug into my ears. The Little French Bistro by Nina George is the book title. I’m not surprised Cura owns a book like this.
Despite Cura’s warnings, I leave the lavender latte on the table to turn cold as I immerse myself into the first chapter. By the time I finish the third chapter, I drink the rest of the latte in all of its glory. I feel as if I’m still thirsty. I’m missing something important. My eyes land on the unfinished double-shot espresso Cura made for me originally. My hands reach for the glass of sugarcubes to drop into my coffee when I see that the cup already has particles of white floating on the top; remnants of previously dissolved sugar.
“You could’ve just left it as it is, but you spent extra time making a heart.”
“You could’ve just left it as it is, but you spent extra time dropping in the sugar for me too.”
Tears coalesce at the edge of my eyes, and I can’t hold in my own happiness anymore either. I drink the double-shot espresso in one go and take in the astringent, bitter flavor. Sweetness and ecstasy quickly chases the taste down my throat, and I can feel my body light up with energy.
“Love you too.”
I stand over the sink to wash my face before putting my shoes back on. There’s an irregular bounce in my step, and an unusually excited expression on my face that makes me look stupid. Maybe adoration is fueling my motivation, or maybe it’s the coffee. Either way, I turn up the music in my earphones and head downstairs with my head high in the summer clouds. The atmosphere is ecstasy.
