Chapter 1: Coffee shop anxiety
The bloom of dew against glass was a heady thing. A blush of moisture opened and closed with each breath like the bud of a dithering dandelion unsure of what season it was. With each inhale, the glass cleared and I could see again the morbid grey and sludgy brown of the white season. But with every exhale, frosty silver would bleach the window pane and I could see the lively, white winter of storybooks and pretty films that lived in my mind’s eye.
I was clearly spending too much time in my head.
I inhaled, and wondered if I should move again. I wondered if I could afford it. I wondered if I could write such an impeccable email that it would actually trigger a series of epiphanies in the recipient that would in-turn solve this cloying mood that gripped stomach and my bones.
I exhaled, and thought again of the perfect, glittering adventure that living in New York City could be if I just wanted it enough.
My anxieties never were all that capable of dimming my colourful imagination.
“Thanks for watching my things,” a voice intruded, the tone bland and nasal enough to be polite but thankless. “That bathroom can be really filthy.”
I smiled, hoping that would brighten her. “No, it’s no problem at all.” I pushed the bag of pastries she’d ordered across to her. “Are you headed home?”
“Um, yeah,” Steph said, smoothing her styled blonde hair behind one ear as she shrugged into her coat, pausing only to peak out the window of the quiet coffee shop to the street beyond. The snow had eased up enough that she wouldn’t get too damp on the short trek back to our apartment. “Bridget and Jess are coming over.”
I adopted a face of pleased interest, but something unwelcome panged through me. She never warned me when she invited company over anymore.
“Sounds great,” I lied, that same fake smile on my lips. Bridget was one of those stunning, petite women who talked too loudly and expected everyone to listen. Something about the way she smiled tersely at anything I said made me ache. “I’m just going to hang out here until work,” I explained. I patted my lumpy bag on the bench beside me, unbearably grateful for once that I was so fastidious. “I even packed my uniform.”
Steph just nodded indifferently and everything inside me sighed. Her attitude towards me was a barely perceptible cold superiority that she hid inexpertly behind politely strained smiles and subtle remarks that never seemed cruel in a literal way until I played them through my head a few hundred times.
“Have fun,” I remarked brightly in what what probably a blatantly transparent attempt to fix whatever it was that I said wrong.
“Thanks,” Steph sang distantly, waving as she passed by me to the door.
I watched her go, sipping again from my peppermint tea and replaying everything again through my head. I cluelessly tried to target how I could have possibly warmed her to me during that conversation.
We were so close when we first moved in together a few months ago. Two country girls in a tiny apartment bonding over our mutual heartbreaks, former roommate hassles, and a devastating interest in cheap wine. Now, for whatever reason, everything I did and said seemed to make her expression stale with distaste.
The tablet on the table in front of me lit with a message and I glanced back down.
We’ll be at the bell room before 10. You won’t be able to escape us.
I smiled, the clammy thoughts that were twisting up inside of me dissipating precisely that easily. I wondered passingly if I was a fickle thing.
I’m all yours, I wrote back. I have more roommate shenanigans to avoid anyway. Talk soon. X
