Caius (OLD VERSION)

Chapter One

Hi, my lovelies; I thought I'd pop on and just say thank you for all the love for this story. I am slowly rewriting and editing it, so please be patient with me. :) Please enjoy the rewritten first chapter

-K x

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Chapter One

Once Upon a Time

Since I was a little girl, I've always dreamed of falling in love. That a boy would kiss me, and I'd wake up from this nightmare I call reality. As soon as his lips would touch mine, after so long of mediocre dates and kissing numerous frogs, with one patient caress of his lips against mine, all my troubles would dissolve into nothingness. My father would be healthy. The debt would be gone, replaced with stability. My weaknesses turned into my strengths. I had been told I was off with the fairies all my life, deep in thought. I secretly hoped my prince charming would barge into the room and sweep me off my feet. And I would be totally and completely in love. The fairy tales my mother used to read to me lied.

I remember sitting on the stairs, glancing past the bannister at my father as he spun my mother around in the kitchen, her laughter ringing through the floral wallpapered walls of our house. The evening sunshine would cast golden hues across the hall like beams from heaven, creating an almost dream-like aroma on the scene. They were a vision of perfection. You could see the way my father admired her; he looked at her like she was the light he was craving in the darkness, the dose of fresh air when surfacing from beneath heavy waves. They were beautiful. When she died, that light went away. The darkness in his heart stayed, gaping open and fraying further on the sides, desperately trying to heal itself. It was evident. He was incomplete. His illness was his loneliness. Over the years, I watched my father's health decline. I witnessed his heartbreak further. His loneliness consumed him. He fell into a state of depression and partnered with the sadness and dark days came the drinking. I didn't mind him washing his woes down with cheap beer. It was almost like I understood. I had lost her as well. What I didn't like was how it made him; and how it made me. Alone.

I sat at the front counter of Sandy's Coffee Bar, as I do every Friday. Apart from taking the odd order and making many late-night takeaway coffees, my schoolbooks were scattered along the worktop. It was a quiet Friday; only a few customers, mostly elderly, sat at the tables reading a crinkled newspaper. As the clock ticked closer to the end of my shift, my eyes started slowly drifting. I found myself re-reading sentences over and over before writing down an answer I knew was wrong. Finally, at 9:55 pm, I hopped off my stool from behind the old wooden counter, slowly collecting dirty cups and wiping down tables. After the final stragglers had washed down their cups of Joe and old English-style scones, I felt relief settle in my bones as I finally flipped the closed sign over.

It was a snowy night, and the winds could be heard through the creaking wooden floorboards and edges of the black double doors which marked the entrance to the small café. Shuffling over to the radio, I switch on a channel before grabbing a mop from the back cupboard. I had a half hour left of my shift, and with a bucket firmly by myself, it was now time to mop the old floors and finish up cashing in the golden register. Sandy's coffee bar has always held a special place in my heart. My mother had been Sandy's best friend growing up, and I spent most of my weekends growing up tucked inside one of the faux leather booths, one of my mother's famous caramel lattes firmly between my cherub fingers. On the days she'd work late, my father would come to help, clearing the kitchen and smuggling the leftover Danish for us to take home.

If I closed my eyes, sometimes I could still see them dancing in the dimly lit baker's kitchen. My mother twirled under my father's arm before being pulled close to his strong arms and kissed. Smiling at the memory, I tuned into the old radio humming in the background as I mopped. Twirling across the wooden floorboards, I let the music carry me across the open space, chairs stacked upon the tables, creating a perfect dancefloor in the centre of the cosy café. My body swayed in time with the soft melody, mopping completely forgotten as I lost myself in the lyrics of the song. I always imagined someone holding me like that. Like my father had held my mother, so gently, yet with so much adoration. Someone looked at me like I was their world, just as my father glanced at my mother.