Jerrie Oneshot Book

Persistence of Love

Summary: Jade sees her every Wednesday and Sunday. Same seat, same hot chocolate. Same beautiful blue eyes. They've never met before. But it feels like they have. There's something so familiar about her. (Slightly mature)

Jade sees her every Wednesday and Sunday.

Same seat, same hot chocolate. Same beautiful blue eyes.

Today she's wearing jeans and an oversized knitted sweater.

Despite the casual and relaxed air about her, the circles around her eyes remain, a little darker perhaps. Maybe she's had a rough week. Jade can only surmise, never having had an actual conversation with the other girl.

The blonde is curled in on an armchair, her knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped around legs, and holding up a heavy-looking book with both hands. Her mug sits momentarily untouched on a side table. She's absorbed in her reading, oblivious to the hubbub of Sunday activity around them. The football game across the street had just ended, bringing excited chatter from the park into the tiny corner café that struggles to accommodate their mirth.

Hearty laughs and congratulatory pats on the back mix with the sounds of espresso brewing and plates setting. The bell above the door dings constantly as customers rush in and out with their lattes or mochas.

The quiet reader doesn't pay any of it or them attention, least of all her admirer three tables over.

They've never met before. But it feels like they have. There is something so familiar about her. Jade can't quite place a finger on it.

She wouldn't put reincarnation off the table. Having taken a college intro course on world religions and different faith systems, she knows the world can work in mysterious ways. It was a surprisingly enjoyable elective to complement her comparative English Lit major – and opened her up to the multitudes of the universe and how some phenomena are simply beyond human understanding.

But it's not that. At least she doesn't think it is. It feels more immediate than reincarnation, the sense of familiarity too current, recent, for it to be another lifetime.

She doesn't think it's soulmates either, though the romantic in her would like it to be. Had they been soulmates, it wouldn't have taken Jade a month to brave a hi.

It's been a year and a half since she can remember being with anyone. The length of time out of the dating game was likely the cause of nerves preventing her from approaching the pretty girl. The pretty girl who had stopped her dead in her tracks when she entered the café for the first time on a Wednesday.

Literally stopped.

Jade had nearly bumped into her but swerved at the last second to avoid the head-on collision. Swift apologies were exchanged followed by an extended period of eye contact. For those stretched out minutes, the blonde peered deeply into Jade's eyes, and she felt something click. She didn't know about reincarnation or soulmates but for a split second, she felt the breath of the universe expand in her lungs – as if the universe had just been made to be seen through those eyes.

Things had been foggy for Jade lately and bumping into the blonde felt like her world crystallized for one brief moment, waking her up from a dream and an endless spinning.

But then the blonde had left in a rush before Jade had time to consider dreams and supernovas bursting into life, or more practically, before she could think of introducing herself. As the runaway hurried past her out the door, Jade noticed a slight sheen to her gaze.

She wondered what could have made such beautiful eyes look so sad.

The brief encounter stayed with her, and the reason she returned every few days to the café.