More Coffee.

Chapter 3: Fort

After more awkward silence I stood from the counter. I slowly walked from behind the counter to next to Al. There was no sound as I walked, it was just Al's heavy breathing filled with anger. I stepped cautiously as not to provoke him, my footsteps silent until finally I stood next to him. I bent down to see his face as I tried to make eye contact. But instead he stood and walked away to the corner of the coffee shop. He leaned against the glass paneling and let out a long sigh. I stood silently watching him breath heavily until it was nothing more than small shallow breathes. He looked down, not able to look at me or anywhere around me. The awkward silence was finally broken when all the lights simultaneously snapped off. A small whimper escaped my mouth, I grasped the counters edge until I was sure that my knuckles had turned white. My breath hitched as my heart began to pound, I was never always like this. But when I looked around to only see the deepest color of black imaginable I felt like someone else. I felt like a pawn in a story, being moved around and tampered with as if I was easily replaced. If I had feelings about thinking I was going to die here, now they were finalized. While still gripping the counter I slid to a crouch on the floor with small whimpers escaping my lips. I felt like the darkness was closing in until a calm voice broke the darkness, making me feel less alone. "Don't worry the emergency lights will turn on." Al muttered casually, and just like that the lights seemed to flicker on. They were a blinding white for a while, my eyes still adjusting from the quick changes of lighting. It was just like normal for a second, but they started to dim as if the room was lit by candles. Slower and slower did the lights dim until the room was bathed in a warm yellow light. Al gave me a strange look so I awkwardly I stood back up and brushed myself off.

"What, are you afraid of the dark?" Al laughed, as he walked from the corner of the room to next to me. His eyes were filled with sympathy and something else, something I couldn't place.

"No." I said slowly, his piercing green eyes pinned me down like I was paper under a thumbtack. It was a feeling I had felt before and didn't want to feel again so I began to pace the room. My voice began to pick up speed until I was speaking a mile a minute. "Look, since we're going to be here for a long time why don't we create a sleeping area, or a pillow fort?" I proposed, I shyly looked down chastising myself for my stupid question but I was largely surprised by his small smile. His face lit up as if someone had told him he had won a million dollars.

"Sounds good, we can make an almost fort like all kids did when they were young? I'll grab some blankets from the back room." He raced of without a moments hesitation. My face bunched up in a confused wondrous stare, what was up with him? One moment he was a ball of fury bent on the image of hurting me, but other times he's a happy person acting normal. After a couple seconds of standing, stunned by his smiling face I turned towards the cluster of couches. I stood there looking at the scene, wondering how this was going to be placed together, or how strange it would be to be sleeping in the same room as him. But I forgot all about that when Al burst into the room with a stack of blankets. "I got the blankets." He said cheerfully as he placed them down on one of the couches proudly in way like he had found lost treasure.

"Why are you all of a sudden happy? I mean one moment your really angry and the next your happier than anyone I've ever met, it just seems like a strange transition of emotions." I asked, the moment I let those words escape my lips I wanted to take them back more than anything. I watched his face, almost in slow motion, changed from a calm and smiling demeanor to a face contorted in anger.

"Are you saying that I have anger issues? Because if you think that your wrong, you that's something just like you to say. Your always making accusations like that, and that's why I don't like you." Once more he had transferred to his angry self. My voice froze, when I tried to protest it became a stutter and a beg for forgiveness.