Parks & Cafés

Telephones

It had been a week and I hadn't seen you around. I didn't see you at the cafe. I didn't see you at the library. I was starting to think that you were avoiding me, Actually Nick. I had decided to go to the library in the hope of seeing you this time. The last time we had met you left me feeling warm on the inside. I didn't want to let that feeling go. I hadn't felt warm in a long time.

It was Monday evening, and the library was an hour away from closing. There were many students still scattered around on their computers. I looked at the desk; looking for you. You weren't there and I had half a mind of just turning around and leaving. But something told me to look more.

I pathetically started down the aisles. I quickly walked down each one, not expecting to see you at all. But then, there you were. You were pushing your cart of books and placing them onto the appropriate shelves.

I smiled. I barely knew you, but you made me happy. I guess the fact that I had no friends made me even more desperate to know you. You were unlike anyone else that I had ever known and I wanted to understand you, Nick.

We made eye contact as I walked towards you. You smirked a bit. I wondered to myself if I made you happy. I wandered if you had friends and didn't even think about me. Either way, it didn't matter.

"Workin' hard or hardly workin'?" I asked. It was the first thing that came into my mind, and I almost regretted saying it.

"Both, I guess." You said. "I wouldn't consider putting books on a shelf to be hard work."

A smile meets my lips. There was something about your voice; your words. There was something about the way it met my ears. Something about the way each word poured itself into my mind like hot tea into a warm mug. The way you seem to pick out your words. The honesty you delivered them with. I was hooked. I would talk to you simply to hear you respond.

"I haven't seen you at the cafe."

You nodded as you moved the cart of books forward just a bit, not allowing me to stop your work. "I have a schedule that I stick to." You said. "I go the first Monday of every month, the second Tuesday of every month, the third Wednesday of every month, and I alternate the fourth Thursday and Friday of every month."

There was not much you could say to surprise me at this point. You were odd and that was a fact. I couldn't help but let out a small chuckle at your strict schedule. I slowly nodded as if to approve your schedule.

"That's pretty neat." I said.

It was in that moment that I realized I didn't have much to talk about. And so we simply didn't speak. We enjoyed each other's silence as you pushed your cart of books across the marble flooring.

My thoughts played in my mind like children in a park; they were reckless and unorganized. I tried to pull them apart. I tried to dyslectic them and understand what they were hinting at, but I could not.

Then all at once it hit me. I hated this. I didn't like living by the whim of fate. I wanted to know you. I wanted to befriend you. Have you ever had that feeling? Have you ever seen someone and just thought to yourself, I wonder what it would be like to know them.

I was never the type of girl to hand out my phone number like candy on Halloween, but I wanted you to have it. For some reason, that remains unknown to me, I felt bad about that. I felt as if I was turning trashy. I swallowed the feeling and allowed my body to digest it. I turned to you and smiled lightly.

"Do you have a phone?" I didn't want to beat around the bush anymore. I didn't want everything to be coincidental.

"Sadly." You said. You continued to place books upon the shelves and only looked at me from the corner of your eye. "Keeping in constant contact with those I wish not to speak with." You let out a breathy laugh. "Phones are nice, but they come with a price."

"I'm sorry, are you speaking or preforming?" I joked and we both chuckled together. "I can't tell if I'm just a prop in some slam poetry act much bigger than the both of us."

"If this was a slam poetry show then you'd hear snapping right about now." You paused, waiting for the snapping to sound. "Yep, not a slam poetry show."

I pause for a moment as I tried to get my courage together. I thought about all the things that could go wrong. I thought about no. My anxiety made no seem like a fate much worse than death. It made no this scary word. No was rejection, and rejection was my biggest fear.

"Do you want to exchange numbers, Actually Sofía?"

My eyes looked to you as you stared at me. You always made things so easy. You made me feel like I didn't have to say what I felt or thought; that you would just know.

"I think that's a good idea." I said.