It had been two weeks. Two weeks since I had witnessed that poor man die right in front of eyes. His death had brought up memories I had tried to forget. It felt like I was 16 all over again.
It had been a rainy Friday in 2042. I hadn't seen my parents in the morning, since they had gone off to work before I had even gotten up for school as usual. It had been a morning as any other. I had been scared to go to school, afraid of the insults that my class mates had come up with that day to hurt me. But I had had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach the whole morning. It had been more than just the fear of encountering my bullies. It had been something like a foreboding, I had known something was going to happen. It had been the reason why I had been uneasy throughout the whole morning. The later it got the more I had had the feeling my tension and uneasiness was building up, getting bigger and bigger, before it would eventually come crashing down on me like a tidal wave, leaving devastation in its wake.
And then it had happened. It had been at lunch. Our principal had entered the room, his eyes scanning the room, looking for someone.
In that moment I had known. The wave had come crashing down on me and I had known that he wasn't looking for anyone. He was looking for me. As to why he had been looking for me I had made up the most awful scenarios of what my bullies had done this time. Was I gonna be expelled? Had they blamed one of their pranks on me? Between the principal laying eyes on me and him actually coming over, I had come up with a thousand possible reasons of why he would seek me out at lunch, one more horrible than the other. But no matter how gruesome my imagination had made the reasons out to be, the real reason had been so much more awful. From one second to another I had suddenly become an orphan.
Men in black suits had picked me up and taken me to a laboratory to identify the bodies. My parents' skin had been as white and cold as marble. They no longer had looked like my parents, they no longer had looked like human beings at all. They had been like statues. No emotions, no warmth, no life. The normal reaction would've been to break down and cry over the dead bodies of my parents. But everything had seemed so unreal, so out of place, the tears hadn't come. Only after I had been interrogated by the men in suits and had received the money to keep up my life in our home and only after I had gotten home and my parents hadn't and the realization that they were gone forever had sunken in, did the tears come and then I couldn't stop crying through the whole weekend.
It had taken the incident with the man dying in front of my eyes for me to realize something.
Two years ago, the day my parents had died, I had been woken by coughs in the morning. Both of them had been fine the day before but I remembered hearing them cough in the morning, considering to get up and look after them but going back to sleep in the end. What if I could've helped them? What if I had forced them to go to a doctor? Would they still be alive? I should've gotten up. I could've seen them one last time before they had been ripped from my life so forcefully.
The men in the black suits had said it had been cancer. But if both my parents had had cancer, wouldn't I have known? And how high even were the chances that two people in a relationship got cancer at the same time and died the exact same day?
The man's death had opened so many questions. Back when I had been 16, I had just accepted what the authorities had told me. But now I was 18. I had a head of my own, I didn't just believe everything I was told. And something was incredibly wrong.
I just wished my boyfriend was home. He would've helped me sort out my questions. After the incident I could've needed some emotional support, especially after the memories it had brought back. But sadly his job required him to travel a lot these days. And with him being gone for weeks I was left alone with my thoughts and theories.
//
It was cold. Just as it always was. I was wearing a big scarf and an even bigger sweater, all of it topped by a woollen coat. Still, the cold seemed to be creeping in through the layers of clothing, making me feel cold to the bone. That's why I decided that a detour to a coffee shop to get something warm to drink couldn't hurt.
I was on my way to a job interview. Due to the money that I had received after my parents' death, I wasn't actually in need of a job to uphold my living standards. But after having sat at home for two weeks without any kind of distraction from the terrible incident I had witnessed, I had decided that I needed some sort of occupation if I wanted to stop overthinking the man's and my parents' departing. Since I was way too early - as always, better early than late - I still had enough time to get a warm beverage to try and get rid of the cold that had seemed to taken over my whole body, leaving me shaking.
I hadn't been waiting in the queue inside the coffee shop for long when I heard the door open. Instinctively, I looked up from the floor that I had been unconsciously staring at - a habit of mine, I disliked making eye contact with strangers, I somehow always felt like they were judging me - and into the direction of the entrance.
A tall guy had entered the shop, his face mostly hidden behind the collar of his black coat. All I could make out was a mop of dark curls and green eyes that - to my surprise - were fixed on me. I turned away quickly, not intent on holding his gaze. Eye contact made me feel uneasy and awkward, especially if the other person was a rather attractive looking guy my age. Unless that attractive guy was my boyfriend of course, which in this case he wasn't.
I could feel the presence of the stranger behind me as he lined up for coffee and found myself grateful for the business man in his thirties that stood directly behind me, separating us.
It took another five minutes of me feeling extremely uneasy until I had my coffee.
I didn't like to pull attention to myself. I wanted to stay invisible, to blend in with the crowd, to have no one look at me twice. I guess it was a result of the bullying I had had to endure. A little voice inside my head always seemed to tell me that the things those bullies had so often told me went through everybody's head when they saw me. "Fat". "Pathetic". "Loser".
When strangers looked at me, I seemed to read these words in their eyes. And that's why I tried to avoid being seen. Or rather I tried to avoid being somebody that ever got more than a glance from people.
I stopped at the little table that held different kinds of sugar, lids and straws and was about to sweeten my coffee when somebody stopped right next to me. At first I ignored the person but when he cleared his throat, I realized that he wasn't waiting for me to get finished at the table but that he in fact wanted to get my attention.
I looked up to the tall figure and instantly recognized the guy in the black coat. He was smirking at me, his face no longer hidden, his green eyes sparkling mischievously. I couldn't draw, not at all, but his face was the sort of face that any artist probably instantly would've wanted to draw. Defined jawline, handsome features, he was one of the most attractive people I had probably ever seen.
"I'm sorry to startle you but I couldn't help but notice you earlier when I entered the coffee shop."
I was at a loss of words. I wasn't somebody that usually got noticed by boys my age, unless it was in a bad way.
He didn't seem to be waiting for an answer and just continued. "What are you doing outside on such a grey and unpleasant day?"
I felt like something with that question was slightly off. Not that I had any kind of experience with small talk but I felt like such a direct question was nothing you'd ask somebody you had just started talking to three seconds ago. Nevertheless, I was grateful for having to answer a question, this time at least knowing what to say.
"I'm on my way to a job interview," I answered truthfully.
"Interesting." Weirdly enough, it seemed as if his question and my answer had been of extreme importance to him. He observed me for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing, before opening his mouth again. "You seem a little shaken up? Has anything happened to you lately?"
Was it that obvious? Did I look that weak, that uneasy? Was I so easy to read?
It seemed so.
Should I answer his questions? I couldn't just tell a stranger about my fear, my past and my nagging conscience, could I? I didn't even know his name, for all I know he could've been a murderer picking up upset looking girls at coffee shops to lure them into his appartment and slaughter them. Or he was just really nice and had sensed my uneasiness and was genuinely worried.
"Death," I said. He narrowed his eyes even more. "I witnessed a death a while back. But I'm fine."
"Was it an accident or a sickness?"
His eyes held no sympathy, no sadness, no emotion at all. The questions confused me. This was not something you usually talked to a stranger about. He hadn't even asked for my name or told me his. Something definitely was off. I couldn't tell what it was but this conversation seemed to be more than just a casual thing.
"It was a sickness. Cancer. At least they said so," I answered curtly, hoping that he would stop asking questions now.
"'At least they said so'? So you don't think it was cancer?"
His eyes were completely focused on me. Eye contact. The thing I hated so much. There was an intensity in his eyes that made me nervous, that scared me. With every passing second I felt uneasier, a shiver going down my spine.
"Well, I'm not a freaking doctor so I have no idea what killed that man. If they say it was cancer I guess I have to trust them, don't I?"
The words came out harsher than I had expected, my tone snapping him out of his concentration. He blinked a few times and stood up normally again - I hadn't even noticed him bending down and leaning in closer to me. He straightened his coat and cleared his throat again.
"Well, that was interesting. I'm sorry for you loss. As it seems, I'm in a bit of a hurry so I have to leave now, sadly." The statement of him being in a hurry contradicted the fact that he had just talked to a stranger about a - to him probably - unimportant incident for 5 minutes. I watched him, stunned, as he walked past me, towards the door. Halfway through the coffee shop he turned back around. "Good luck with your job interview by the way." With everybody else, the words would've come across as a nice gesture, an act of friendship, showing somebody that you care. But coming from him, they sounded like a set phrase, something he felt obliged to say but didn't really mean. And then, without another word, he left.
He hadn't asked for my name. Nor for my number. Only the man's death. Why had he been so interested in the man's death? Had he maybe been a relative? Had he found out I had witnessed his uncle/father/whoever die and had wanted to know more about it? Had he followed me?
Only ever after I turned back to my coffee and poured sugar into it I realized that he hadn't carried a cup. He had entered a coffee shop, had queued but he had never actually bought a coffee.
What on earth was going on?
//
A/N: HI IM SO SO SORRY TO NEVER HAVE UPDATED BUT I WILL TRY TO UPDATE MORE OFTEN NOW BC I REALLY THINK THIS STORY HAS POTENTIAL AND YEAH :) i hope you liked it!! if you wanna vote or comment that would be great!