Song to listen to while reading this chapter: The Night We Met - Lord Huron
Not even twenty-four hours later, I am waiting for Adam at the café where he and I first hung out almost two months ago. It's a small coffee house, with dark walls and small tables. I'm sitting by one of the wall to floor windows, glaring out at the people passing the shop. For obvious reasons it smells like coffee in here but also like wet clothes. The rain is pouring outside, drenching anyone who dare walk outside – including me. My jeans cling to my thighs like glue and strings of hair keeps sticking to my cheeks. I only had to walk outside for a half minute, but I didn't bring an umbrella so here I am.
My eyes fleet over to the door every time the bell on the door rings, but it is always someone else. A woman with a stroller; a teenager on her phone, almost walking into a table; a businessman with a briefcase and a black umbrella. Fifteen minutes go by and the tall, short-haired receptionist doesn't come. I check my phone to see if I'm here at the right time, but I am.
I study the inside of my empty coffee cup. The last droplets have gathered in the depth of the circled bottom. A distorted reflection of myself stares up at me in the white porcelain. She frowns.
"Would you like me to take that?" A barista pulls me out of my thoughts and I snap my eyes up towards her. She smiles, gesturing to the cup.
"Uh, yeah. Thanks."
She takes the cup and scurries off, leaving me with really no reason to stay.
I bury my head in my hands. If I hadn't been in public, I probably would have yelled out something inappropriate.
"Hey, sorry I'm late."
I didn't even hear the bell or Adam sitting down, but all of a sudden he is sitting across from he, his hair and jacket glistening from the water and his eyes shining like usual.
"Have you ordered yet?" he asks when I only offer him a tense smile.
Not feeling like admitting that I have been sitting here alone like a dork the last twenty minutes, I answer, "No, I actually just came myself."
"Oh, good. So you haven't waited long?" He shrugs off his jacket and pulls out his wallet. I grab mine too and stand up simultaneously as him.
"No, just a couple of minutes."
We walk over to the counter and look up at the menu. Dozens of sugary drinks stare back at me but I only order a black coffee, already having had a chai latte earlier. Adam raises his brows at my order.
"I didn't know you preferred black coffee," he remarks, throwing his change in the tip jar.
I chuckle, "There are lots of things you don't know about me." I also felt like saying that I'm feeling bitter, but it would be a little too obvious for my taste.
Our coffees are brought out to the counter and we bring the back to the table with us. We take careful sips in silence for a minute, none of us having anything to start the conversation with. I catch glimpses of the pretty man in front of me over the rim of my cup. He meets my eye and for a split second it feels like we are drinking our morning coffee in his apartment. My heart aches.
"Do you remember the first time we came here?" I ask, setting my cup down on the table. Adam nods at once.
"I was just thinking of that, actually."
"Really?"
He nods and smiles nostalgically. "Time moves fast."
It's weird how we're talking as if everything is okay. Before I came here I was angry and hurt but now I just feel like talking to him for hours about anything but the matter at hand.
"It does, doesn't it?" My voice fades out at the end and I just stay silent, taking a sip of my coffee. When my eyes flicker over to Adam, he is looking down, tapping his finger on his coffee cup absentmindedly. "It was the first time we hung out. I was really nervous."
He smiles amusedly and peeks up at me through his eyelashes. "I know." I am about to almost be offended when he adds, "I was too."
It feels like my heart is glowing when he says that. "Really?" I ask incredulously, then furrow my brows. "Why?"
Color rises to his face and his cheeks are a light shade of pink when he says, "I might've, for the shortest period, have had a teeny, weeny, itsy, bitsy...crush on you."
My jaw slacks and I realize he is actually quoting me from our first morning together. "What?" I exclaim lowly. "When?"
Adam takes a sip of his coffee, hisses when he burns his tongue and clears his throat. "Remember when we shared a class Freshman year of college?" he asks and I nod vaguely. "I sat right behind you, I'm not sure if you remember that, but I thought you were really pretty so I sat there purposefully. However, I never had the balls to ask you out."
I blink for a few seconds before my mind catches up. "Are you fucking with me?" I demand. My mind is screaming in frustration. He liked me back? Three years ago, Adam had a crush on me and I, him, but since both of us were cowards, nothing ever happened? Because I just couldn't get over myself, Ashley got to him first and it ended up with us sitting in front of a coffee table, me heartbroken and him...I don't even know.
He shakes his head carefully, not dropping eye contact with me. "But I love Ashley and I'm marrying her."
If I would have looked down now, there would have been a dagger sticking out of my chest. My shirt would have been blood stained and my heart ripped. The pain spreads through my body like flames, consuming my every limb; my every muscle; every cell in my body. The small sliver of hope that had blossomed after his confession plummeted straight down like a parachute jumper without his parachute.
I think back to the first time I ever saw Adam. I was sorting out my things on my desk when I heard a ruckus by the door. A girl had dropped her books to the floor and in came Adam. He helped her pick them up. It seems so cliché, but for me that was enough to initiate a three year long crush that never seems to fade away.
"What was it that you wanted to say yesterday?" Adam asks when he realizes that I'm not going to say anything.
I try to collect myself as much as I can. The trivialities from before have ran away, taking all the happiness with them. All my thoughts feel jumbled and I am having a hard time separating all the horrible things I want to scream in Adam's face from what I should say.
"It doesn't matter anymore," I admit, leaning back in my chair. And it doesn't. I realize now that it is too late. There is nothing I can do because Ashley and Adam are getting married and I still love him. My heart is falling a thousand miles an hour into thorns and spikes – hurt and loneliness. They will live a happy life while I will break up with the best guy I could ever find, just because I'm an idiot who can't stop pining after a guy who is taken by none other than my own best friend.
"What do you mean?" Adam insists. "You came all the way to my apartment yesterday to say it. It's got to be something important."
I clench my jaw and narrow my eyes at him. "I said it doesn't matter." Then I stand up and grab my jacket. "Have a good life."
I leap for the door, but Adam grabs my arm. He always does. He always stops me right before he has lost me, reels me in again like a hooked fish and I can't do anything to stop him.
"Please," he says, staring up at me with his shining, blue eyes. "What is bothering you?"
I can't help but scoff. "You aren't serious," I state. "What is bothering me?"
"Yes." He is dead serious.
I huff and sit down again, leaning over the table to get closer to him. "I was moving on, Adam. For once since I first saw you, I wasn't thinking about you all the time. I was doing better, but you decided to burst into my bedroom and declare your love for me. You tore down everything I had built. Everything! I was back at square one again, and when I thought it couldn't get worse, I get a phone call from Ashley, telling me that you proposed to her!" My voice is high enough to make a statement but low enough so that the people in the shop are oblivious to the fight going on in the middle of it. "You want to know why I came to your apartment yesterday?"
Adam has a serious look on his face, but under it I know that his thoughts are racing. He doesn't nod but I know the curiosity is killing him, even though he essentially knows.
An urge to lie rises in my throat; to say that I came to cut all ties with him forever. It is what I always do, but it landed me in this position. I can't keep postponing my feeling for practicality. The universe has proven me several times that in the long run, it isn't very practical to lie.
I am still leaning over the table and even though Adam is sitting straight up in his seat, he is close enough to hear me whisper. And that is what I do. I can't make myself say it loudly, only murmur it.
But lowly makes just as much of an impact. Adam doesn't say anything, but that says more than words ever could. In the most devastating sense, by heart, piece by piece, comes undone. It's slow and painful, like feeling morphine wear off after you've been hurt. The full effect of the pain seeps into the pores of my skin and I now just realize that it has been hovering right in front of me this whole time, waiting.
I retract from my position. An overwhelming feeling of nausea drowns me and I can't focus on anything but getting out of there. I hastily grab my jacket and purse and run out the door. The rain does nothing to me anymore. I don't care if my clothes get wet or if I get a cold. I don't care if it ruins my phone or if my mascara runs down my cheeks. The only thing I care about it Adam and he doesn't care about me. So what's the point of caring at all, really?
But I am wrong about one thing.
"Elisabeth!" I hear from behind me. I turn around expectantly. My hair, already halfway drenched, swings around my head and plasters to my cheek. Adam has come out into the rain and is squinting through the shower. "Wait!"
And even though I've told myself at least a thousand times that I won't fall back into his arms, I wait. Deep down I know that I will always wait if he asks me to.
I am standing outside my apartment building by now and Adam jogs up to me. I'm not one to expect the whole world or anything, but when he reaches me, he doesn't kiss me or declare his love again. He just stares. He stares until I don't think there is any more focus left in him. I stare back confusedly, begging him to say something. Why should I wait?
Out of all the things I thought he might say or do, what he actually said is nothing I was prepared for.
He looks me straight in the eye and apologizes.
"What?" I exclaim, perplexed beyond belief. I push my hair out of my face as best as I can, but the rain keeps getting in my eyes anyway so it doesn't help.
"I'm sorry," Adam repeats. "I've really messed up and I can't fix this. I-" He pauses, smiles a little and shoves his hands in his pockets. "I love you."
It is a simple way of saying it. It wasn't forced or something that just fell out. It was like saying Good Morning. Easy, natural.
I tilt my head and he continues. "But you know why it could never work out."
Even though it really hurts to hear, I think this is what needed to be said this whole time. I purse my lips and sigh, but I understand. He is saying what should have been said oh-so-long ago. I wish we came to this conclusion earlier.
I lift my hand to caress his cheek and stand on my toes to give him one last kiss. It feels like a sunset – warm, mellow, beautiful and the last before the sun goes down. And so our sun sets, and I know I am going to have a couple of horrible days and then some more, but for once since we first kissed in the hallway of my apartment, I decide to make the right decision and let him go.
Adam reciprocates the kiss passionately, holding the side of my face in the palm of his hand. We go straight into a tight hug when we pull away. I bury my face into the crook of his neck and place a soft peck.
"I'm sorry, too."
For the first time in my life, my heartbreak felt perfect. It was like the outer shell of my heart was breaking off. The dry, cracked peel was making room for the glowing heart underneath to grow and find someone else to love, even though it would probably be a long time until that day would arrive.
But I should have known that when things are perfect, I'm at the top and from there there is only one way to go. We are broken apart by a honk close by. I look around, confused until my head snaps to the sound's origin. Through the rain and a windshield ten feet away, I make straight eye contact with a very angry Ashley Carson.