Page 62 of Latte Girl
The letters swim in front of me. I raise my eyes to look atSteve
“Why the fuck would you show me that?” I glower, my voice coming out low andthick.
He blinks at me, confusion spreading over his face. “I thought you’d wanttoknow.”
I narrow my eyes, practically spitting the next few words out. “Here? Really? You thought I’d want to know that right here,rightnow?”
The eyes of everyone around us burn holes into my back. Whispers have started to travel around the room. Steve shakes his head from side to side, as if he’s trying toclearit.
“I just— I don’t want you to get hurt!” he splutters. “He’s a bad guy! I didn’tthink—”
“That’s right, Steve,” I cut him off. “You didn’tthink.”
Whirling around, I do my best to stop myself from outright bolting to the elevators as I stride across the room. Behind me, I hear Jordan calling out my name and Steve shouting at him to leave me alone, but their voices sound distant, murky. My vision has started to blur, the air in the room feeling too thin to fill mylungs.
I reach the elevator doors and slam my hand on the down button, leaning my forearms against the wall and pressing my head against them as I wait for the elevator to arrive. I stare at the square of carpeting below me, trying to bring the pattern into focus enough to count the all the tiny squares as I fight to control mybreathing.
I lift my head up at the ding of the elevator. There are already two people inside, but I’m past caring about social decorum right now. I ignore the looks they give me as I sink down into a squat against the back wall, wrapping my arms around my knees and sucking in shaky, measured breaths until we reach thelobby.
The Catering Mobile is still up at the meeting I’m supposed to be serving in a few minutes, but the ropes of panic coiling around my chest get tighter with every second I spend in this building. I jog across the lobby and burst through the glass doors into the backstreet behind the Knoxbuilding.
Gulping down the polluted city air, I feel the blast of the freezing temperature and blaring noise of downtown traffic shock me out ofmydaze.
I blink at the grey walls around me, and then I starttorun.
I run over to Dark Brown’s back door and into the kitchen. I run past a gaping Trisha and Lisa, grabbing my things and shouting that I feel sick and have to go home. I run past the customers queuing for their midmorning coffees and push through the front door. I run a full five blocks before I finally start toslowdown.
My chest is heaving, my cheeks smarting from the cold wind blasting against my face, but still I keep moving, speed-walking up another four blocks before taking a left, not even sure where I’m going until Iarrive.
The full length windows in the brick storefront give a view of the tables and snug leather couches inside, warm lighting spilling over the handful of people hunched over laptops or talking to one another as they sip from steaming white mugs. I glance up at the metal sign abovethedoor.
CuppaJoe.
* * *
Mel takesone look at me, sees my coat hanging open with my hair still flying loose around my desperate face, and points to one of the stools in front of thecounter.
“Sit down and have a cookie,” sheorders.
I slide onto the stool in silence as she puts a huge chocolate chip cookie onto a plate and sets it down in frontofme.
“Eat that,” she instructs, “thenwe’lltalk.”
The last thing I want to do right now is eat, but I pick up the cookie anyways and nibble at the edge. It’s as delicious as everything at Cuppa Joe and I can’t help but take a bigger bite. The taste reminds me of being a kid, of licking batter off spoons and sneaking chocolate chips out ofthebag.
By the time I’m finished, the survival instincts that sent me running here have started quieting down, the emotions I’ve put on hold until I found somewhere safetakingover.
So of course I start to cry. The tears that have been stinging my eyes since l ran out of Dark Brown finally spill over and make everything blur. They don’t stop, dripping onto the plate in front of me and continuing to fall even as Mel hands me a tissue and leans over to pat me on theshoulder.
She lets me cry, not caring that I’m snuffling right next to the cash register and making a scene in front of all her customers. It takes me a good ten minutes to calm down. I blow my nose into thetissue.
“So,” says Mel, pausing as I let out a hiccup, “you going to tell me whathappened?”
I don’t even consider Mel a close friend, but at her invitation, I let my story pour out in a flood of words big enough to fill every mug in the store. I tell her everything, starting with the moment Jordan and I first met. I tell her about all our stupid stalker jokes, about his app idea and how he encouraged me to start my blog. I tell her about how kissing him felt like being let out of a cage I didn’t even know I was stuckinside.
She stands there, nodding through it all, as I explain Jordan’s issues with his father, and how he dropped out of design school to work at Knox Security. The tears threaten to fall again as I get to his confusing announcement about needing to talk to me, but I dab at my eyes and continue, finishing off by recounting this morning’sevents.
“I just don’t understand. He said I made him want to be better. How could someone who felt that way do somethingsobad?”
