Day One

BZZZZ, BZZZZ, BZZZZZ. My phone buzzed. I was never a heavy sleeper, the annoying buzzing woke me up easily. I also wasn't ever much of a sleeper, either. My head ached from a long night of doing nothing. I got up from my bed, pushing the sheets off my legs. My foot was asleep, static numbness consumed it. I stretched my leg out, trying to pump blood back into the ends of my toes. The sun was still down as I looked behind me at my bedroom window, the stained white wall barely visible. I put my foot down as feeling drowned back into my sole, and I picked up my phone. 5:35 is what it read.

“Coffee.” I said out loud to myself, “Need coffee.”

I got out of my undesirably comfortable bed, and headed to the bathroom with my phone in hand. I closed and locked the door, even though I lived alone in my tiny apartment. I stripped off my clothes, put my phone on the side of the sink, got into the warming shower, drowsiness washing out of my eyes with every drop of water.

I got out half an hour later, still heavy with the weight of the blackening bags under my eyes. It got dressed, rolled up khakis, Aldos brand dress shoes, a v-neck shirt, and a tweed jacket. I found the hipster approach to dress flattering to my physic.

I rolled my hair to the side with a comb. Not tightly, I left the top voluminous, the sides were cut short, so they didn't matter much. I walked out of my room to the front door, past the tiny living room and tiny kitchen. My keys, a grey scarf and my glasses all hung on nails on the door. The essentials.

Now, I tell you all this because for the past 5 years of my life, it's the thing I've done every morning. The routine I conformed to. The same way a teenager conforms to smoking, the same way an adult conforms to his job. I was the image of conformity. I went with the flow of society, it dragged me along like the current in the ocean takes it's drowning victims.

But not that morning. That was the morning things changed. The way peoples lives change in cliché movies, my life changed. But what changed me wasn't a sudden child or an old friend or a miracle. No, change came in the most cliché way it could come, in the most cliché form imaginable. There are screen-play writers who can't make the cliché-ness of all of this up. Change came as a person, change came as a girl, change came with a name. Megan Just.

I walked to the Starbucks on Central and Coal, two blocks from my house. I saw the familiar faces of strangers past by me. Faces I recognized but did not know.

I turned slight right, as to head for the main entrance. I opened the door, and headed for the empty register. Two barristas where chatting. Above them a clock read 7:02, the ticks of the seconds hand louder and more important than the two ladies' chat.

The one on the right nudged the one on the left with her shoulder. The one on the left looked at me then at her friend. That's him, I heard her whisper. I felt an odd mixture of confusion and excitement, one more than the other but I didn't know which. What where they talking about?

“What can I get you, sir?” the one on the right said.

“Uh,” I was now certain I was mostly confused, “Uh,” I didn't know how to start.

“Uh uh uh uh,” Lefty said, mockingly.

“Haha,” I mocked laugh, “Real mature, black coffee, Venti.”

“Sure, sexy,” Said Lefty, “On the house.”

I had been going to hat same Starbucks for quite a while. The two girls where new, and the one on the right looked uncomfortable. She obviously didn't want Lefty to do what she did.

Righty brought my coffee to the table I sat at. I normally didn't sit, but Starbucks barristas don't normally hit on me, “Sorry about her,” she said, “She hasn't shut up about how,” she lifted her hands and made quotation marks with her fingers, “'cute' you are.”

“What,” I said, keeping the flirtatious atmosphere in place, “You don't think I'm cute?”

She looked to the side and lifted the left end of her lip half way up to her eye, shaking her head slowly, “Hmm,” she paused, than said, “No.”

“Well,” I looked at her badge, “Megan, tell your friend over there that I'm flattered,” I started getting up from my seat, “and that-” she sat down on the other end of the table rather abruptly.

“What'd'ya do for a living?” she said it exactly like that, not stopping to make the distinction between each word. I was still getting up from my seat, slightly confused. My expression gave me away, she repeated, slowly this time, “What do you do for a living?”

“I, uh,” I sat back down, slowly, “I write.” I finished.

“'Bout what?”

“Fiction,” I said, trying not to stutter. She did this thing with her lips, she'd bite the bottom one and lick the top one, as if she were hungry, “I, uh, write love stories.”

“Uuuh,” she said, until that moment in my life I hadn't thought it physically possible to make such a high pitched noise, “romantic, anything I may of read?”

“No?” I said, “They're like, airport novels. Nobody reads them. Now if you'll excuse me.” I got out of my seat, fully and quickly this time.

“Oh,” she said, sounding slightly embarrassed, “well, wait a second.”

“Sure,” I said, feeling a little bad, I didn't mean to embarrass her. I stood at the door as she went behind the counter. I noticed her deep violet nails. They were connected to long, slender fingers. Her wrists and arms were thin, like the rest of her body, but her torso was curved perfectly. She leaned over the counter, her black polo not all the way buttoned up but the view of fair sized breasts was covered by her hair. She had bangs hat split in the middle, they outlined her high-ish cheekbones.

I'm a writer, as I stated before, and all of this actually went through my head the way it's written in the previous paragraph. I couldn't help it. It was an exercise I found myself doing on various strangers.

She walked back to me, I had my jacket and scarf back on, “Here,” she said, handing me a paper. It had her number, and Margo written on the top. It was messy but readable.

“Uh,” she started, “maybe we can hand some time?” she did the thing with her lip again.

“Uh,” I hadn't expected this. I don't know what I was expecting but just not this, “uh, sure, I'll, uh, call you or something.”

“You don't have to,” she said, quickly and abruptly, “I'll just,” she extended her hand to take it from me.

“No,” I said, pulling away slightly, “I'd love to.” she brought her hand to her temple, taking her hair and dragging it behind her ear. She looked down with her whole face trying not to smile.

“Thanks,” she said, turning more and more red, “I should get back.”

“Yeah,” I turned.

I had one foot in and one foot out of the coffee shop, “What's your name?”

“Roman,” I said loudly, I barely paused to answer, but I left the store without looking back.

Author's Note

First chapter of many to come :)