11.24

Black black black he takes his coffee black. I don't know why, but this strikes me as the manliest thing anybody has ever done.



I drink tea (chai [when I can get it]) and caramel mocha confectionary creations (when I cannot). This does not strike me or anybody as feminine. It is merely normal, like the overwhelming normality that generally defines all the things I choose to do.
We left class (he walked, I trundled) and meandered our mutual way down the street to the cafe where many-pierced white kids sold coffee to other white kids so they could all talk over triple vanilla macchiatos about documentaries they'd stolen on their Mac laptops (for creativity's sake).
Marco picked a booth at the window near the street. When I finally stopped fidgeting, I took the time to realize he was waiting for me to talk. I just said
"What?"
"You had a question to ask in class. I'm trying to be patient. It's one of my biggest weaknesses, patience is, so I'm learning to wait."
I rolled my eyes. "Weakness, you? That didn't seem like something the mighty Marco would admit.
"Well," I began. "I don't know how you feel about never seeing each other again."
"I'm a bit disappointed."
I allowed me a chance to get way ahead of myself. Disappointed? Did that mean disappointment or something more? Was he genuinely interested in a friendship or did he just want me for my skin (which was, I'll have to admit, quite soft)? Did he think about what he said before he said it, or did words merely spill out of his mouth like a beautiful waterfall--swift and thrashing and impossible to stop? Or did he contemplate in his head which words could put me in a dither more effectively than any other, and if he didn't, how else could he have found them so perfectly? Disappointed. What did it mean?
Well, of course I had to respond, and quickly. I opted for safety in sarcasm.
"Your overstatement stuns me." Perfect. Literally no meaning, and yet a response. I wish I could slip my way as easily out of my finals.
"No, I mean it. I would be really sad if you disappeared on me."
He what? My brain--if he didn't mean it before, and then he just smiled and said he would be sad and I--for what it was worth, I didn't know if what what what what is he saying? Sad?
I suppose we sat there for a long time with my mouth open.
He then blinked at me and coughed out "Too strong."
Too strong? Yes: he had come on too strong and confused me. Subtlety takes time. He can't just come in and throw wrenches in my finely crafted brainity. I slapped the table and scowled. "I have no idea what you mean, ever!" I could feel the heat rising in my face. "You've come on too strong, or not strong enough." I was angry and I felt stressed by the test and being in a strange coffee shop with a boy I hardly knew and being possibly but not necessarily come on to and how vague and confusing everything was. Where had my happiness gone? "I'm the one who's allowed to be cryptic. You have to be easy to read and forthright and good-hearted and kind. It's practically a rule. So if you're just teasing with me, you've come on too strong. But!" I practically yelled it, then pulled in to whisper "If you aren't teasing, you've got a lot of nerve with your smoke and mirrors." My hands trembled. My heartbeat was in my throat. I felt like I should be screaming or throwing up. This was not something normal people did.
He laughed and set down his coffee. When he paused to breathe, he laughed again.
It occurred to me that he was probably talking about his coffee being too strong. He reached for a creamer and i knew. The sense of weight that barreled down on me practically carried me to the ground. I felt like my legs belonged to someone else. I felt like I was living someone else's life. I felt like I had been so flustered by a random boy named Marco that I got upset at something he didn't even say and I yelled in a cafe and I played my whole hand and I had to run or risk having to commit ritualistic suicide to clear my shame.
So I ran. I got thirty feet outside the door.
I am not dramatic or effective.
I had forgotten my books, so I sat down on a bench facing a park and waited for him to leave so I could sneak back and steal my mistake. I pulled a napkin from my pocket and folded it in half. I folded it in half. I folded it in half. I folded it in half. When I had done so enough, I tore the result down the middle as perfectly as I could. It would do. I unfolded both halves, laid them over each other, and folded them in half. I folded them in half. I looked up to see if he was gone. I folded them in half. When I was done, I ripped the two pieces again, even more perfectly. I took the tiny squares and peeled the layers of tissue apart one at a time. When I got a bit free, I let it go in the light wind and started on the next bit.
Review: I went to a cafe with a boy. Tissue square.
I yelled in public.
Tissue square.
I totally misinterpreted what he said.
Tissue square.
I ran out and left my books.
Tissue square.
I ruined the remotest possibility of anything good ever happening in my life ever. Tissue tissue tissue squares.
I finished and looked up to see if he was still at the window. He wasn't. I was free.

I stood up and behind me
"Hey, I have your books."
I jumped out of my skin. Not literally, but I felt as if the skin that wasn't well attached must have been left behind I jumped so fast.
"Woah! Sorry!" came the voice again. I turned. Marco was there. He grinned and shrugged. "I said I was working on patience. You looked busy so I let you take your time."
I grabbed my bookbag in his hands and turned to leave. I bounced at the end of my arms because he didn't let go.
"Not just yet. About what you said--" Here it came. Here I was gonna die. He coughed. "You're right. I should have been more forward with you. It was silly of me to assume mournful cellos always. Sometimes you have to be trumpets. Catherine," (holy crap he knew my name) "do you wanna go somewhere Saturday night?

He could have knocked me over with a piece of my tissue square.