Chapter Two #2
It was a sketch of her in black ink, facing the viewer from behind the café’s register.
Loose pen strokes curved and twisted in the way her hair was always falling out of her messy bun to frame her face, and she plucked absently at the real strands, perfectly replicated on the page before her—not quite straight, but not quite wavy either.
Her expression was soft, the corners of her mouth only just tilted up at the beginning of the smile she usually gave Theo, and he’d somehow managed not only to faithfully capture her looks but also to infuse an added radiance all the way into her eyes, which were wide and luminous.
Audrey had never seen herself portrayed in such a way.
No photo had ever made her look like this.
Was this how he saw her?
She was beautiful.
She’d never really thought of herself as beautiful before. She’d always assumed she was kind of plain: medium brown hair, mottled green eyes, entirely too many freckles that just sort of looked like she was perpetually flecked with stray coffee grounds. Nothing exceptional. Nothing extraordinary.
She wasn’t anything special.
Was she?
Her eyes trailed down the rest of the drawing.
Everything about the coffeehouse had been lovingly and accurately rendered around her, down to their tip jar sign and the Marzocco espresso machine and the pastries in the cooler to her right.
Each shape was outlined in rich black ink, but the rest of the sketch had been shaded in layers of light, flowing sepia reminiscent of watercolors.
But there was something especially odd about that paint. There was a scent to it—one she knew intimately.
When Audrey lifted the notebook to her nose, a wave of emotion washed over her and she fought back the tears pricking at her eyes.
Because it smelled like coffee.
By the time mid-October rolled around, the air was finally beginning to turn crisp and the leaves swirled around in the streets, their once-verdant color now burning in the fiery shades of autumn.
Audrey kicked some across her combat boots as she made her way home from class, relishing the dry crunch and the musty fall scent in the air.
Autumn was her favorite time of the year, when flavors became spiced and warm, when you could start lighting fires to combat the tentative nip of a wilder, cooler wind, and when jack-o’-lanterns began grinning in windows out at the street.
Midterms were only a few weeks away, and Audrey was getting nervous.
She was almost ready to graduate, but her senior capstone course was proving harder than she’d wanted it to be.
Choosing to work on designing a more sustainable, eco-friendly industrial battery had seemed a worthwhile endeavor at the time, but she was running into roadblocks in the lab, and she wasn’t at all sure how her final project showcase was going to go in December.
Failure was looking exceedingly likely, and even though that might not actually result in an F, it would still be devastating to her pride all the same. She’d worked so hard to get here.
Losing her scholarships that first year had been difficult enough.
She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she almost missed him. But it was the unmistakable way he walked that jolted her back to reality.
She’d know that gait anywhere.
She’d been looking for it for well over a month now.
“Theo,” she gasped.
He turned a corner down the street, but it had to be him—same dark hoodie over a black ball cap, same mask worn tightly over his face, same painfully anxious waddle.
Audrey took off at a sprint to try to catch him, her book bag slapping against her thigh and making her dress ride up.
She yanked it down angrily and lost precious seconds, but turned the corner just in time to watch him enter an unassuming brownstone, the door still swinging shut after him.
She waited a minute and trotted up the steps. It wasn’t a residence, but a commercial building, and the frosted letters on the window read: Dr. Amelia Harper, MD, PsyD, LPC, CCTP, DBT-LBC. She did a quick Google search.
Oh.
Pain shot through her chest when she opened the link for the top result.
Dr. Harper was a trauma therapist.
Audrey bit her lip. It felt wholly inappropriate to wait for him here while he was in a therapy session. She’d had to go through state-mandated counseling herself after an incident in high school, and she knew how raw it could feel after one of those visits.
But she also couldn’t leave without letting Theo know how to contact her. Odds were she’d never find him again if she did.
She hesitated long enough on the stoop for a squat, middle-aged woman with a kindly face to approach from the inside and unlock the door.
“Can I help you, honey?” the woman asked. “I was watching you hover on camera.” She pointed to the doorbell and Audrey blushed. “Are you lost? Or do you need an appointment?”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe I do,” she muttered. “You’re not Dr. Harper, are you?”
“No, sweetie, she’s in a session right now. I’m her receptionist.”
An idea crept into her head. “Oh that’s—that’s perfect, actually. Can you give the man who just came in a message for me? He’s a friend of mine, but I haven’t gotten to talk to him in a while. I’ve been worried about him, and I saw him come in here from the street. I thought—”
“Oh, uh…well…” The woman hesitated. “I suppose so. What do you need to tell him?”
“Can I come inside for a minute? I just need to write a note.”
The receptionist looked her up and down, probably noting her windswept hair, ragged tights, and NYU book bag, and decided she looked harmless enough before finally nodding and motioning her over to a desk in what might have been the sitting room when the house was still used as a home.
Audrey pulled a notebook out from her bag and scribbled a quick message before tearing it out, sending a few scraps of paper flying.
“You can read it, I swear there’s nothing that might upset him in it,” she said, handing it over. “At least, I should hope not. And I hope you’re not violating anything by giving it to him. I really just wanted to check on him, and—”
The woman put on a pair of readers and glanced at the note. She gave Audrey a soft smile. “I’ll make sure he gets it before he leaves, dear.”
She breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Audrey turned and left, shutting the door carefully behind her and glancing up at the charming brownstone before striding back down the way she came.
Maybe he’d come back.
Maybe she’d see him again after all.
He came back to the café the next day, a Thursday, at 8:17 a.m.
Audrey’s heart skipped a beat when Theo walked in, squeezing himself through the narrow doorway with a vaguely terrified look in his eye, and she motioned to his usual table.
He hesitated, shifting awkwardly on his feet before finally taking her hint and limping over to sit with his back against the wall.
She turned to Josh and jerked her head in Theo’s direction.
“Hey, can you switch with me for a second? And then I’m taking my break a little early. And a little longer.”
“Sure, I got you, boo. I can cover.”
“You’re the best.”
He snorted as he took her place behind the register. “Yes, I am. And you can make it up to me later when I have to leave a little early for rehearsal.”
“You don’t have rehearsal, you didn’t get that part. It’s a date, isn’t it?”
“Excuse you, Audball!” he gasped, clutching nonexistent pearls. “Cutting straight to the quick. Rude to call me out like that!”
“You’ll get the next one.” She waved him off with a smirk. “And I’ve got your back, don’t worry.”
Audrey fired up the machine and made two coffees, one in a to-go cup and one in a thick ceramic mug, before undoing her apron and sliding through the gap in the counter to the lounge area.
Theo was waiting for her, his hands folded on top of the table and his leg bouncing anxiously up and down beneath it.
“Hi.” Audrey beamed as she set down his usual order in front of him. “Can I sit with you today?”
“Uh…” His eye darted between the coffee and her face. She waited patiently with her cup in hand. “Sure, if you want to.”
“Great.” She slid into the seat across from him and took a sip of her flat white. “I’m sorry about the note, I—”
“You didn’t need to get me anything. I didn’t pay for this.” What little she could see of his brow furrowed, and she bit the inside of her cheek.
She’d expected this much. She didn’t need to know him well to have guessed he’d have a hard time accepting something for free.
“Of course I did, Theo. I wanted to. I owed you a thank-you for standing up for me that day. It’s on the house.”
“Oh.”
He took it between his large palms and slid it closer to his chest. Even if he wasn’t going to drink it, she’d wanted to give him something to do with his hands, especially since he’d lost what usually kept them occupied.
“Well, it was nothing.” His neck turned pink. “But thank you.”
“It wasn’t nothing. And Patricia’s not allowed here anymore, by the way,” she said, taking another casual sip of her drink.
“I mean, she’s always been a nasty piece of work, and I should’ve kept my cool.
The whole thing was my fault, but I didn’t like her pushing you around like that. I don’t do well with bullies.”
That got him to huff. “Yeah, me neither.” He plucked absently at the cardboard sleeve around his cup. “And it wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m really sorry about the whole thing. I get it if you haven’t wanted to come back since then.” She grasped her own cup between her hands, grateful for its warmth. “You didn’t have to come here if you didn’t want to. You could have just texted me like I said in the note. You have my number now.”
“No, no, it’s all right. I—I wanted to see you.” He finally looked at her head-on, gazing steadily into her eyes. “You said you had something of mine?”