Seven
Harper
Page & Grounds at noon is an organized disaster and I am partially regretting allowing Liv to drag me here after the community post disaster.
The espresso machine sounds like it’s in the final stage of cardiac arrest, there’s a line almost to the door, and every table is occupied by people pretending not to be eavesdropping on each other’s conversations.
I’m at my usual corner: laptop open, reading glasses shoved onto my face that probably need cleaning, a latte cooling in a ring of itself on the table.
I have been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes, reading and re-reading the words until they blur.
I’m not writing. I’m not even thinking about writing. I’m pretending to work, “Writer at Work,” hoping that if I sit still long enough the part of me that used to know what she was doing will just start to function again.
The café is its typical self. The fairy lights strung above the bookshelves, cheap but effective at providing a homey atmosphere.
The walls are a shade of blue that someone once called “optimistic” in a Yelp review and now everyone just accepts it.
There’s a T-Rex stencilled in cocoa powder on the cappuccino menu, a holdover from the dinosaur-themed story time they did for Leo three years ago.
Luca refuses to change it. He says it “adds character,” by which he means, “I’m not getting on a ladder to repaint for anyone, ever. ”
My phone sits face-down beside my laptop.
I have not checked it in over an hour. It’s a test of will, or maybe a proof that I can go on living even if Ethan never sends another text, never apologizes, never so much as types out Leo’s name again.
I feel the phone’s presence the way you feel a missing tooth with your tongue: you know you shouldn’t, but you can’t stop touching it.
I find myself drifting through thoughts of our past, trying to pinpoint any moment where I should have seen something like this coming.
My Ah-Ha moment that could have saved me from finding those red panties.
I try and fail to see any signs of his resentment at our life or indications of another woman luring him away.
I feel my eyes burning as I force myself to go through our memories with a fine-tooth comb.
There is a small, humiliating crumple of my chin, and I can even feel a quivering of my lip which I don’t think I have experienced in my life…
ever. My glasses fog. The first tear drips directly onto the trackpad of my laptop and leaves a perfectly circular mark. Then another. And another.
I try to pretend it isn’t happening. I sit completely still, with my hands on the keyboard, and my eyes locked on the half-finished sentence, as if the act of not moving will keep the rest of me from falling apart.
But my shoulders start to shake and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
The harder I try to hold it in, the more my body betrays me.
I can feel my face go red, my breath turning into these weird, choked little hitches.
It’s not a cry so much as a slow-motion collapse of composure.
Luca seems to spot me from behind the counter.
He abandons whatever he’s doing mid-sentence, mid-word, actually, because I can hear him say, “Hang on a sec,” to a customer, and he’s at my table before I can even think about waving him off.
He arrives with a fistful of paper napkins, his hand appearing on my shoulders before I try to lie to him that I am ‘fine’.
He crouches next to my chair, his face just below mine so that I don’t have to look at him if I don’t want to. “Hey, hey, hey,” he says, soft and quiet, like he’s talking to a startled animal. “You’re okay. You’re okay, babe.”
I’m not, and we both know it, but the words help anyway. I take the napkin he hands me, try to mop up the evidence, but my hands are shaking so hard that I nearly rip it in half.
Liv, who has been perched near the front counter with her legs crossed under her like a camp counsellor who hates children, slides off her chair and comes over.
She drags a chair from the nearest table, sets it beside mine, and sits down so close our arms press together.
She doesn’t say anything. She just sits, one hand on the table, her tablet abandoned on the counter, her whole presence a silent dare to the world to say something about my meltdown.
It gets worse before it gets better. There’s a moment, about twenty seconds in, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the chrome side of the espresso machine behind Luca and I almost start laughing at how completely fucked my face is, bright red, streaked cheeks, and my eyes are already puffy.
I snort, a weird sound, and then the snort becomes a laugh, and the laugh makes the tears worse.
Liv starts laughing too, which makes Luca laugh, and then it’s all three of us half-crying, half-laughing, the kind of scene that is more embarrassing than the original breakdown.
Luca puts one arm around my shoulders and lets me cry into the soft cotton of his sleeve, his hand moving in these slow, comforting circles on my back.
Liv keeps her hand on the table, never reaching for me, but not moving away either.
Every so often, she glances sideways at me, as if to make sure I’m not about to turn into a puddle and slide onto the floor.
A regular at the next table, one of the quiet ones, who reads historical fiction and never orders anything but black coffee, pretends so hard to be interested in her paperback that she nearly bends it in half.
The rest of the café is a low hum of normalcy: the clink of plates, the faint sound of the playlist leaking out from the speaker near the counter.
My own noise however, is by far the loudest thing in the room.
I don’t know how long it goes on. Long enough for my laptop to time out and go dark. When I finally look up, my nose is so raw I have to use the back of my hand to blot at it.
“Sorry,” I say, voice shredded. “I am absolutely going to be this café’s local cautionary tale for the rest of my life.”
Liv shrugs. “Honestly, it’s an upgrade from the guy who cried over his sourdough three weeks ago. You are at least top two in memorable breakdowns.”
Luca wipes under my eyes with the side of his thumb. “Don’t listen to her. She eats emotional pain for breakfast and calls it protein.”
I almost laugh. It’s a sound that’s not a sob, at least. Liv grins, wide and unapologetic, and puts her hand on top of mine, her nails perfectly painted with tiny, fanged skulls.
A customer calls out. Luca glances at him, then at me. “I need to get back to the counter. Are you okay for a second? I’ll be right here. Or do you want me to call Elsie?”
“She’s busy with the twins,” I say, but my voice is barely above a whisper. I fleetingly wonder when Elsie became the emotional core of the group. But decide that it isn’t important really.
Liv says, “She was coming in anyway. The twins have story time with Luca at three. You’re not escaping support, Harper. That’s not how this works.”
I nod and try to compose myself. My hands are still shaking, but the epicentre of the storm seems to have passed. I don’t feel another impending break. To be fair though, I didn’t feel the last one.
Luca squeezes my shoulder, then stands and returns to the counter, barking orders with a warmth that is somehow both bossy and slightly maternal.
Liv stays put. She picks up her phone and starts scrolling, but I can tell she’s not reading anything.
Every few seconds she looks over at me, assessing the damage, plotting her next move.
A few minutes later, Elsie bursts through the door with the twins in tow.
She clocks the scene in under two seconds, parks their bag by the stroller, and heads straight for my table.
She doesn’t bother with a greeting. She just sits, scooting the chair as close as it will go, and wraps her arms around me from the side.
She smells like vanilla and baby wipes, which is so comforting that I almost start my break-down all over again.
Noah is a few steps behind, guiding Maisie and Milo to the picture book corner near the window. He makes a game out of it, turning the process of picking a book into a competition. The twins are immediately distracted, which is the point I guess.
Elsie hugs me so hard that for a second I can’t breathe. She lets go and takes my hands, holding them between both of hers.
“It’s okay to lose it,” she says. “You get as many breakdowns as you want. There’s no limit.”
I start crying again, this time softer knowing that Luca must have already filled her in. I try to joke, “Luca is now the designated group cuddler,” but my voice cracks halfway through.
Elsie doesn’t let go of my hands. She just smiles, her own eyes wet at the corners.
“He’s good at it. He has practice.”
Liv leans in, dramatic as always. “I’m just relieved you’re not holding it in anymore. It’s been giving me hives.”
Noah comes over with Maisie on one hip and a book in the other. He sets Maisie on my lap and hands me the book, like a prescription for emotional distress.
Maisie looks up at me, solemn, then pats my cheek with her chubby hand. “Don’t cry, Harp. I have sticker.”
She pulls a heart-shaped sticker from her pocket and slaps it onto my arm, just above the wrist.
I lose it again, but this time the tears are mixed with laughter. Liv rolls her eyes but she’s smiling, too.
Luca returns with a tray of drinks, sets them down, and crouches at my side.
“Hey,” he says, gently. “You’re allowed to be the sad one sometimes. You don’t have to hold it together all the time.”
I shake my head. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I’m just… I don’t know. I don’t know how to be a person outside of this disaster right now.”