Chapter Nineteen Scream, dir. by Wes Craven
“Hi there, what can I get started for you?” Eli asks the woman on the other side of the counter, his fingers ready to tap
on the screen for her order.
“I’ll just do...” She peers at the menu on the wall behind Eli. “A large iced Americano, with whipped cream, please.”
Eli can’t stop the chuckle that slips out.
The woman stares at him. “Is something wrong with my order?”
“Huh? Oh!” Eli’s gaze shoots up. “No, I promise, just, uh... thinking about a joke I heard.”
“Oh, what joke? I love jokes!”
“It’s nothing,” he promises. “Is that all for you today?”
The woman nods, tapping her card when the amount for her coffee appears on the reader.
“Okay, it’ll be ready for you at the end of the counter there.”
“Thanks!” She drops a dollar in the tip jar on her way to the end of the bar where the rest of the customers are waiting for
their drinks to be called out.
Mission Rise Coffee ended up being the only place Eli managed to get an interview at. And during the interview process, the
manager had not-so-subtly hinted at how he’d been their second choice after the girl ahead of him took a job elsewhere.
But a job is a job.
Besides, Eli volunteered to work the morning shifts, which took some getting used to, but it pretty much means the day is his after noon.
Most days, he takes off his apron and parks himself in a booth near the back of the shop with his laptop while he works on articles, essays, his résumé, and whatever ideas he’d come up with while he mindlessly cleaned the espresso machine.
And actually... it feels good.
Sure, most of his pieces have been rejected, but a few had thrown him into consideration, and some places had told him to
resubmit with different material because they liked his voice but the subject matter didn’t fit or they just weren’t looking
for freelance work at the time.
For the first time since college, Eli finally feels like he’s accomplishing something, making strides toward a future he actually wants.
Now if only he hadn’t had to lose Peter to get here.
“Eli! Back up front, we’ve got a line!” Corey, one of Eli’s supervisors, calls to him.
“On it!” Eli hops back over to the counter, waking the screen up.
The rushes are easy enough to deal with; they pass the time, even if some customers can be more demanding than Michael ever
was. Still, his feet always ache at the end of every shift. And the smell of coffee beans seems to linger on his clothes and
hair no matter how many times he washes them.
The rush ends as quickly as it began, giving Eli a chance to help his coworkers with the backed-up orders, cleaning up behind
them and reheating pastries before doing a walkthrough of the dining area, collecting plates, leftover cups, wiping down the
tables.
It’s easy... well, not easy .
More methodical. There’s always something for Eli to do, never a moment of downtime besides his breaks.
It helps him not to think.
He still hopes, no matter how foolish he knows it to be, that Peter might call or text him, that when he checks his phone at the end of a shift, he’ll see a missed-call notification, an unread text, Peter asking him to talk.
That’s all he wants.
The chance to talk to him, one last time.
But maybe it’s for the best that no text has arrived. Maybe it’s better for Eli to give himself the space and time to move
on from Peter. Eventually, he’ll get back out there, find someone else to date, and this time... he won’t lie to them,
won’t make them a laughingstock online.
“Eli!” Corey calls out again. “Counter!”
“Coming!” Eli leaves the dishes near the sink in the back to be cleaned later, rushing another influx of orders. It took him
a week to really get down how the machines work; he still doesn’t fully remember all the recipes, but he’s close. He only
has to consult the binder he’d been given on the first day for a handful of drinks, a fact he’s pretty proud of.
It’s during a slower moment, when Eli is setting a newly cleaned mug on the drying rack, that he hears the bell above the
door ring, not thinking anything of it.
Because why would he? People have been coming in and out since they unlocked the doors at six in the morning.
He looks up instinctively, a greeting on his lips that dies the moment he sees who is at the door. Because of course Peter
Park would come to this coffee shop. In a city full of hundreds, if not thousands of places to get coffee, Peter Park would walk into this establishment. Except, he isn’t walking through the door.
No, instead he’s holding it for another man, shorter than Peter, dressed in nice pants and a soft black button-up, a laptop
bag thrown over his shoulder.
There’s a clear look of familiarity between the two of them. They know one another. Once inside, Peter steps in behind this stranger. They smile at one another; the other man whispers a joke and Peter laughs that warm sound.
Fuck.
Eli backs away without realizing what he’s doing, slipping past the door to the kitchen area.
“Eli!” Corey calls out.
He’s with another guy , Eli thinks to himself. And that’s all he thinks. His palms turn clammy, and he tries to wipe the anxiety off onto his apron.
“Eli! Counter!”
“I’m taking my break,” Eli whispers to the nearest coworker, Sam. Sam cleans most of the dishes and smokes weed behind the
building on his breaks. And sometimes he’ll share his joints.
Eli likes him a lot.
He pushes out the back door, squatting in the alleyway near a stack of pallets that the city never bothered to pick up. Eli’s
chest heaves slowly as he tries to take deep, heavy breaths, wondering how much air might be too much air. He buries his hands in his hair, slipping the cap off his head and letting it fall to the street.
He’s with someone else , Eli thinks again.
And he has to be okay with that. That’s what he tells himself. Because he needs to be okay with this. This was his mistake, and he has to reap the consequences of what he’s done.
But he can’t stop the way his heart thuds in his chest, how he wishes it would stop just so he wouldn’t have to think of Peter
anymore. He wants this to be over, the heartbreak to work its way out of his system.
But it still hurts.
It hurts worse than when Keith ended things. Back then, there was a pain, a sting to the words that Keith said to him, the way he said he didn’t love Eli anymore. But it was so much easier to forgive in comparison.
Knowing that he’d once had Peter’s heart, that he’d known Peter’s true feelings—it wasn’t a pain, it didn’t burn.
It feels like nothing.
There’s an absence in Eli’s heart, a numbness. And now Peter’s moved on. And Eli has to be okay with that.
Because what other option does he have?