Being in Love: Coffee Stains

So here it is, the first installment of Being in Love. I hope you like it and thanks for sending me all your entries.

I  had found my best friend, talking about me behind my back. I was upset, hurt and disgusted. All I could do to cheer myself up was a retail therapy. I was walking down the 5^th avenue and my phone started ringing, it was James’s tune. James was my boyfriend.  I wanted to take his call but juggling between my tons of shopping bags while trying to take out my phone, out of my hand bag was not the easiest task to accomplish. I was struggling a bit when some random stranger bumped into me spilling his coffee on both of us. I cursed loudly as the coffee stain grew bigger and bigger on my chiffon dress which James had given to me. I looked up at the man standing in front of me. God he looked furious. Eventually we got into this ridiculous argument about who walked into whom. That man just wasn’t ready to accept that spilling the coffee was his fault. I wasn’t the one texting on a blackberry and trying to sip the coffee at the same time while walking down a very busy avenue. I started yelling at him for ruining my dress. I blamed him. He blamed me. We both walked away with our faces flushed red with anger.

About two months later

It was Friday night. I was out with few of my colleagues. We were checking out this new it-club down town. Everything was going great until I saw James, sucking faces with some bitch on the dance floor. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could he do this to me. I didn’t care that we were in public, I walked up to him and pulled him away from that bitch and slapped him across his face. We had been dating for more than two years and I though he loved me while there he was, cheating on me. When I tried to confront him, he called me an emotionally damaged self centred bitch. I could feel tears of shame stinging my eyes. Practically the entire club had been watching the show. I decided that I had had enough, walked to the bar alone and ordered a glass of bourbon. I could no longer stop the tears, so I sat there with my head bent down shielding my face with the curtain of my hair, and wiped any tear that rolled down my cheek with the sleeve of my dress. It was the same chiffon Prada dress he gave me but I no longer cared.

“I didn’t get to offer you this the last time” Someone placed a handkerchief on the bar in front of me. A familiar voice.  “But I think you need it even more right now.” I looked up and recognized him instantly as the obnoxious stranger who spilled his coffee all over me, two months ago. I looked up at him with a questioning look on my face. He didn’t sound like the guy who spilled coffee over me and just for a split second, he might have even looked concerned.

“Just take it.” He said moving the handkerchief further towards me. I whispered the words thank you and took his handkerchief. He quickly took one last swig from his drink and left, without taking his handkerchief back.   

Six months later

It was thanks giving and my dad had once again bailed on our dinner plans for this important case of his career. My dad became a workaholic after my mom passed away while I was still a  kid and he completely blocked me out of his world.  I was raised by a number of nannies who changed almost every year. All I ever got, on most birthdays, ballet performances and school plays was an empty chair. My poor daddy always had an important case to work on.

I had an amazing condo, the best job in the world, two trust funds but zero best friends and a very busy father.

I couldn’t take being alone anymore so I went down to the nearest club and got drunk till I found myself puking locked up in the nearest bathroom stall. I walked out of the club sometime after, with a serious need to get home. My head was spinning and I could barely walk straight. I bumped into someone.

“Are you okay?” he asked. I looked at him, I was too drunk to see his face in the dark but I recognized his voice. He was the guy who spilled coffee on me and the same guy who gave me a handkerchief to wipe my tears when I was heartbroken.

I don’t know why but I started laughing through my tears and all he did was stand there while I whined about the silly issues of my life in a barely understandable language. Once I was done, he helped me get inside a cab without saying a word.

“I think you need some coffee.” He said softly as I leaned on his shoulder. The cab dropped us at the central park where he managed to get us both a cup of coffee and we both sat down on a bench watching the sky.

“Why do I keep running into you?” I didn’t know why I asked that but I was too drunk to reason.

“I have no idea, but I don’t mind running into you at all”

I laughed and we talked. I told him about my life and he told me about his and after a long time in my life I didn’t feel lonely. He apologized for being a jerk the first time we met and I told him it hadn’t been his fault. We didn’t even realize when the skies got lighter and the day broke through. I told him that I should go and he insisted on taking me home. I refused but we exchanged our numbers. To be very honest, I had a good time. I laughed and I talked and I let go of all the pain that I had harbored in my heart.

Next Morning

I got over my hangover after a good eight hours long sleep and two Advils. My head was finally clear enough to think and I started wondering why I kept running into him. I realized that all the three times, I had met him, someone had hurt me and maybe it was the universe telling me that I had to stop wasting my time on people who never cared about me and start looking for someone who would. That’s when I heard a knock on my door and he walked in wearing that same coffee stained shirt from that very first day.

“You couldn’t get rid of the stains, could you?” I asked.

“How could I?” He  smiled.

 © Margaret Hastings, Manhattan