• “One small, black coffee. No Sugar.”

    That is the only thing I have uttered aloud all day. Nothing more. Nothing less. I don’t like talking to people. I don’t.

    I sat down at my regular table in the small, dingy cafe like I do every Sunday evening, reading book after book and suffering heartache after heartache, thankfully going undisturbed as people sit on their laptops and pretend to be busy. Undisturbed that is, until today.

    She had wavy blond hair coming out of a dark pink woven hat that brushed the shoulders of her green jacket, her brown eyes big and bright as I saw them set their target on the chair facing opposite to me.

    “Mind if I lounge with you?” She said smiling, pink lips parting to reveal pearly white teeth. Dimples. She had dimples, too.

    I simply nodded my head and she took a seat while placing her small, white bag on the table. I tried to turn my attention back to the text, I really did. Before she had walked in I was completely immersed in the book. Now I couldn’t seem to get back into it. What book was I reading again? I had to think to myself.

    “My name’s Sam.” She said, extending a gloved hand with the fingers cut out of it, showing chipped blue nail polish. I looked at it, mortified. I barely talk to the servers here, in fact I only talk to people who are aiding me in some way, and now I’m supposed to shake hands with a stranger? Millions of things circled in my brain like hawks; what about germs? Don’t be ridiculous, there are germs everywhere. What if my palms are sweaty? No, no she’s wearing gloves, she wouldn’t notice. Excuse, excuse, think of something.

    Sam was starting to pull back her hand, unsure if I was going to take it or not. Quickly, since I didn’t want to offend her by not doing so, I reached for her hand and shook it; I guess she had rubbed up against something with the wool of her gloves, since a shock when through her fingertips and up my arm, down my spine and spread through my rib cage.

    “C-Clark.” I managed to stammer as I pulled my hand away, instantly wiping them on my pant leg, something I would call a nervous habit if I actually shook enough hands to make it one. Sam smiled flawlessly, and I lost my train of thought once more. Book? What book?

    “What are you reading, Clark?” She asked, gesturing to the very thing I forgot all about.
    “Um...” I furrowed my brow. What was I reading? I wracked my brain, searching for an answer, but found none.

    “Brashmouth? I’ve read that. It’s pretty good.” Sam said, looking at the cover. I smiled the only smile I can manage; a crooked, dopey looking smile that I had spent years tearing apart in a mirror but never showing anyone else unless I couldn’t help it. Now was one of the times that I couldn’t help it.

    “Uh, yeah. It’s pretty good. I really like how the author portrays the characters, especially Duncan and how he evolves so much in the story.” Her face lit up a little as I went on about my opinion on the book, her nose crinkling when I said something that she disagreed with and her smile growing as she found out we shared the same thoughts on a few things.

    I talked the majority of the time, but that is only because almost everything Sam said I actually had an opinion on. This has never happened to me before.

    Normally, when attempting to converse with people, they would talk about boring things that I had little to no interest in talking about. ‘How about this weather?’ ‘Did you hear that so-and-so is marrying what’s-his-face?’ and of course, the ever pressing question, ‘So, what do you do?’

    This was the worst question. What does it even mean, really? ‘What do you do?’
    I breathe. I eat. I sleep. I read. That is what I do. Of course, what they mean by the question is, what do I do to make money. I would reply, if I was courageous enough to do so, with my own question; ‘Why do you care?’ It wouldn’t change who I am as a person if I were to be a business man or a male prostitute. So what does it matter what I do? Wouldn’t a more suitable question be ‘Who are you?’

    Then again, I wouldn’t exactly be able to reply to that question, either. Who is the body my brain pilots? Well, of course, I’m Clark. I could tell them I’m twenty-two. I could tell them I’m unhappy in every environment that isn’t my own empty apartment. What else could I tell them? I didn’t know.

    “So,” Sam said, a wild smile growing on her face. “What are you up to this evening, Clark?”

    I pursed my lips, thinking of what plans I had made for this evening. I never made plans. I always got my coffee, read, went home and then read some more. I didn’t have any.

    “I-I don’t know. How about you?” I asked nervously, again wiping my hands on my pant legs.

    “Oh, I just thought I would see where the day took me. Maybe I’ll go wander. I bet the lake looks really cool this time of year, all frozen and stuff.”

    I nodded my head quietly, getting the hint that she was about to leave and I would, again, be alone with myself, who was more of a stranger to me than this girl seemed to be.

    “Would you like to join me?” She asked, standing up and hanging her purse on her shoulder.

    “Oh, um... Yeah, alright.” I said, astonished that she would offer such a thing as to want to be in my company for any longer than she had to be since she sat down at the table.

    “Great! Let’s be off then!”
    **

    The early December chill bit at my nose and cheeks as I tried to keep up with Sam’s long strides. Her skinny, black jean covered legs moved quickly and elegantly and made me look like a child trying to keep up with his mother’s grocery cart in comparison.

    “I love going to the park in the winter, it’s just gorgeous!” She said, her breath puffing out in white wisps as her cheeks dimpled with her smile.

    She was right, though. The park did look gorgeous, asleep beneath a blanket of white powder with dark trees standing out like pop-up veins. The frozen lake looked like something out of a fantasy, like something that was fabricated out of crystal and dusted with sugar, completely empty except for a few ice-skating teenagers holding hands and laughing when one of them fell down.

    “Hey,” Sam whispered in my ear, her hot breath leaving a tingle on my red, frosted skin. “Want to do something illegal?”

    I looked at her, a little wide-eyed and nervous, and she laughed like she had wind-chime lungs and wrapped her arm through mine as she dragged me in the direction of an old-looking bridge that went over a slab of frozen river. A chain-linked fence snaked along the ribbon of frozen water that leads to the lake, with a half-crystallized sign that read, “Trespassers WILL be prosecuted by law.”

    “Um, Sam?” I asked as she lifted up a corner of the chain link and slid underneath, popping up on the other side of the fence.

    “C’mon.” She said dismissingly, holding up the corner.

    “But, are we going to get in trouble for this?” I pressed, looking anxiously around for police or National Guard or military personnel.

    “We are if you keep standing there, you idiot!” She said quietly through her teeth, gesturing towards the little gap in the fence. Reluctantly I lied down on the ground and awkwardly slid through the hole, with Lennon’s beautiful, mocking laugh as my soundtrack.

    I got up and dusted myself off, completely aware of Lennon smiling at me as I took my time getting all the dirt and snow off my jacket. I looked up at her nervously. “What?”

    She smirked, and said “Nothing.” As she tousled my hair and made her way under the bridge, her hips swaying slightly as she walked.

    “Coming?” Sam said as she looked back at me, my neck and face flushing scarlet as I nodded quickly and hurried after her.

    “Here we are! Welcome to the Bridge.” She said with a smile, her cheeks pink from the cold air.

    The Bridge was a small expanse of exposed sand, relatively untouched by the invading snow and the ice creeping up from the river beside the sandbank. Stuck in the sand were three, mix-matched chairs, one of which looking incredibly familiar, sitting in an almost semi-circle. The chairs were tucked under the bridge just enough so that passersby could not see them, but there was still enough room to sit without having to crane your neck away from the graffitied ceiling.

    “Don’t tell anyone about this place, okay?” the corner of Sam’s mouth curving upwards as her white breath curled out of her lips. “It’s a secret that only I and two of my friends know about. So don’t be bringing any other girls here.”

    The back of my neck got extremely hot at the idea that Sam thought I knew other girls. She sat down in one of the chairs and patted the one beside her gingerly, an invitation I eagerly took. We sat together looking at the frozen water clinging to the cold sand, a heavy and almost awkward silence hanging in the air.

    “So,” I said, trying desperately to show Sam that I was in no way a boring person, a blatant lie I had to conjure in order to keep her interested in spending time with me. “Have you always lived in the city?”

    Sam cleared her throat. “No, actually. I lived in a town in the middle of nowhere. I moved in with my friend Catherine and her boyfriend a few months ago.”

    A few months ago and she already knows this city better than I do, I thought. “How much of the city have you seen?”

    “Quite a bit of it,” Sam said, picking at the blue nail polish on her fingernails. “Catherine is quite the socialite. She’s taken me to a lot of parties since I’ve gotten here, and their locations have varied from rooftops to... Well,” She gestured grandly around her. “Under bridges.”

    “Sounds like a blast.” I muttered. I had hardly left my apartment in the past few months. If it weren’t for the fact that I have to work to support my coffee addiction, I wouldn’t have left at all. The feeling of being inferior almost suffocated me and I spiralled down a dark hole of negativity in my own mind. The thought that this beautiful, wonderful girl was way out of my league and I was way over my head with talking to her crushed my insides.

    “What about yourself? Were you born in the city?”

    I tried to shake off the anxiety that was swirling in my brain enough to answer. “Yeah, I was born here.”

    “That must have been nice, having a lot of things to do in your free time.”

    I let out a laugh that was more like a cough. “Yeah, sure.”

    “What?” She said, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

    “Oh, nothing.” I said, my face going completely red.

    “Oh, come on. What did you mean?”

    “Just...” I began, trying to pick my words carefully so I didn’t seem like a complete loser. Or a complete loner. Both of which, although being completely true, would be a bad category to put myself in- especially in front of a pretty girl who goes to parties. “I don’t really... Do much except read and write.”

    A Mona Lisa smile flirted on the corners of Sam’s lips as she searched for something in my eyes. For what, I wasn’t sure. But something told me she found it when she leaned back in her chair and folded her her hands in her lap. “What do you write about?”

    This was a tough question to answer. The thing is, I haven’t actually written anything. I’ve just been sitting at my laptop staring at that stupid blinking curser and trying not to throw my mac-book across the room. How could I call myself a writer if I don’t write anything?

    “Uh,” I wiped my hands on my pant legs nervously. “It’s hard to put it in a certain category.”

    Sam nodded her head, her pink lips pursed in thought. “I think I’m following you.”

    “You are?”

    “Yeah,” she said, her big brown eyes seeming to unravel me, like I was a sweater and she was pulling at my loose ends. “You’re stuck.”

    “Actually, yeah... Yeah I am.”

    Sam nodded again, this time averting her eyes to look at the colourful graffiti on the wall. “I know what that’s like.”

    “You do?”

    “Yeah.” She said. “Hey, I’m freezing. Want to go to my place for some tea?”

    *