The Chair

Her heart was pounding so hard she swore people could hear it from a mile away. She had told her boss she was sick with a stomach bug earlier in the day in order to meet him here. She ordered her coffee and stuck her hand into her paisley wallet. She slipped out a green credit card and handed it to the woman who swiped it onto the register and handed it back with a receipt wrapped around it. "Have a nice day," the woman behind the counter spoke in a monotone voice, "wait over there." All Lane could think was: This won't be a good day.

Walking over to the counter with a sign reading 'Pick-Up Here' she leaned against the wall and bit down on her lip, remembering his text late last night. 'Meet me at The Thinking Cup at 5:30.' when she had asked why, he replied with the gut wrenching words of 'We need to talk.' Since then she had racked her brain wondering what she could have done that was bad enough for him to leave her. She had felt the tension in their relationship much sooner than this, between the "late hours" he worked, and how he canceled on their anniversary dinner last weekend. When she would see him, they would sit down for a movie and he could barely let out more than a muffled "okay," or give her a small nod when asked a question. When asked what was wrong he would claim he was "just tired." Only Lane knew something much more was going on in his life but she couldn't seem to put her finger on the problem.

"Lane!" A voice yelled out into a sea of people, a white coffee cup in hand.

"Yeah, right here," she responded. She walked over to the twenty-something year old and smiled politely before taking the coffee cup.

He smiled back, "You waiting for someone or just trying to stay dry from the storm? My break is in ten minutes if you wanted to stick around and chat."

A blush rose to her freckled cheeks. His name tag read 'Tyler' and he was exactly the type of guy she would have gone for back in college, before she met her boyfriend. He had jet black hair and clear blue eyes, and from the way his olive T-shirt was fitting, Tyler looked like he spent some time at the gym. How did she end up falling for a skinny computer nerd who wore glasses? "I'm sorry but I'm meeting my boyfriend here."

"If that doesn't work out, you know where to find me." With that Tyler winked and disappeared to the backroom.

Lane made her way to the small table risen high off the ground. Her hand headed for her purse as she propped herself onto the tall chair. Pulling out her cell phone she checked the time again. 5:38, he's late again, she thought. She shouldn't have expected today to be different than any other day. She watched the busy city street from the large window between checking her phone three times a minute for a text that was probably never coming and looking around the room for any sign of his shaved brown hair and towering frame.

The cat clock on the wall across from her seemed to be mocking her, slowly reminding her of every tick he wasn't there. Her leg shook rapidly as she twisted the light brown braid in her hand. Her body jolted whenever the bell above the door chimed, signifying someone else was entering the establishment. She was sure that everyone in the small café was staring at her sitting there alone, wondering and creating scenarios in their minds about why she was there and who she was waiting for, if she was waiting for anyone at all. But as she looked around the dimly lit room, no one was paying any mind to her. There were a group of teenagers horsing around in the corner, a girl with pale blonde hair and her face in a book, an older couple smiling and sipping their coffees, and a line out the door of business men and women probably just getting out of work, holding their soggy Boston Herald newspapers in their hands.

She pulled her wallet out again, telling herself that she just wanted to see them happy once more before everything fell apart. Beneath her license was a small wallet sized photograph. A tight feeling arose as she looked over their black caps and gowns, their arms wrapped around each other's waists, large flawless smiles due to years of braces on her part, excited for what their futures held. Her hair was shorter then, to her shoulders, she had liked it that way, but Danny always said "I like your hair better long, Lane." Whenever she would think about cutting it, his voice would creep into her mind. His was down to his chin then, and he had a full beard he never liked to trim, until one day two years ago he cut all of it off and hadn't grown it back since.