Love, Poetry, & Coffee

~ 37 ~

There's a moment of silent between us while Constance mentally read the poem I gave her. I counted the seconds that passed by so see how fast can she read the poem, but I did not anticipate that the count will reach three minutes. There's no way she's still reading the poem, it ain't that long to read. Maybe she's reading it three times to finally understand the poem? I have no idea.

Both of us begin to cut little pieces of our pancakes, but Constance looks so professional on how she uses her other hand to eat while the other holds the poem. How does one multitask this elegantly? Everything she does looks so effortless, like she's been doing a lot of things in the past.

When she gazes up to meet my eyes, all I see are mischief, but there's a small shine of appreciation. "I wonder who are you pertaining to in this poem," She jokingly scratch her imaginary beard while gazing around the room. Her voice seems to be muffled a bit from the pancakes in her mouth. I fought the urge to roll my eyes because I'm pretty sure she has an idea who it is. Her gaze lands on Aileen, and she could be an astonishing actress on how she gasp in pretense, then glances back at my direction. Once she meets my gaze, I could already what's going on in her mind and when she decides to open her mouth, all I think in my mind is Oh boy, here it comes. "You have a crush on Aileen, don't you?"

I feel my face wince at the thought, but the facial expression went away once I shook my head in disagreement. It's better to do in disagreement than in denial. I took the time to think of how I will answer her question, in result, I plug in another piece of pancake in my mouth before speaking up. "I appreciate her as a human person, I don't feel any attraction from her," That's not even a lie, I blurt that out with all the honesty in my mind.

It seems like that's the correct answer to say, since Constance's head slowly nods in agreement. I really feel like I'm in some game where the choices of words will change the outcome of the game. The notification of "Constance will remember that" is the only thing that's left to complete the whole vibe of this conversation. "You have a great choice of words," She averts her gaze away from me once again, and I suddenly felt a pang of loneliness without her brown eyes looking at me. I attempt to follow her gaze, and I find myself staring at the preoccupied Aileen behind the counter. "You know," I hear Constance speaks, but my gaze won't stop watching how busy Aileen can be. "During the summer, Aileen works as a barista to earn more money when class starts again."

Oh yeah, Aileen did mentioned about being studying to be a cardiologist. I still haven't figured out why, but I'm about to have more background information from Constance if I keep this topic up. It's better than talking about me. My head turns to glance at Constance, but she's still occupied in staring at her friend. "She was planning to be a cardiologist, right?"

She meets my eyes and I immediately felt like I've lost a breath once those light-brown eyes meet my soul. "She told you about that, huh?" I slowly nod my head and there's a small smile that forms on her face. "Did she also mentioned about how heartbroken she is to follow that dream?"

"She mentioned it very vaguely that she left someone in her hometown to go to the college of her dreams." I'm attempting to recall to our conversation about that, but it seems like my whole attention was busy on looking for Constance-Mystery girl era.

She puts a pancake in her mouth like she's trying to fight the urge to spill more information at me. Her hand seems to have unconsciously stirring her tea as her eyes show the conflict on her thoughts between spilling more information or keep everything. Watching the conflict in her eyes makes me chuckle for a bit, but I quickly hide the sound of it with pancakes in my mouth. Finally, she looks resolved at herself, and I wonder what she'll say next. "Don't tell her I said this to you, but-" She gazes at Aileen who's still busy at her job to make sure she's nowhere near us, "-his name is Jerico Riscoff."