Until I Found You

one

~ ABBY ~

Jonah met his soulmate today.

He was on Grove Street, placing an order for the same iced non-fat mocha latte he finishes every morning on his walk to work before his daily nine o'clock meeting. Every day the same drink, the same walk, and the same meeting. Except for today.

As he was leaving the coffee shop, his phone buzzed. He reached for his cell, pulling it out of his back pocket to see that his meeting had been moved back by half an hour. With his eyes fixed on the screen, he failed to notice the teenager on a long board speeding along the same sidewalk he was about to step onto. Jonah, realizing what was about to happen just before it did, jumped backwards to get out of the way. In the process, he covered his newly dry-cleaned, Ralph Lauren button-down in his iced non-fat mocha latte.

With his meeting delayed and his shirt destroyed, Jonah was forced to go back to his apartment to change into something not covered in his now wasted seven-dollar coffee. Given the time that it took him to find a new shirt that didn't clash with his navy pants and ashy blonde hair, he had to take the subway to make it to work in time for his delayed meeting. It was there, in the third car of the uptown bound A-train where it happened.

He walked off the platform and through the open doors, making eye-contact with a man who had brown curly hair, bronze-rimmed glasses and a computer bag slung over his shoulder and resting in his lap.

His name was Benji. He was a journalist at a small, independent online-only site and he had a beagle named Francie. He was also Jonah's soulmate.

I've never been one to believe in fate. I'm a strong believer in the common scientific regularity colloquially referred to as, coincidence. Still, the statistical probability of Jonah meeting his soulmate this way is so incredibly small, that even I have to question whether fate played some part in it. It has Jonah throwing away all forms of math and logic altogether in favor of Benji and his so-called cosmic destiny.

"Just think about it." He tells me as we meet in  Bryant Park later that afternoon. "If my meeting hadn't been cancelled, or that idiotic longboarder with a deathwish hadn't tried to give me cardiac arrest, or if I had walked into any other subway car, Benji and I would never have met."

I order a cold brew with oat milk and an iced non-fat mocha latte for Jonah to replace the one he lost this morning from our favorite stand in the park. Jonah starts to pull his card out of his wallet when the barista turns the payment kiosk in our direction but I push him to the side, tapping my card to the screen.

He tries to object but I wave him off quickly. We're here to celebrate him finally having found his soulmate after all, no way was I going to let him pay.

Jonah is constantly finding ways to pay for things for me. We are in a constant battle over who gets to pay the check, one that thanks to my poor reflexes, he often wins. We meet here for coffee at least three times a week if not more, and he has a habit of trying to sneak to the park early to buy our drinks before I get there.

"You know technically speaking, that's not entirely true." I comment as we take our drinks and start to head through the park.

"What's not true?" Jonah asks, taking a sip of his new cup. "Fuck, if this isn't the best latte I've ever had in my entire life."

His declaration makes me grin because without fail, every latte is the best latte Jonah's ever had in his entire life. The boy lives in a world of extremes. I imagine it must be exhausting, hence the need for the multiple iced non-fat mocha lattes a day.