Lost

Chapter 7

                              ELLIE JONES

It is getting really late, and I want to go home and sleep on my fluffy, snug, queen-sized mattress. I clean the last of the shelves before closing up. Just as my feet crosses the threshold of the store, droplets of water fall onto my face and arms. I glance up and am greeted by swarms of grey clouds. I look through my bag in search of an umbrella but ultimately find that there isn't one. As the time passes, the light drizzle starts turning into unforgiving rain. Instead of trying to find something to shelter me from the rain, I grab the store's keys and unlock the door. I am not walking home in the rain.

"Looks like I'm staying here another night," I say as I observe the rain get heavier and heavier. This time, rather than heading to the attic, I walk to the back of the store where the softer chairs and sofas are. I take a seat on one of the chairs, grateful that I have the opportunity to sit on something cushiony. I take my unfinished essay out and continue doing it since it is due tomorrow.

An hour later, I finally finish up my assignment and chuck it back into my file and my bag. I check to see if it's still raining, and it is. I whine and throw my head back against the chair. I try to fall asleep but the chair and my posture is making it nearly impossible to do so. I see the corner of the book, My Beaux, peek out from my bag and take it out to reread my favorite chapters. Even with a room filled with endless titles and stories, I am constantly only drawn to this book. I hate to admit it, but this book is my escape, and it continuously fills the gaps in my heart in ways I can't understand. I flip to the third chapter which is about Alfie's second meeting with Beaux when I hear the bell ring. I thought I had locked the door?

I fold the corner of the page before quickly stashing it in my bag. I then pick my bag up, slowly advancing towards the entrance, attempting to use my bag as a weapon against whoever had just walked in. I notice a tall shadow and immediately lunge toward the person with no mercy.

"Woah" I hear him say. I am quite proud of what I had just done.

"Why'd you do that?" He groans in pain, rubbing his shoulder where my bag had hit him. Or at least tried to. With his muscles, I'm pretty sure my bag did little to no damage. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't break anything in my bag. I move the hair that is in my face from the force I used to hit him and tuck it behind my ears before looking up.

I could have passed out there and then because the chances of this happening, at this exact moment, were close to none. This is really taking coincidence to a whole other level.

"You again?" I ask, making sure that my eyes weren't playing a brutal joke on me. 

His familiar green eyes bore into mine. Definitely not a joke. I'd recognize those eyes anywhere. 

"You," he says pointing his index finger at me. "You're the girl from the café"

"And you're Mr. No Attachments," I reply.

"Why'd you hit me?"

God, his voice is exactly how I remember it.

"Why'd you come in uninvited? Again." I throw a question back, crossing my arms, striving to hide the fact that I am beyond excited to see him again.

"The rain. Again. And you also did not lock the door. Again." He says like I was just doing it on purpose at this point. Okay, so maybe it slipped my mind. 

"Why is it always you? And what is it with you, rainy weather, and breaking into places" I ask, picking my poor bag off the ground and dusting it off.

"I'm not sure," he says, smirking.

"What are you smirking about?" I ask, hugging my bag close to my heart, trying to stop it's constant and fast beating before it beats out of my chest. 

"Told you you wouldn't be able to forget my face" He replies, thoroughly and utterly proud of himself.

I don't think I have ever appreciated the rain more in my entire life than now.

"You're just so full of yourself, aren't you?" I say.

"What are you doing in here in the middle of the night anyways?" He asks while making himself comfortable on the sofa. I tell him that I had forgotten to bring an umbrella, leaving me stranded in here. Maybe because he was wearing a jacket the other night I met him, but I hadn't noticed it before. He had tattoos scattered all over his arms. Though they were not enough to create a sleeve, they were definitely enough to be noticeable. His right hand is decorated with a ring, and four out of his ten fingers had small tattoos on them. All I could think of when I saw the tattoos is ouch.

"Don't you work at the café?" He asks, snapping me out of my thoughts. I take a seat on the chair opposite him and lean forward towards him. "And I thought you didn't form attachments?" I ask.

"Just because I remember where you work does not mean I'm attached." He says.

"Well if you must know, I work here sometimes too" I reply to his initial question. He proceeds to ask why I didn't lock the door again, making me chuckle. Both of our meetings were so coincidentally similar. It both happened because it was raining, and I forgot to lock the door. I think it's fate.

Fate has a funny way of surprising you in the most unexpected ways.

"I forgot" I reply to his question, leaning back into the chair and holding my legs to my chest. He looks towards my bag and notices the book I've been reading the past few days.

"What's that?" He asks. I roll my eyes and reply "It's a book genius". He gives me a smug look and walks over to my bag to grab the book. "Yea, just helps yourself I guess," I say, reacting to him casually taking my book like it is the most logical thing to do at the moment.

"My Beaux?" He says, flipping through the annotated, scribbled, and highlighted pages of my book. "Is it a good book?" He continues asking. 

I nod, "It's better than good. It's amazing." I say, gushing over the book. He snickers at me and asks, "Are all girls the kind to read romance novels?" He starts grazing his ring-clad finger over the tiny annotations and notes I had written. They were mainly for me, to make the book more personal and not just an ordinary copy like the ones possessed by others. I notice that it does look quite messy with all my writings, but it was definitely incomparable to the messy love hidden within it's pages.

"Why do men always stereotype women to be romanticists?" I ask. "I mean, women probably have no choice but to use such romance books to escape from the lack of romance, or even poor romance stories in our lives" Not that I was really the expert when it comes to love, but I think history has proven that for a woman, love is the biggest and most constant betrayal. A betrayal of thoughts and emotions. So it's only fair that we find our own escape through other people's tales.

He glances up, bewildered at my answer. We continue chatting, mostly about the book because I just couldn't help but explain to another person, other than myself, the love I had for this book. Actually, it was more of the love I had for the love shared between the two characters than the love I had for the book itself.  As we keep talking, I think about how weird this entire...relationship is. I barely know anything about him other than his name. I don't even know his last name now that I think about it. However, despite the lack of formal introductions, we were able to express ourselves so naturally around one another. 

Just like that, we relish in the company of one another for the rest of the night. Throughout the entire time I was with him, I wished that the rain would never ever stop, and that time would stop.

For us.