Learning to be Strong Alone // Jeraphina Fanfiction

Chaptet XXIV: A New Type of Hopeful

"Your past is the
building blocks for
your tomorrow."

...............

3rd POV

"We could take a look at the menu on the board over there, if you'd like," Valerie spoke, pointing her finger toward a glass-encased sheet of paper. "My nephew says that the coffee is decent and that the mango—"

"—boba is amazing."

The words left his mouth like a mantra he had spoken many times—no consciousness flowing with the sentence that tumbled from his lips and into the open air.

A pause passed over them like a gentle caress of the breeze, leaves picking up and throwing themselves over the tables and chairs as they swirled through the air. The chatter seemed to silence itself as he stood there, staring, not focused on anything but the thoughts that had come rushing to his mind.

Valerie's hand slowly dropped at the sound of Alden's voice, her head turning to face the boy who had finished her sentence without a second thought.

She saw his mouth was agape, chapped lips twitching as he continued to stare breathlessly up at the shop sign. The gold pigment in his eyes seemed to shine just a little brighter—the pink in his cheeks just a little warmer.

His lips stuttered.

"Th-that . . . that's what I always used to get."

Alden's heart began to quicken in his chest, blood rushing through his body, heating up in his veins and making him dizzy. Vibrations shot through the fabric of his shirt, breaking through the suit and the tie he unwillingly wore; it was as if he were free of the fabrics—at long last, he was who he used to be.

A hearty smile shattered the skin of his frowning face, everything about his complexion glowing as he ran head-first into the door, pulling it open just to take a deep breath and smell the long-lost scent of familiarity. It was like an old friend had (lovingly) slapped a memory back into his mind—the scent of sugary tea and fresh coffee converging in his nose to greet him once again.

He didn't know what was familiar—what part of this simple shop called to him, but it did. It cried out his name, J— . . . whatever his name was before his memory loss; it cried to him with open arms, roots that had once seated him and held him in his comfort now curling around his legs, grounding him to the shop.

People may have stared at the strange man in the suit who burst through the glass doors as if his entire life was found on the other side—but in a way, it was.

"Something you remember, Alden?" spoke Valerie as she too walked through the door, arms crossed and a subtle grin on her pale face. "No wonder why you liked mango when we gave it to you all those times; you must've subconsciously associated it with the positive feelings you felt when you came here before your memory loss."

The woman's face tugged on her smile, pulling it up by the sides. "Emotions are strong, after all."

"Interesting."

Alden didn't reply—he couldn't; his once dry eyes were coated in a thin layer of salty water, his ear canals were filled to the brim with a deep ringing that seeped into his skull, knocking at the fragmented neurons of his brain. They connected like a puzzle—questions he had long held about himself being answered at last.

His lips moved as if he was forming a sentence in his mind, nothing more than a quiet whisper leaving the tip of his prickling tongue. He whispered something quiet—maybe to himself . . . or someone other; it was almost as if he wasn't the one saying it.