Collide

One

Colorful leaves fell lazily from the trees under the gray sky. People wandered from place to place under the storm of colors. Inside the small coffee shop, a fire blazed in the brick hearth, keeping the building warm. Customers sat in leather chairs and at tables talking, typing, and sipping their drinks. It was just another lazy day in the midst of a Pennsylvania October. The kind that makes people forget that there’s ever anything exciting coming in life, because the days are so dreary and uniform, it’s hard to imagine anything but that dull patch of time.

“You’re not listening to me!” Shay demanded, pacing back and forth in front of the counter to keep up with the barista as she worked.

“I hear you loud and clear, Shay! Excuse me for being a bit busy doing my freaking job to be able to have the perfect conversation you seem to want from me!” the barista exclaimed back, furiously wiping down counters.

“It’s not that hard to talk while you wipe down counters. All I wanted was to talk to you for a minute, but apparently you’re not even capable of that. Is talking and wiping down a counter at the same time really that difficult for you?” he demanded, glaring with his unnaturally bright blue eyes. It wasn’t as if she would be able to see it, anyways. Even if she looked up from the counter, his eyes would be hidden by the black hair that he hadn’t cut in so long.

“And there you go, calling me stupid! If you think I’m so stupid, why did you even bother asking me out? Is it that hard to say one nice thing to me?” she growled.

“Why do you assume that I think you’re stupid? God, Kathleen, this is what the problem is. You always put words in my mouth and make me look like a real jackass,” he spat.

“Screw it. This isn’t worth it anymore. If you’re going to keep acting like this, I don’t want to be involved with you anymore. Get out of my life,” Kathleen exclaimed, throwing the damp rag across the counter. It landed right in the middle of Shay’s chest, leaving a dark mark in his gray t-shirt and making him smell like dirty dishwater. Just what he needed.

“Fine by me,” he responded, turning away from the counter.

He stalked off to the balcony that overlooked the first floor of the shop and sat down in a brown leather chair in the corner. It wasn’t like he expected her to stay, anyways. People had a tendency to abandon him at some point. It was just the way things had always been. He wasn’t a bad guy or anything. He just kept his distance, because any time he ever let someone get close, they turned around and shoved a knife right into his back.

Kathleen’s brunette head popped into view over the edge of the balcony as she bussed tables. She tossed the cups in her plastic bin so violently that it was a miracle they didn’t break.

He couldn’t lie to himself, he wasn’t very upset at the fact that she had just dumped him. It was impossible for him to be upset over a relationship that hadn’t even been extremely important to him. Obviously he cared about her, but not enough that it crushed him that she wasn’t his girlfriend anymore.

Shay removed a notebook from his backpack and started scribbling words down. He always caught hell from the other students at his school for it. Weird. Nerdy. Retard. The harsh words had stung at first. Now they bounced off of his protective shield, crafted by the realization that all of them were complete idiots. Except Kathleen. She hadn’t been an idiot, but he still expected her to go. She had lived up to his low expectations.

As he wrote, he thought about how many times Kathleen had asked what he was always writing about. At first it was whatever popped into his head. But, recently, the thoughts had woven themselves into something. A girl. A girl with a story. A fictional story, but a story nonetheless.