Stitches

Eighteenth Stitch

eighteenth || Simon

It was as if Austin didn't understand the concept of "shut up."

"You totally soaked Ed's desk on purpose," Austin keeps saying as he slices a raspberry pie, "just so you could go redo the interviews with Perci, didn't ya? You little smartass, I didn't know you had it in you."

"Shut up," I say for the nth time as whip up a cappuccino. Apparently when Eddie was giving us one of his 30-minute rants, Austin was hovering by the door, eavesdropping, the little snake that he is.

"Who the actual fuck would want to piss Eddie off on purpose?" I say. "You of all people should know how he is."

Austin is a sports writer for Fiat Lux, and in last month's issue he accidentally misspelled the enemy team's name Pit Bulls to Pissbulls. Eddie went through hell and back just to stop the publication in time and change the typo. Now Eddie hated Austin's guts.

Austin shrugs. "Ed totally needs to cool off. It was an honest mistake, I swear! He needs to let it go."

I sometimes wonder if Austin keeps pissing Eddie off on purpose. The Pissbulls incident was one thing. What made things worse was when Betchie, our former cartoonist, transferred schools. Austin took over as temporary cartoonist (because we didn't have a choice), and every cartoon turned out real crappy. Which in turn made Eddie hate him even more—if that was even possible. I've seen Austin draw before, he wasn't Perci amazing—but he was decent. Which further supports my conspiracy theory that Austin's messing things up just for naught.

"You sure you're not the one screwing things up on purpose?" I say.

Austin just rolls his eyes. "Don't change the subject."

A random story plot suddenly pops up in my head where Austin was low-key gay, and he was messing with Eddie just to get his attention. Hey, if it's possible with Elias, then why not with Austin, right? The entire thought makes me laugh.

Austin then proceeds to make Perci-related puns while I proceed to imagine gay Austin's slow and awkward love story with Eddie—and suddenly I find myself laughing at him rather than get mad.

The afternoon went on slow like that, early summer heat slipping through our pores.

My shift was about to end, when the chime attached to our door rings, and in came Perci, with a kid in tow which I assume is her little brother.

Austin takes a double look at Perci and grins ultra-wide. He nudges me hard and winks. "Speaking of," he whispers, and proceeds to take her order.

This has happened before, I just know it. This entire scene is such a déjà vu, a thought crawls out from the back of my mind.

And then the memory hits me.

xXx

The first time I ever saw Perci was at the Pastry Bar.

It was a summer morning, and Austin was manning the cash register.

I hadn't known a single thing about her then. The moment she walked through our glass double doors, I knew for a fact that she was new around here. We live in a not-so-big town, and we deal with the same faces every day.

That day, I remember that Perci had trouble deciding what to order. Austin had kept making suggestions, flashing her quick smiles and flirty remarks every now and then, but Perci just brushed him off and settled with a latte and a cupcake.

I didn't think much of her that first encounter—I think my initial thoughts on her was that she was pretty, and I had been impressed that she had not fallen head over heels for Austin's charm like most would—but that was it.

I didn't think much of her, even on when she came in again the next day. Or the next. Or the next.

The fifth day, however, was different.

That day she came in with a book. A good book, to be exact—it was The Giver, which in my opinion is the greatest book of all greatest books ever. The kind of book that should be considered a classic but was strangely overlooked by the Book Gods (or whoever the heck decides what books get to be called "classics.")

The Giver was only low-key famous, and I was impressed that this random girl not only knew about it, but was actually reading it.

She kept coming for breakfast every day, a book in her arms each time. Really good books like The Little Prince, A Tale of Two Cities, and even The Lord of the Rings. She would sit in the same corner table and order her usual medium-sized latte with a different kind of pastry every day.

It suddenly became a routine —this mystery girl coming through our doors at 7:30 every summer morning. Every time I would guess what book she might bring next, and soon it had became some sort of game to me. Sometimes she wouldn't be reading, sometimes she would doodle randomly on receipts or torn notebook paper, her book of the day sitting patiently on the table.

A friendly reminder that I hadn't know her at all back then. I hadn't known that this girl was Perci Barrett, award winning artist that would soon dominate any art related competition in Quentin High as soon as she stepped foot on school grounds.

So when she did those little doodles on any scrap paper she could find, I simply assumed that she was an amateur, drawing them for fun like everybody else would. She'd doodle trees and animals and skies—mostly skies, she loved to draw the sky.

When I started to notice the things she would doodle, that's when I realized I was paying attention to this seemingly normal girl I knew absolutely nothing about. Sooner or later I would look forward to seeing her every day, wondering what she'll be up to next.

I also started to notice her music taste—Greenday was one of her favorites, that's for sure. She always had earphones on, but sometimes she would subconsciously sing along, and then she'd catch herself before she sang too loudly. She was really cute when she did that—one moment she'd be bobbing her head to the music, singing along and getting in the jam. Then suddenly she'd stop mid-sentence, bite her lip, nervously look around to see if anyone had been watching, and then she'd fall silent for a while—only to be singing along again when a good song pops up. The whole process was adorable.

When I started to notice these nonsensical habits of hers, that's when I realized I was slowly falling madly in love.

Call it corny, I know. Admittedly, it is—another annoying typical cafe love story, in which boy meets girl and boy says hi and boy and girl go out together.

One tiny catch though—I didn't say hi. Why? Because I'm a wimp. What would I even say, anyway? Hey there I've been watching you for days now, and I think I'm in love with you. I have no idea who you are but I do know that you like The Hobbit and punk rock music too, with that being said, I was kinda wondering if you'd maybe go out with me?

So I was contented with watching her from afar, the only words ever being spoken between us was "What will it be today?" and "I'll have the usual."

The last day I ever saw Perci in the cafe, she had doodled on her receipt and left it on her table, forgetting to throw it away like she usually does. I was on clean-up duty, so I picked it up. It was a perfect doodle of the sky. I never saw Perci's doodles up close, and as I held that crumpled receipt I suddenly realized how detailed they were. She drew the puffiest clouds in black and white, with a tiny plane with its doors open.

It was all beautiful, but what caught my attention most was her handwriting on the bottom of the page. There she wrote: Sky diving is for people with a life wish.

Few things sparked my curiosity more than this. What had she meant? I wondered, as I ran my fingers over the ink, which was now beginning to smudge under my touch.

I wanted so badly to ask her, curiosity getting the best of me, realizing how badly I wanted to talk to her, rather than just stare at her from the counter.

I had my heart dead set on asking her the next day, summoning up all my courage to do so.

Little did I know that that was the last time I'll ever see her in our cafe.

I waited for her the following day. But she didn't come. I waited for her each morning, but as the summer days slowly slipped away from my fingertips, she never came.

The next time I would see her would be at school, and you can just imagine my shock in seeing her there, but that was a different story for a different time.

I still have that doodle taped to the last page of my journal.