Exposition.

Coffee.

Sarah smiles like Sarah doesn't care,
She lives in a world, so unaware.

-Sarah Smiles, Panic! At The Disco.

*

I watch her from the other side of the café.

She's furiously writing something in her notebook. Every once in a while, she picks up her coffee cup and sips from it. Sarah, it says, scratched out in black on one side. Her brow is scrunched up in concentration. It makes her nose squish up. She looks cute.

No, not cute. She looks beautiful. Wavy auburn hair cascades down her shoulders. Long eyelashes frame startling gray eyes. High cheekbones and splotches of freckles make her look like one of those models off a catalogue of an expensive clothing brand.

Any guy in my place would ask her out. It would be perfectly easy for him. "Can I buy you a coffee?", he'd say. Then she'd either smile, probably blush, and accept, or politely turn him down. But whenever I proposed something as innocent as a cup of coffee, most girls would either look horrified at the prospect of it, or glare at me, as though they were furious I'd had the audacity to insinuate something so preposterous.

Come on, I tell myself. It'll be perfectly easy. If she accepts, she'll be the first, and if she turns me down, she won't be the last.

I glance at her again. She has seemingly finished writing in her notebook, and has now pulled out an old, tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice. I watch her for a while, as her eyes run across the pages, but I snap out of my reverie when she drains her paper cup of coffee, and begins stuffing her belongings into a small leather backpack. It's now or never.

You can do it, I tell myself as I walk up to her. Can I buy you a coffee? Can I. Buy. You. A. Coffee. Can. I. Bu-

"Uh, excuse me?", I hear. Oh shit, I think, when I realise I'm standing in her way and that she's staring at me with a quizzical, if not annoyed expression on her face.

"Canicoffee?", I blurt out. My brain goes into 'fuck fuck fuck fuck I'm messing up I'm messing up' mode.
I'm so panicked that I almost miss watching her grin, nod and say, "Yeah, sure you can coffee. I'm Sarah."

I just stand there for a while with probably the stupidest fucking face she's ever seen, and she says, "You know, this is where the other person normally introduces themselves", and reoccupies the seat she had left minutes ago.

"Oh, I'm sorry", I say, blushing and taking the seat next to her. "I'm Emily."

*

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