Afterburn

Stepping into my favorite coffee shop, I relish in the smell of coffee beans that enters my nose as soon as I walk into the space. After moving away for school, I've missed it. I get in line to order my favorite drink, a chocolate cappuccino. No matter where I go, no one can seem to make one better than my old local coffee shop does. The line moves fast, and a couple people shuffle in behind me as I politely order my coffee.

As I wait for my drink to ready, I see a few people I recognize from high school, but no one I ever really  close to when I lived here. My barista looks like someone who was a few years younger than me in high school, but I don't say hello, as she probably wouldn't recognize me anyway. Looking around, I notice everyone here is wearing warm sweaters to protect themselves from the cold temperature outside, and you can feel the Christmas spirit in the air. It's even more welcoming than the usual atmosphere is.

After saying thank you to the familiar barista, I go grab a table for myself. The quiet air of my table somehow intertwines its way into the vibrant setting seamlessly, and it's amazingly peaceful. I stare down at the steaming cup of caffeine, waiting for it to cool down, when a throat is cleared and I look up, meeting eyes that match the brown colour of the hot liquid.

"May I sit down?" he asks me, as all the memories I made with that specific pair of brown eyes come flooding back into my brain.

It must have taken me a moment to respond, before I reply, "Sure, it's all yours," and gesture to the seat with my hand. It's almost like a bit of shock, seeing him here. Our paths haven't crossed in over two years, since we graduated high school. I actually discovered this coffee when we had been dating, and even after our breakup, it didn't dampen my love for it. "Hi," I say as he sits down across from me.

"Hi," he says, a warm smile on his features. "So how have you been?" It seems to be the small things you notice about a person first. One of the first attributes I notice about Aiden is the fact the coffee in his cup is still his favourite light brown espresso from when we were together. I guess some characteristics about a person never change, and that puts a matching smile on my face.

A million different answers to his question cross my mind, but I stick with, "I'm pretty good, how about you?"

"Pretty good as well," he returns, even though we both know they are a basic answer, one you would tell a mere stranger, and we are anything but. Sure, maybe we haven't talked in a while, and maybe we're different people now. We still have a shared history though, and that's a fact that can't ever be changed. "Have you ever wondered?" he asks randomly.

"Wondered about what?" There are so many things I could wonder about, after all.

"Wondered about why we went south so fast," he muses to me, and I realize he's talking about our relationship. When we met, we were seventeen and we had a rapid kind of connection, the type you only hear about in fairytales and movies. The sparks were instantaneous. Soon after we met, we started a relationship, even though we were both warned about moving too fast. A couple months went by, and suddenly the magic had disappeared.

"We ran out of fuel and we burnt out," I tell him, knowing that it's unfortunately truth. When we broke up, it was because we couldn't continue on. Our flames had smothered and only the dying embers remained. No matter how much we had tried to fan the embers, they just wouldn't ignite again.

He makes a face, and I can see the wheels turning in his head, trying to figure out what to say next. "But what if our sparks just needed time to ignite again? Do you ever wonder about that?" His expression is thoughtful as he looks at me. His brown hair is longer than it used to be, reaching farther down his forehead, towards his eyes. He seems to have a more maturity tone about him, now, as if he's grown up, but only a little bit. He still has this playful spark about him that draws people in; the same one that drew me to him in the first place. The perfect mix of being serious yet goofy.

"I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind," I admit, and suddenly, it's like I'm seventeen again. I feel everything, and all it took was a couple sentences. All the adventures we had, all the feelings I felt. The kisses and the laughs. It's all coming back and flooding my mind with the memories of us.

He just looks at me for a moment, analyzing me. I almost stand up straighter, my previous insecurities making a brief reappearance at the intense gaze. When he finally speaks, he cryptically says, "I'm glad I'm not the only one."

After we broke up, I never thought I crossed his mind again, and if I did, it wasn't often. By the time we ended our relationship, we had fallen so far from what we were, that we had become almost unrecognizable. I didn't think he would want to go back to us, to the way we had been, even if we had been beautiful in the first place. "Why do you wonder?" I ask suddenly.

"Because we were great," he answers simply.

"But we fell; we became a mess," I reason with him. Even if it's true that one conversation shouldn't make me feel everything again, like the feelings never left, but it doesn't take away the memory of the wreck we became.

A charming smile crosses his lips as he asks, "But isn't it fate that we met here today?"

"Maybe. But it might not mean anything in the big picture," I tell him, despite the fact it rips me up a little inside. All the feelings I felt for Aiden then have risen back into the surface of my mind, as if they never left, and my gut is telling me that meeting him here was no accident.

"I guess that just depends how we make it," he declares, his fingers touching mine briefly, as he reaches for his coffee cup. The touch ignites to be just as hot as it was when we met, like nothing has changed, and right now, we are the same as how we were then. "I want to ask you something," he says suddenly, and I just nod. "Have you had any real relationships since us?"

The question is a bit shocking to me in its brashness, but at the same time, it's not. That's just how Aiden is. His kind of honesty is a comfort that's rare in a world where some people try to hide behind masks. "No," I murmur, the truth seeping out of my mouth like a drip I can't stop. I've never had anything close to the fire I had with him, and I'm starting to think it wasn't because we were young and stupid.

He just grins, drinking more of his coffee. "Do you want to get out of here? I know somewhere we could talk."

I bit my lip, thinking I know where where he is talking about. "Is it wise to give us a second chance though?" I muse aloud. There's just so much risk to it, and more obstacles than they were before. Distance, for one example.

He catches my hesitation, but tries to throw it out the window. "I think so. Because it's either that, or we could risk regretting it for the rest of our lives. Will you take a chance on me, Erica Taylor?" he gets up and holds a hand out for me, and it reminds me of being seventeen again, because he said the same thing then.

The risks are still there as I grab his hand and pull myself up, meeting his doubt-free eyes. "I'm thinking I will," I tell him as we walk outside into the snow, hand in hand. I don't know if this will work out, but I'm hoping the outcome can outweigh the risks. That this time we'll be strong enough to pick each other up if we fall and burn like we did before. Maybe time changes things after all; that at seventeen we just hadn't been ready for each other yet, but we are now.