365 Cups of Coffee

Eight: Hot Chocolate With A Shot of Espresso

    My mom brings me a hot chocolate with a shot of espresso from Dunkin Donuts in the morning.  Although the coco cold when she comes to wake me up in my writing room, I heat it up in the microwave and drink it, staring out the window and thinking.  I haven’t left the room in over ten hours, except to heat up the cup of hot coco, and I don’t intend to leave for a while, either.  After all the running around I’ve been doing the past few days, I need to rest and think about things.  That’s all I did for months, and swinging back into life this head-on is terrifying.

    The phone rings after I finally leave the room to eat lunch with my parents.  We’re on the couch, eating leftovers from the night before, which is a five-cheese pasta sauce my mom made before she knew I’d be with Daniel for dinner.  Right at the end of a commercial break, the phone rings, and my dad picks himself up to go get it. 

    “Hey,” he calls into the living room.  “Does anyone know anyone from Durham?”

    I leap up and take the phone from him. 

    “Yes!” I say, and race with it up to my bedroom, flopping out on my bed.

    I click the phone on to stop the incessant ringing.  Daniel’s voice filters through.  He must have gotten my number from the call I made yesterday.

    “Hey, this is Daniel, can I talk to –”

    “It’s Aspen!” I interrupt, grinning.  “What’s up?”

    “Hey!” he says.  His voice sounds different on the phone.  “I guess I just wanted to see if you’d answer the phone if I called.  And also to talk about last night.”

    Last night.  My heart pounds, drowning out every other sound. 

    “Yeah?” I say, weakly.  Oh god, don’t ruin this now.

    “Well um, yeah,” he says, his own voice becoming more unsure.  “I guess I was just wondering if you wanted to do that sort of thing again some time soon.  Well, this week actually.  I was wondering if you wanted to go boating up north with my brother and I, on Lake Winnipesaukee.  In three days.”

    Three days?  My mind goes numb, as I try to fathom that stretch of time between us.  Knowing where he lives could be dangerous; I want nothing more than to go see him now.  Wanna know something about falling for someone?  Here’s the scoop.  A day after you see them, all you want is to see them again.  It’s like an addiction, but it always gets better with time.  By the end of three days, you’ll be okay, and then you’ll see them again, and the cycle will continue.  It’s simple: the longer you’re away from each other, the less it hurts.

    But then when you see them again, it's the best feeling in the whole world, and you're smiling so hard, and you can't believe it, so you pinch yourself over and over.  And at first the conversation starts out awkwardly, and you notice how he shifts back and forth, a nervous habit of his own, but you get lost in his sea foam green eyes, tinted by blue flame, and you don't know what to say but you are smiling stupidly, and when he says it's been too long, and that next week, or three days, or even three hours is too far away, it sounds like music, and you're soaring inside. But then eventually you have to part, and at first you feel fine but then you ache for him.  And all.  You want.  To do.  Is hang out.  Day in, day out, all day, all night.  And that's what it's like.

    And I know it’s crazy, because I almost just met him, right?  But here’s the thing . . . That’s when it hits the hardest.  Because love always has to overcome that initial state of denial . . . And to do that, it has to be strong.  And you have to push aside that distance, forget that you live twenty or so minutes away.  It’s nothing, really.  Just trivial.  But everything seems like an eternity when you’re apart.  Because . . . Well cliched, cheesy love stories are cliched and cheesy for a reason.