Love the Boys

Chapter Five

In one of the few moments that I slept that night, I had a familiar dream. No flesh-walled heart chambers or creatures crawling up from muck, but a nightmare all the same. I had this dream a lot, and each time it left me disoriented.

I was in the ruined town, a survivor of a calamity that I knew all too well, and I wasn't alone. In the distance, there was someone moving toward me. This time, I could see the face of the bloody figure who approached. He was the dead boy I had seen yesterday, with the dark hair and the blue eyes and the heart scar near his eye.

There were echoes all around me, promises of second chances, but I didn't believe them. The end had come, and we were the only two left.

We approached each other, needing to be close and yet knowing that coming face to face would mean the end for one of us.

And then a voice came, seeming completely unattached to anything else that was happening.

"Let's make a trade. I'll give you back your life if you do something for me. You'll get another chance, if you can make it work. Do we have a deal?"

I woke up at that, a soft patter of rain pelting my window. I had fallen asleep on the couch again, but I was okay with that. At least I'd gotten some sleep.

As for what I had seen last night, I'd chalked that up to a waking dream. I was groggy, hallucinating. I'd checked over my whole apartment holding that knife, and no one was there. The door and windows were locked. There was no message written in my kitchen. I had made the whole thing up. I would doubtlessly revisit this later, but I didn't want to think about it now. I wanted to go forward and be happy to be alive.

My phone had fallen on the floor. Had simply slid off the sofa. I checked it now — still with the rosebud on the screen, just slightly open. Maybe I would change it, but I didn't have time. I needed to get ready for work.

I put on a clean uniform, brushed back my blond hair into a ponytail and put on makeup. I took a deep breath as I looked at myself in the mirror and sighed out.

"Today is just another day," I told myself. "Today is just another day."

I shouldn't be emotionally charged about yesterday, and I shouldn't get my hopes up about today. Could I do that? I didn't know. I went to work, making sure to leave a few minutes early so that I could go a different route. I didn't want to pass that crosswalk again. Maybe never.

Simon didn't show up at the café that morning, and my mind was full of thoughts about that. Every time the door opened, I looked up to see if it was him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Mixed with that, my workday was busier than usual. I guess more people were passing by, trying to get a glimpse of the cordoned-off scene where the police were still investigating the hit and run yesterday.

The bell over the door rang, and I looked up, as I had been all day. I saw a familiar face enter through the door, but it wasn't Simon. The crowd seemed to part for him happily, and he was gracious, greeting those he knew as he made his way to the front, stopping in front of me.

"Can I get a coffee to go?" Coy asked me, leaning forward on the counter. His slightly wet jacket left little droplets on the surface, but his hair still looked great.

"No Starbucks for you?" I teased. He could certainly afford it.

"Nah, I know where the good stuff is." I got the cup ready for him, filling it as high as I dared with black coffee.

"Or is this the only place where your groupies won't follow?"

Coy touched his nose and smiled at me. He didn't say too much, but I could tell he was watching my every move as I put a lid on the cup. It was hard not to think of him as a stereotype. The handsome rich kid who dates too many girls and has a sense of entitlement... Could there possibly be more to him than that? I probably wasn't going to find out. And I didn't want to.