Adventure in a Cup

The cup

All it was, was a cup. A paper one, not even with a company logo. Just plain white with a thin card board sleeve covering the beginning of a small sentence. That was the issue. The sentence. Maybe it was just my compulsive ways, constantly leading me to wonder. Who wrote it? Why? After getting my coffee, leaving the shop, and eventually finding the hidden message, I had gone back and asked the baristas if they had seen who wrote on the cup, if it was one of them, but all leads led to a blank. I go through the timeline in my head: I ordered the coffee, paid for it, went to the bathroom, and came out to find it sitting on the coffee pick up counter. Now here I sit in my room, losing sleep, gently rubbing my hands over the message "I love you," on that plain, white, coffee cup.

I've never been the type to like school, but I never really hated it either. I'm sort of neutral to the whole concept. However keeping my mind consistently on task tends to be an issue. Especially with something on my mind, like the cup. 12th grade history was proceeding as usual, Mrs. Eleanor's thick, eastern European accent, hard to understand. I like to sit at the back of the class usually, by the door so I have easy access, I can come and go with little hassle. Reading this, I tend to sound pretty introverted, a little off, but that's not at all how I'm perceived at school. I actually have a solid group of friends, I hang out with the rest of the seniors in the cafeteria at lunch, and I'm at every party. I like it that way, I like to think I'm experiencing the best of what high school has to offer.

The bell marked the end of class, so I quickly made my way through the blue door into the hall way where I saw a few of my close friends gathered around a locker. "Check this out Mable!" my friend Katie yelled at me embarrassingly loud.

"What?" I shoved through the wall my four friends had made blocking the locker. A lone moldy sandwich sat on the top shelf. "That's absolutely disgusting take it out now Sam!" I yelled in a half serious half joking tone. This is typical of Sam leaving food in her locker turning it to a biohazardous zone.

"Tomorrow" she promptly said, apparently missing the humor. She put the combination lock into place completely ignoring our disgusted faces.

"So who's down for sushi?" Aria exclaimed.

"Me," Sam said.

"Me two," Katie agreed. They slowly started walking towards the exit while I hung back at the locker.

"Mable you coming?" Katie said in her usual pitiful tone. Anytime I said I didn't want to hang out they all seemed concerned to a degree.

"Nah I think I'm just gonna go home today, see you guys tomorrow,"

"OK you sure?" Aria said fidgeting through her back pack for her car keys.

"Yeah I'm sure," I claimed. They all left out the door, leaving me alone in the swarm of people trying to escape the halls at the end of the day. I slowly made my way out to the student's parking lot, where my red Mazda Miata was waiting for me. It was a birthday present just two months ago, my dad's Idea of the perfect first car do to the fact that I can only drive one other person, and it has a high crash safety rating. I got in and plugged my phone into the aux cord putting on my out dated rap music, just anxiously awaiting my return home.

It was obviously obsessive that I had quickly turned my room into a crime lab, with a bulletin board acting as a spread sheet. So far, I had little in the way of leads, and evidence. All I had was first off, the cup. The scribbled out writing was in blue ink, as far as I could tell it was most likely a bic pen, the kind everyone has on their third grade school supply list. Second, the fact that it most likely wasn't a barista because every employee I talked to completely denied it. Also they use sharpie to write names on cups, not bic pens. That was where I very well hit a road block. But I wasn't about to stop there, my persistent tendencies and my need for adventure in my boring life kept me fueled to complete my next step.

I drove to the coffee shop, the sign reading "Readers Coffee," on the cute, wooden fairy-tale like sign. I'm not sure why I felt the necessity to wear a black hoodie with all black converse attempting to look stealthy, but I did, most likely being counterproductive considering it made me look suspicious despite my innocent teenage girl look. I went into the shop and ordered my usual vanilla iced latte trying to act as I normally do, but there was one thing I was there specifically to observe. The small camera placed just to the left of the sign, attached to the pole of a stop light. The possibility seemed to outweigh the risks. I'll return tomorrow.

Second block Chemistry was not even supposed to be on my time table this year, but leave it up to the counselors to mess it up. I got into class and took my usual seat, remembering that we have a lab to do today. Thankfully, my teacher always put us with assigned lab partners, saving me the embarrassment of being left without a partner, considering my friends don't take these types of classes. "OK everyone settle down we have a lot to get through today," Mrs. Griffith pleaded to the boys in the front whom were arguing about their answers on yesterday's test. Everyone slowly took their seats and focused up at the front where Mrs. Griffith was writing the lab partner pairing up on the chalk board. Sylvia, Joan. May, Jared. Jasmine, Tom. Mable, Jay. My eyes darted across the room to Jay Williams. One of those guys everyone admires from a far. He had a tall athletic build, was well known for his position on the lacrosse team, and somehow managing to be "smart as well." He was pretty much every girls dream lab partner, but right now, he just seemed like a distraction. He never came to any parties, yet hung out with the "cool kids" at school. After a few seconds, he caught my gaze. I quickly looked away neglecting to smile. He somewhat slumped over to where I was sitting, his Nikes shuffling on the floor.

"Can I sit here?" he said with a sort of shaky voice.

"Well, I believe that's what Mrs. Griffith has intended" I sarcastically said, quickly regretting my obnoxious tone.

"err.. Yeah I guess," he said before taking a seat on the lab stool beside me. I tried to keep my notebook sheltered from his view, after all it seemed a little bit sketchy to have my blue prints on how to get the security tape drawn out. Not necessarily your average teen girl doodles. Mrs. Griffith started talking, I continued writing out plans, letting Jay take the lead with setting up the equipment. He seemed keen to do it himself anyways. It continued this way for a while, until he tapped my arm

"Hey we need to move our books off the table" he said attempting to grab a glance at was I had been writing about the entire class.

"Oh, yeah sure," I quickly moved all my books off the table on top of his, under the table.

The rest of the class proceeded as per usual, testing the reactions between copper, giving my mind a break from anxiously thinking about the possible repercussions of stealing a security video. Could you go to jail for that? Could I get fined? Was it really worth it? Before I even realized, class was over. I quickly helped Jay clean up the beakers and chemicals before grabbing my books and walking towards the door.

"See you tomorrow?" Jay said, my back completely turned to him.

"Yeah, see ya," I said surprised, walking out of the room a little bit faster than usual.

I got to the front door of my house, it was sort of a navy blue color with a wooden door, and windows. It was never the biggest house on the block, but not smallest either. It was modest and nice, exactly what you would expect from my family. I opened the chest nut door, stepping into our entry way. I slumped my canvas tote bag onto the floor, then dug into it to find my note book, but the more I dug, the more I realized it wasn't there. All my plans for the night just simply weren't there. My heart now started aggressively beating as thought of every possible place I could have left the book. But I quickly realized what happened; Jay took my book.