To Let You Go

One

It was 6:15 on a rainy October morning when Lina clocked into work at the used bookstore's coffee shop, a daily routine that she'd mastered over the last fourteen months. Wake up, get dressed, brush teeth, put on makeup, go downstairs, cross the street, clock in, brew coffee. Moving out of her parents' house and into her own studio apartment above the jewelry store was hard on everyone at first, but the lack of commute had paid for itself in no time, and working before the sun came up wasn't so bad when you could see the place from the window above your bed. The apartment had a surprisingly large closet, good water pressure in the shower, and a washer/dryer combo stacked up in the galley kitchen. It wasn't big, but Lina had never needed too much space.

Living alone had other perks, too. No one to judge her for binge watching trashy reality tv shows. No one to criticize her decor or the fact that none of her dishes matched. No one to steal the snacks she bought for herself. No one to look at her sadly. No one walking on eggshells, waiting with bated breath for something, never quite knowing what or when. She saved up the deposit from her $11-an-hour-plus-tips paycheck, started working full time instead of part time, and made the move to Lakeview, a suburb of much larger Greene City, Pennsylvania, where she'd grown up. The rent was cheaper and nobody but Anita and Roscoe, the owners of Blue Books, knew her name. Money was tight, but that was ok. Lina had an endless supply of free decaf coffee, muffins, and books she could borrow whenever she wanted. Once a week, her parents drove in from the city and the three had dinner together. Her father always managed to slip some money some place where Lina wouldn't find it until he was gone and she couldn't hand it back to him. $50 in her nightstand drawer. $20 stuck to the inside of the medicine cabinet. $40 in a pair of her favorite shoes. It was a message: "We support you." That's all she needed. She always planned on giving it back the following Wednesday, but she never did.

By 7:00 she'd finished her decaf vanilla latte, and the doors were open and the morning crowd had poured into the small space to get their morning caffeine before work. Blue collar men in coveralls and lawyers in suits alike, everyone needed their fix. The Blue Bean was happy to provide for them, handing over large to-go cups of black coffee for $1.75, lattes for $2.50. Starbucks, eat your heart out. Some people with extra time before their shifts elected to drink their coffee in white ceramic mugs as they sat at the small oak tables or browsed the racks of used books. Some purchased a muffin ($2.25) baked by Anita herself. The bustle of the morning was as much a part of Lina's routine as anything else. She loved rushing to complete orders. She loved knowing the names of most of the people who came in. She felt whole-heartedly present and she relished every second of it, even when the espresso machine needed a swift kick and when the steamer caused sweat to bead up on her brow.

Normally, the morning rush would die down by 10:00. Lina would wipe milk and vanilla syrup and caramel sauce off the counters, brew a new batch of drip coffee, and take 15 with her nose in a book. She was almost halfway through the list of classics she wanted to read, and was getting stuck in Jane Austen's complex dialogues; she re-read every sentence that Mr. Darcy said. She didn't want to miss anything.

What wasn't routine is that by 7:40, Lina hit the floor with the clatter of shattered ceramic. Her legs fell out from under her, and her vision blurred to black, but she thought that she could hear the startled gasps of patrons and the shriek let out by Anita. Her heart thundered in her chest with such force that she felt it in her ears, in her toes. Then, in an instant, she didn't feel it at all.