Adventure in a Cup

The tape

"Don't stress out," he said, smiling at me as I leaned against the booth, my arms unnaturally crossed.

"What do you mean?" I said, trying to smile as I spoke.

"Sorry, I can't help but try to read your body language. The way your arms are crossed, it reminds me of my business communications class, crossing your arms is a sign of closing yourself off." He said smiling again as I frantically uncrossed my arms.

"Sorry," I tried to giggle. "I'm not meaning to, I'm just shy," I said smiling back at him, trying to ease the conversation which had mostly consisted purely of music tastes, and sushi. Going out with some guy I met at a party wasn't something I would do often at all. I was not at all that type of person, but somehow my friends had convinced me to, but don't get me wrong, I did want to go. There was something about him that made me curious to know more. He didn't like the usual rap music, was a little bit older, and was over all just a little bit different.

"I like watching you eat your sushi," he said smiling. "You like dissect it, then eat each individual part."

"Well how am I supposed to eat this? This roll is like, the size of my face." I said.

"True," he said laughing. Despite the fact that I thought I was going to faint before getting into his car, I felt like it was actually going pretty well. I was what you would call socially awkward, and well, if I hadn't met him at a party when I was drunk, I most likely never would have.

The moment of truth. The climax. The reveal. I pulled out the little sim card, it looked like it could have come from basically any run of the mill camera. I plugged it into my mac book, waiting for the little bubble to pop up, my feet shuffling on the sheep skin rug under my desk, my wheelie chair creaking. Finally after what felt like forever, the bubble popped up, 'do you want to open removable disk E?' well no kidding I plugged it in for a reason. I clicked open and it quickly sent me to an album, with around 10 videos, each one marked with a date. Finally I found May 4, and anxiously clicked on. It took me a while of fast forwarding before I found around the right time, 4:30 pm. I watched intently as people came and left the shop, but no matter how many times I did so, I didn't see who I wanted to see. Just mere strangers walking through the wooden chiming door, over and over like the ticking of clock. I closed my lap top, and just breathed for a minute, trying to convince myself that I wasn't disappointed. After a few minutes, I opened my laptop again. I mean, I still want to know who wrote that, even if it wasn't the ideal result. But not a single person looked even the slightest bit familiar. I half heartily kept looking through the tape, slowly excepting defeat, when I noticed something, I guy holding a pen, a pen that very well could have written on the cup. He looked unfamiliar, but around my age. It may not be what I expected to find, but maybe this mystery isn't quite over yet. I zoomed in and saved the picture, then closed my lap top. It was now 12 o clock on a Thursday night, and I think all I really needed at this point was to sleep, if that is possible.

I woke up once again to the sound of a possible earthquake, jumping out of my bed to turn off the awful sound. Most of the time, I like to think that a decent sleep can fix anything, but I still woke up plagued with disappointment. All I really wanted to do was get my mind off everything, so I focused on getting ready in the mere hour I'd allotted to do so.

My first two classes went by quickly, lots going on, lots to keep my mind busy. The bell finally wrung for lunch, so I left the math room and went down the stairs towards the locker where I could see Sam talking vibrantly. "Mable! Come here!" she said as if I wasn't headed that way anyways.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"There's a party tonight!" she said keenly watching the expression on my face. I quickly smiled, but this time it wasn't fake. I felt like this was kind of something I needed, just to be able to take things off my mind for a night.

"Thank god," I said. "It's been way too long. Who's hosting?"

"Steve Wilson." Aria said, as Sam's grin widened.

"Oh, I see," I said shooting Sam a look. "This isn't just any party."

"Well it's still just a party..."

"Where you can observe like a stalker where he lives, and eats, and sleeps..." Katie jumped in.

"Shut up." Sam rolled her eyes. "What about you Mable, if its Steve's party, then Jay must be going."

"I'm not interested right now," I said quietly, hoping to change the conversation.

"Mable this will be good for you, start talking to someone else, I mean, it's been a while." Aria said while all my friends went silent. They all knew it was a sensitive topic for me, and they pretty well knew when to stop talking about it.

"We'll see." I said switching my two binders in the locker. "I have to get some work done, so I'm going to go to the library."

"You sure?" Sam said pitifully.

"Yeah I'll see you guys after school." I smiled then walked away, towards the library. I've kind of fallen a bit behind on my chemistry homework since this whole thing happened, so I could use a lunch to catch up. I opened the doors to our old dusty library, the typical old librarian perched at her desk disapprovingly watching anyone who talked. I headed over to an open table and opened up my books, hoping to just focus on balancing some equations. In movies, I feel like the library is depicted as a place where only nerds, for lack of a better word, hang out. But our schools reality was the library was usually full at lunch. Honestly, if you didn't come at the beginning at lunch, you most likely wouldn't be able to find a seat. I was focused on my work before a familiar face casted a shadow over the table.

"So how about that chemistry homework?" Jay said pulling out a chair.

"Oh um, I was hoping that was a joke cause I definitely did not do it."

"Well I guess we can try to finish it together. So, did you find what you were looking for?" he said pulling his books out of his bag.

"Well, not my intended result, but the mystery still proceeds."

"Oh really." He said raising his eye brows. "One day you're going to have to tell me what this is all about. The curiosity is honestly killing me."

"I feel like it is not as interesting as you'd expect." I said trying to refocus on chemistry.

"Well it must be pretty interesting for you to be so obsessed with it." He said looking up at me. I kept my head down trying to avoid him seeing my for forlorn expression.

"Well it's not." I said probably a little bit too seriously as the bell rang. I stood up and started to pack up my things.

"Wait one more thing. Steve's having a party tonight if, you want to come?"

"Yeah I heard. I might stop by." I said with the first hint of hesitance starting to show up in my mind.