Cigarettes and Coffee

Coffee

We sat together on our favourite sofa in the coffee shop. Skai's hair was a mess: he had that little clump of hair sticking out in the back that you get when you've had a restless sleep. He nervously scratched the side of his almost empty ceramic mug with bitten and graphite-stained fingernails, and refused to take his drooping yet instense eyes off of the leftover coffee grains. He was avoiding eye contact with me, though I had been staring at him for the last 10 minutes, waiting to see who would fold first.

I was craving a cigarette, so it was me who broke the silence.

"Are you gonna say anything to me at all?" I tried to sound hostile and strong but my voice cracked. I hadn't noticed the lump in my throat until I tried to speak. All this tension and waiting was making me nervous- we both knew what was coming; why couldn't he just say the words so I could get the hell out of there? Damn, I wished people were still allowed to smoke in buildings.

"Andy." His voice was clear but quiet. I think he was afraid of hurting me. Well shit, that was just too bad. The stupid thing was, I couldn't even be mad at him; I knew I deserved what was coming. It was all my fault anyway, so how could I hold it against him? So then what was it that I was feeling? I'd seen this coming for a few days, which was plenty of time to prepare myself, but somehow, in that moment, I was ready to fall apart. I couldn't stand it any longer. Having someone you've known and loved for so long, someone who has loved you too, suddenly not even able to look you in the eyes felt like a punch in the stomach. It was as if I was a completely different person to him now. I couldn't bare it. I thought if I stayed there any longer I would collapse and stop functioning completely. I decided to make it easier for him; I couldnt bare to see him struggling like that.

"It's O.K. I know. I get it. You don't have to say it." He finally looked up at me with this apologetic expression on his face. Somehow it was that that pissed me off. My chest tightened and the room suddenly became stuffy and much smaller than before. There was a thing burrowing inside my heart and it felt as if the only was to get rid of it was to scream, but I couldn't do that so I got up to leave instead. I didn't look back but I could hear his shallow, rapid breathing the whole time until I was out the door.

My pace quickened and I scrunched up my nose until I ducked into a little gap between two buildings, where I could cry in private. My back against the wall, I slid down onto the floor and buried my head into my knees. That was when I screamed. I hadn't realised how much I was hurting before; I hadn't realised it was possible to ache this much. So I stayed there for a while, sobbing, until I had let out just enough to manage to put myself back together temporarily until I got home. There, I got into bed and cried some more.