In Six Years' Time

Caffeine and Adrenaline

I woke up the next morning, my dreams of Kace leaving me with wet eyes.

This was such an opportunity. I had been sent back in time. It was like the reality of the situation had finally just hit me and I realized the gravity of it. Kace was alive somewhere and I hadn't seen him once.

But had it not been for that party, I may have never met him. And that party was a long way away from where I was now. I missed Kace.

I got up.

I showered, scrubbing my eyes and washing my face to get rid of the sticky and crusty tears that had formed throughout the night.

I spent time on myself, styling my hair, doing my makeup, choosing a set of clothes that made me seem more adult.

I was going to find Kace today. Even if it was just to see him. I just wanted to see him.

If my memory serves me correctly, Kace used to work at an on campus coffee shop after class. With it being Sunday, it was a hit or miss on whether it would be open and if he would be there. But it was my only lead so far.

"Hey, mom?" I asked as I descended the stairs, finding her curled up on the sofa with a cringy romance novel with some off brand Fabio on the cover. "I know I have a bad rap sheet with motor vehicles right now, but can I borrow your car for a bit today?"

She looked me up and down, no doubt studying how I looked for a Sunday. "Sure. Where are you going all dolled up? Meeting a boy?" Her tone sounded sly, and a smile was forming. But she wasn't exactly wrong.

"Mmmmaybe." I replied with my own grin. Your future son-in-law, actually. Wonder how she would have reacted to that line.

GPS was a little screwy back in the day. It looked so much older and seemed to struggle to find things, but I'll be damned if it didn't map me straight to the university two towns over where Kace studied. It wasn't too far away, a little under 45 minutes, but I told mom I'd be gone for a few hours so there wasn't any harm in wasting her gas. I had some allowance saved up to repay her.

The university was huge, and I barely remembered how it functioned. I had only been a couple of times, as Kace was close to graduating when we met. The age difference really leaped out in situations like this.

Sure, there were probably a few people that looked around my age here as I was close to graduating and a few people go straight to college after they graduate. But it was a Sunday and the grounds were significantly less populated than I assumed a school day would be.

This might have been a dumb idea. Was the coffee shop even open on a Sunday? It's not like it was a big name brand store. It was just a little mom and pop shop that could have had Christian values and closed on Sunday.

But as my luck would have it, they did not.

There were a few cars at the shop, and through the large, open windows I could see students sitting at the tables with their laptops or books desperately working through some schoolwork.

What was my plan? Without anything to work on, I really didn't have an excuse to stay. Who orders coffee and sits alone in a shop staring out of a window on a college campus?

I desperately searched my mom's car for anything that I could use as an excuse. The only thing I could find was one of my mom's books. The cover was horrendously cheesy, a half naked man standing on the edge of a cliff with an equally semi naked woman in his arms.

"You have got to be kidding me..." I grumbled.

The inside of the coffee shop was cute. I had never actually gone inside because Kace only worked here for about a year while he was in college. By the time we met, he was already working for a small vet's office as a receptionist.