Under the Umbrella ✓

-14-

Aria's eyes slowly drifted to the window seat as Sandra spoke. She wasn't even aware until then that they were sitting at the opposite table by sheer intuitiveness. She had been so excited to see Sandra that she had overlooked all of her surroundings, unsurprisingly.

Just as she expected, the stranger sat by his customary seat, though he wasn't quite acting out his customary actions. His fingers lingered around the handle of a mug instead of a file or his phone, and his eyes seemed to be taking a break on surveying anything. He was, however, staring at something ahead so deep in thought and completely still that it was almost unsettling how inanimate he looked.

He donned a striped blue shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his hair combed back as usual. The sunlight behind him accented his lean figure, making him look a little more enchanting than the last time she saw him. She wondered what shade his eyes would take up under the sunlight and if they would even have a real color.

She shook herself out of checking him out, adding it with an internal admonishment. Rather, she searched around him for the umbrella as if she needed an alibi for why she was looking there, but she spotted nothing else apart from his phone and the mug on the table.

"Enough about me," Sandra suddenly said. "What have you been up to? What's been cookin' these days?"

So she told her. Starting from her new workmate at the clothing store to the convenient pact between Carol and her to her thoughts about getting a new part-time job. She was on a roll as she began. She was close to bringing up the fight with her sister, but she didn't, not wanting to dampen the atmosphere by talking about her family. She would have spoken about the stranger, but she was too paranoid that he'd know she was talking about him despite knowing, rationally, he couldn't hear anything.

They never ran out of topics, though, and they kept at it for a long time. When they eventually headed to the counter to pay, she noticed the stranger was exiting the café at that time.

Before they could even take their purses out, the woman shook her head. "The man from that time paid for these already."

"What man?" Sandra asked, left out of the setting entirely.

Aria could still see the stranger through a window of the café as he hadn't crossed the road yet. He didn't even seem to be getting onto the other side since he was walking by the sidewalk from the left side of the café. She flashed out the door, leaving her confused friend inside.

He wasn't too far from her when she tried to call out to him. "Wait!"

As if he recognized her voice, he immediately froze in his tracks but didn't turn around. Just when she began to tread towards him, he proceeded to move.

"Wait, damn it!" Almost everyone by the street within earshot glanced at her. But not him. "Hey, stranger!" she bellowed for the last attempt.

He halted again at that. Was he teasing her?

"It's Elliot!" he hollered in return over his shoulder, much to her astonishment.

"I didn't ask!" she yelled out when he started to walk again. He didn't stop or respond to that. After some consideration, she found herself saying, "My name's Aria!"

"I know!" he threw back, continuing along his way and disappearing somewhere by the turn from the sidewalk.