ғɪɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ - 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐬

023. zoe

"Um, I'll have a grande pumpkin spice latte with whipped cream."

With furrowed eyebrows, the barista just stared at Zoe, examining her like an archaeologist would study his most recent discovery. She uncomfortably readjusted the straps of her backpack, feeling somewhat violated under the dark-haired boy's intense gaze. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Zoe swallowed and mumbled a quiet, "Yeeeah..."

Blinking once, then twice, the barista seemed to snap out of it. He spoke smoothly, "Ah! My bad! That'll be $4.95."

Zoe nodded, thanking God that the barista didn't acknowledge the awkwardness. He was kind of weird, though. As Zoe pulled a ten dollar bill from her phone case, the barista popped the cap off of a pen.

"Can I get your name, miss?" he asked with a bright smile, holding up the cup in one hand and the pen in the other.

"Zoe."

The barista paused for a second, his sharpie hovering above the plastic cup and his smile twitching once. Before Zoe could make a face, he unfroze as quickly as he froze. Was her name that hard to spell? Zoe offered the barista a small, forced smile before she stepped aside to wait for her order at the condiment bar.

Surprisingly, Starbucks wasn't as busy as usual. The warm lights illuminated the floral mural on the wall as if it were a museum treasure on display. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet, but soft Christmas jazz hummed from the speakers on the ceiling. Leaning against the condiment bar, Zoe's eyelids drooped, the coffee shop scene melting into a blurred bokeh effect behind her eyelashes. She slowly nodded her head to the adagio tempo of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

Zoe prepared to retrieve her drink at the sight of the barista making his way to the pick-up counter with an order in hand, but another name left his lips.

"Alana," the barista called.

Zoe slumped back against the condiment bar, sighing. She watched as a girl with pretty textured hair pinned up in a ponytail stood up from a table and walked up to the counter. Craning her neck up to gaze at the ceiling, Zoe resumed zoning out. Now White Christmas was playing. Zoe wondered if she could do it any justice on her guitar.

"Excuse me," a voice came.

Zoe blinked and straightened her gaze. The girl with the ponytail was standing in front of her, a smile tugging at her lips.

"Oh, sorry." The apology tumbled out of Zoe's mouth as she hopped away from the little counter.

"It's okay!" the girl replied, pulling brown napkins from the dispenser. Then she walked away towards a table where a boy in blue sat with his back towards Zoe's direction. A date maybe? Studying their table, Zoe caught sight of the boy's laptop and the gigantic pile of papers. Oh, a study date.

The barista called another person's name, and soon it was just the three of them and the barista in the shop. Just as White Christmas ended and a funky jazz cover of Do You Hear What I Hear started playing, Zoe began to tune the music out. The cover wasn't that good.

The voices of the studying pair drifted into Zoe's ears. The boy sounded as if he were reading off of something—notes perhaps? Slides? She caught bits of words and phrases, "foreshadowing," "symbolism," "illustrated," and "novel" sticking out the most. Zoe couldn't hear all of it, but she was impressed by the boy's public speaking skills. His lack of stumbling, clear enunciation, fluctuating tone... He would make a good orator.

"Zoe," the barista called out.

It was almost as if a switch flipped. The boy became a blubbering mess. Zoe pretended not to notice him whipping his head around and looking at her with what she read as some kind of frightened expression. The filler words—"um"s and "uh"s and "eh"s—came spilling out. She felt sort of bad that the barista had thrown off his presentation.