Art is risk. (H.S.)

Chapter 3

I woke up in the middle of my dream. It was about me calling my mom and telling her how great New York is. I told her about the people I met and about my new car. My vision came blurry as tears pricked my eyes. She also told me to do some research for photography, wich I already did.

I sighed and stood up from my bed to make breakfast. It was 9 a.m. wich was a nice time to get up. I drank my coffee and baked myself some pancakes.

I took a shower and made my plans for today as the water ran through my washed hair. I got out of the shower and dried off my body. I groaned when I noticed the mirror was damped. I dried it of and sighed at the appearance of my messed up, wet, brown hair. Then I brushed my teeth.

I was blow drying my hair as an idea popped up in my head. I combed my hair as fast as I could and quickly put on black jeans and a baseball t-shirt. I threw my black leather jacket and my purse over my arm, took my keys, hung my camera over my neck and rushed out of my apartment.

I ran into the coffeehouse, up to Liz who was putting some cupcakes on plates. The smell of coffee in this coffeehouse is unique. It wasn't a strong smell that your nose wouldn't get used to. It was soft and mixed with chocolate and cake.

"Woah, darling, why so rushed? Want a relax-thea?" Liz giggled at her joke.

"I need to talk to you, Elizabeth." I said out of breath from walking really fast.

"Hey, calm down, you okay?" she said.

"Yeah, I'm great," I realised people were staring and I smiled to them in apologize, "just a little excited." I said, turning back to Liz.

"Alright, follow me." she said something to the 17 year old looking boy, who was taking some orders. He nodded to Liz. I smiled at him, he smiled back. He probably worked here in the weekends, since it was saturday.

I followed Liz to the back of the house. We came in a living room and she told me to take a seat. I sat down on the leather couch and looked around. The living room had brick walls with white book shelves at it. Two globes were standing and the end of the long row of books. The cozy lighting made me feel like home immediatly.

"Want something to drink?" Liz asked.

I smiled at her and asked for a cherry thea and she went back to the cafe area to get my thea.

I stood up and took the chance to look over at the books. Some were old, had light brown pages and smelled like dust. Others looked new and smelled like flowers. Some were just books, others were notebooks or sketchbooks.

Out of all books, one caught my eye. It was a brown, leather journal and was binded together with a leather strap. Small words formed a sentence on the cover.

She doesn't deserve his heart.

Let us love.

Black, sketched stars were drawn in the corner of the front cover.

ONE AND ONLY

was written on the spine.

PLEASE

underlined and scratched in the leather, like anger or sadness made the person slide his black pen over each character again and again, while just staring at the word.

I heard footsteps coming from the hallway between the coffeeshop and the living room. I slowly turned around while tracing my fingers over the leather of the cover.

"Here's your thea, Zara." Liz said. She focused her eyes on my thea while walking. She set it on the wooden table between the couches and sat down on the couch, sipping from her water.

"Thanks." I said and sat down next to her "Can I ask you something?" I said, looking up at her.

"Of course, darling." She smiled happily.

"What is this?" I showed her the journal, "Where does it come from? Is it yours?" Questions flew out of my mouth. Curiosity got to me, again.

"Ow, chill there!" she laughed and I smiled half. "It's a journal, a notebook, I don't really know actually."

"Is it yours?" I asked, inspecting her pink lips, grey eyes, long eyelashes and sharp sheekbones.

"Well, it isn't. But I found it, so it actually is as well. I mean, I didn't write it or read it." she shrugged.

"What? Where does it come from, from who?" I was confused and I absolutely did not like it.

"Before I had my own coffeehouse, I needed inspiration. I went to plenties of other coffeebars, shops and houses, trying to put a lot of different ideas together." Her eyes shined as she tought back at it.

"Then there was this coffeebar; the coziest one of all. I was just sitting there, working on my laptop, when I found the journal on the chair next to me. I didn't read it. Someone's life could be described in there by words and drawings."

She slowly took the journal out of my hands.

"I went to the woman who was working there and asked if she knew whose journal it was. She told me she didn't knew and visibly didn't care either. But I did. So I just took it home with me but I never actually read it."

"How could you not read it? Aren't you curious?" I asked.

"I was really busy with the coffeehouse back then and just forgot about it." She shrugged again.

"How long hove you had it?" I asked and drank my thea.

"The coffeehouse has been open for two years, so two and a half years, maybe?"

How could she do that?

I stared at her.

How can you find a journal and not read it after two and a half years? I wouldn't be able to do that, that's for sure. My curiosity would eat me alive. It already does now, after maybe five or ten minutes.

"You can take it home if you'd want to." She said, noticing me staring at her hands.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course." She smiled happily.

"Thank you!" I said, smiling at her.

She handed me the journal and I looked at it again. The cover at it self was already beautiful.

"Are you going to tell me why you rushed into my coffeehouse, now?" She asked, raising a brow, playfully.

"Yeah, right." I sat up and drank my thea again.

I started and hoped she'd agree with me and accept my offer.

~~~

Hi guys!

Sorry that I didn't updat last week but when I finally finished, everything got deleted so I had to start all over again and it took me a while as you can see.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Next update will probably be next week or something, I'll try.

COMMENT+VOTE

THANKS FOR READING!!

Love, Nel.