The Cafe

The feeling of wasted time is what I truly despise, among many others. People fill their small-minded lives with lackadaisical work. The experiences you shape in free time have to be things you cannot usually do that you enjoy. This means one should spend weekends at home or strolling around the neighborhood.

Not grudgingly walking a mile to a cafe. It wasn’t entirely my fault. Picking at a spiky rose bush, I jitter as one jabs into my finger pad. Sparking a memory of the time I did the same, walking along with my mom. I trailed behind her while acting purposefully childish, even crudely grabbing at every plant nearby until I swatted at a thorn bush with my entire hand.

I pick at the thorn stuck in my sweaty finger, tearing it out. The thin lines on my finger fill with blood. It’s still so hot out, likely to be over ninety degrees, but I can’t precisely check from my phone because it is submerged in a lake.

Only a week ago I sat in the booth where I’m waking to, scooting into place while my mother sat across from me.

“He shouldn’t be friends with you-”

I cover the sides of my head, my palms pressed against my temples, hitting myself with each step-closer to the cafe that I’m walking to. With each thump of my foot, I strike myself harder until a splitting pain emerges from my reddening cheeks. What was I thinking of again? I glance down at my stinging finger; I must not want to remember.

Like many others, my brain has the awful habit of remembering all I don’t wish to remember. Playing it back and back until I sob in frustration. From the half-hour walk I just endured prior, I cried all my tears out. So now, I stomp crossly.

The plaza I’m approaching is busy with life. A woman with makeup dug deep into her folded wrinkles, walking an equally hideous dog, passed me. I scrunch my nose. Despite how much I know it is wrong to feel so, I resent the day I grow to be that age.

Thinking of such a perturbing subject makes me shiver; growing ugly is the worst inevitable conclusion to ever experience. I know myself deep in my heart; I’m average at least. Every day when looking in the grimy mirror, my eyes appear the most ethereal out of most people I see. Therefore, my eyes remain above most, at least of those at school. The rest of my face, however, is too regular, too average, and it makes my blood boil. Why would anyone grant such an uncohesive face?

I stand in front of the clear glass door. A frosty imprint of a baked good decorates the door. Usually, when I arrive here, I’d hold open the door for my mom lingering behind me; I would rush in and grab my regular sandwich and order it to be cooked. Then my mother would look at the menu, long enough for my hands to grow fidgety. Then she would decide her usual order.

Now alone and penniless, I enter, quickly closing the door behind me. Not sparing a single famished glance at the food, I sat in the corner booth. With thumb and forefinger shoved in my pocket, I pinch a piece of lint while I consider my next move.

My eyes quickly catch a drift of silky maroon hair covering a pale girl. She sits beside me, unbothered. Tossing her silky hair over her shoulder. I don’t stare at her; instead, boring holes into the table I sit at.

People as self centered as her shouldn’t be shown in public. Sitting beside me while all the other tables are open, is this a power move? What a nuisance. Eventually my care for dignity slips away and I glare at her. My eyes drifted over her forlorn expression and the business outfit she is wearing. She sits solidly, not looking my way.

I shouldn’t have thrown my phone over the railing of that bridge. I twist my head away from the girl, cracking my knuckles in agitation. When I arrive home, my parents’ll kill me, or call the cops. Tracing the wood table, I am again reminded of the last time I was here.

He shouldn’t even be friends with you! Someone as suicidal as that could be dangerous. While my mother was rattling on; I was still eating my sandwich before finishing. I was far more furious than upset. It was just three months after I left the psych ward, and I still remember all she said there. Now every misstep is fuel to the fire of my aching hatred. Especially that, ‘Someone as suicidal as that could be dangerous.’

I dig my fingers into the nape of my neck, the balls of my palms driving into my thyroid.

I hate her more than anything in the world. If she’d die, then I would stand before her holding the knife. The days passing in the psych ward felt like a distant dream. As if nothing happened this summer month at all, hazy glass showing a dreary memory.

In the ward, my close friend would sit beside me on the plastic chairs, twirling her black hair. I met her there. I’d loudly rant about my mother while she empathetically watched.

I hated my mother at fourteen too. She tucked a strand behind her ear. The minimal sunlight speared through the nearby window. It made the thin skin on her cartilage look bright red. I can see how her hair was dyed crimson only on the ends, and how choppy it looked from cutting out the knots. How she was beyond exceptional at puzzles, even though her eyesight was not good. -Now, I understand her better. I mean, I still don’t like her all the time, but we get along. She was sixteen, right? I can’t even remember her birthday or the color of her eyes. But I can remember the placement of her acne, and how lively she chased me around the tiled floors. The nurses scolded us every time, but the spins across the small space made the painful reality dim.

I tilt my head back and towards the ceiling. In the ward, the food tasted awful; the caretakers were strict, and the space was small. I felt so much more free than now. All I wished for when I was in the ward was to be outside. The splintering worldviews make me nearly laugh.

How comical.