A Blizzard in July

Rielly looked down at her coffee, still piping hot. She took a sip, anyway. She didn’t care how much it burned her mouth. She was so used to the rough feeling on her tongue from burning it so often that she didn’t even notice it. She placed the mug back on the table, and when she looked up, her heart stopped and sank to her gut.

There he was, just as she’d remembered him. As if she didn’t still think about him every single day. She still came to the same coffee shop every morning, even as the years passed by, hoping that one day they’d run into each other again. It was their place. It was where they met.

••••

One early November morning much like this one, the clouds were so low they might feel suffocating to anyone else, but not to her. For Rielly, they were like a security blanket. She sat at her usual table in the back, right next to the window. She took a sip from her cup, then leaned her head against the glass and switched between watching the clouds roll over the city and tracing the pattern of the raindrops falling down the window. Suddenly, her eyes fell upon someone coming down the sidewalk. He was tall, almost uncomfortably so. The kind of tall where you’re not sure if the legs will ever end. He was wearing an old faded dark blue jean jacket with a grey hoodie underneath. His black jeans, full of holes, were cuffed right above his black high top vans. Between the hood on his head and his hand holding the cigarette up to his lips, she couldn’t get a good look at his face. He was getting closer. She knew it was time to look away, but she didn’t want to. Her eyes followed him the entire way until the distance between them was a mere few feet, and then he saw her.

This girl, staring at him from the inside of the coffee shop he passed every day but had never gone inside of. If he hadn’t been early for work on this particular day, he may never have seen her. Because he knew that rain turned people into snails, he left his flat much earlier than usual. She was sitting at a table by herself with a laptop, a scone, and a steaming cup of coffee. She had freckles and short, curly, dark brown hair. Her eyes were innocent, big, brown, and hidden behind thick glasses. At first he couldn’t tell what she was staring at, but as he got closer, he realized it was him. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure there wasn’t something happening in the street that he was unaware of. Nothing. She was definitely checking him out. So he stood there on the other side of the window of this little coffee shop, staring at this girl, who stared right back. He took one last drag from his cigarette, then flicked it out into the street. He turned around, went back towards the door he passed, and walked inside. A decision he’d later come to regret.

“Do I have something on my face?” He asked as he walked up to her table.

“I..uh..what?” She stammered

“It’s just that you were staring at me like I have a milk mustache from breakfast.”

“No, you do not have a milk mustache.”

“No, well is there a bat in the cave then?” He asked as he tilted his head up so she could see up his nose

“No, you’re good,” she giggled.

“Well, what is it, then?” He asked with a smirk as he pulled a chair from a nearby table. He slid it around with its back facing her table and straddled it, resting his arms across the top. He was the kind of guy who tried his hardest not to follow social norms. This included sitting in seats the proper way.

She fidgeted with her long sleeves and crossed her legs. She looked down at her coffee and said, “You’re just kind of really beautiful.”

And he was. He had peeled his hood off as he walked up to her so she could see him more clearly now. His curly brown hair was a perfectly messy mop on top of his head. He had dark green eyes hidden behind the curliest of eyelashes, olive skin, and dimples you could just barely make out from behind his scruffy facial hair. He commanded the attention of the room; left people in awe. And he knew it. This is not to say that he was a very vain person, or even that he liked being societally attractive. In fact, he hated it. He felt that his attractiveness was trivial. It was only a shell, a vessel, which was nothing in comparison to what it held.

He chuckled uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck. “Thank you,” he said.

“And I don’t just mean your face,” she said, “your vibe, it glows. Are you a fire sign?” she asked.

“A what?” he asked, confused.

“What’s your sign?” she asked slowly as if that would make him suddenly understand. Seeing that he was still clearly confused, she tried again. “Your astrology sign," she said.

“Ohh, um I don’t know...I was born in December," he said.

“December what?”

“Seventeenth.”

“I knew it, you’re a Sagittarius. Fire sign. I was right," she gloated.

“Hey, I never even got your name” he said right as she took a huge bite from the scone she almost forgot about.

“Wriwey,” she said with her mouth full. The perplexed look on his face was enough to make her aware that he did not catch any of that. She swallowed quickly then tried again,

“Sorry, I’m Rielly,” she said again.

“It is a pleasure to meet you Rielly. I’m Drew,” he said, extending his arm across the table to shake her hand, on which he planted a kiss. “Tell me more about my sign," he said.

And that was it. She had spun her web, and he was trapped before he’d even realized what was happening.