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What I Would Say To You Now
A Story In Four Parts: by Adam Smith

I. Fall

I couldn't believe it. This...it was unbelievable. I had pinched myself, just to make sure it wasn't a dream, and I was still here...but I still didn't buy it. But, then, I wouldn't have bought it if someone had tried to wake me up by beating me over the head with a 2x4. Well, I suppose the coffee was too lousy for this to be a dream, though. No, this was reality, with all the good luck and bad coffee that entailed. It was just that, today, the luck was disproportionally good.

I was in a small cozy coffee shop along the side of the biggest, most uncozy road in the city. The interior was painted a rough mahogany by some architect's brush, with auburn tables and black chairs spotted along the dark tile floor. The temperature was just slightly chilly, probably so that you could enjoy the warmth of your coffee just a little more. Jazzy music was floating through the air just ever so subtly, pretty mood music to set a pretty tone to relax the patrons, buzzed up on the caffeine of coffee.

She was giggling when I looked up. "You totally think I'm weird, don't you?"

"No, no...", I blushed and blustered, looking down bashfully. I wanted to tell her that I just thought that she was cute, but I wasn't going to push my luck. To think that I'd barely ever even spoken to this girl before today...

I managed to unfix my pupils and moved them from her brown eyes, past her black hair, and to the lush golden autumn world that lay beyond the window of this little coffee shop. A lonely, too-long summer had transformed into the dull, 9-3 life of academia. Even though she was as monochrome as can be, with her creamy skin the perfect contrast to her gorgeous locks, just seeing her in the day brought some Technicolor to my bland, black & white world. I was floored that I had been able to muster up the resolve to ask her on this little 'coffee date'. What was even more shocking was that she had said yes.

I loved listening to her talk - about her teachers, about her friends, about pretty much anything. I hated when she'd look up and expect some sort of response from me, hoping that I could provide insight into her wholly different world. I could only nod, or provide an "Uh huh," or a "Yeah."

I could only think about how lucky I was.

II. Winter

I traced a perfect circle around the rim of my coffee cup, following the dark brown rim where the porcelain met the foam of the caff� latte. I tried picturing it - the coffee, that is - and how it filled the cup; how it hid beneath the foam, assuming a mysterious, fluid volume of its own, constrained by the mug, clasped in my hands. Still too hot to drink.

As the Robert Frost poem goes, "Nothing gold can stay," and just like that, the gold autumn faded to winter grey. Every day, the weather worsened. It started getting colder, and skirts became scarcer. Not that she ever wore skirts, anyways. I guess she was a little self-conscious. I couldn't see why, though. She was gorgeous.
"You don't really miss the summer until winter comes along, do you?" she asked me. I suddenly realized my coffee was cool, and took a sip. It was bitter - I never put sugar in my coffee ("that's for phonies", I once barbed in my best Holden Caulfield), and I found myself envying her hot Choco-Latte.
"I never miss the summer. I prefer winter," I told her, as I cringed, performing that automatic human reaction to a bitter taste, that vain attempt to cleanse the palette. "I mean," I continued, "I guess I just don't get summer. Winter's beautiful, in its own...lonely way, I guess. But summer...just seems like a waste."

She looked at me like I was crazy. She often did, even though I could tell she was always trying to be understanding of my different wavelength. We simply didn't see the world from the same perspective. She resigned to that, and giggled, "Well, OK, but the summer's so much better for sex."
It was strange, but it felt as though my blood was running both hot and cold, and I couldn't quite figure out why. Smirking, I told her, "Yeah, but...the winter's good for, you know, cuddling."
She laughed, then shook her head, tossing her hair around. "Cuddling?" she chortled, "That's good for when you're in a relationship. But sex is good when you've got a fuck buddy." And there was that damn sensation again, just like the last time. I was worried that it might have been showing, and so I got up and told her, "I'm just gonna go add some sugar to this."
"I thought you didn't drink coffee with sugar?"
I looked back at her, and gave her, as dryly as I could,
"Every camel's back breaks sooner or later, dear."

III. Spring

There are, in my mind, a few fates worse than death. Spending Valentine's Day alone is one of them. So it was my lucky year that the holiday fell on a Wednesday.

I was sitting at our usual table, admiring the ugliness that was winter giving way to spring. The snow was half-melting, white patches dotting the skin of the ground like hair on an aging man; a painted landscape under a dull grey sky.

Checking my watch, its hour hand and minute hand were nearly forming a straight line. It was just about 4:50. She was 20 minutes late. My untouched coffee was getting cold, and I was looking like a sorrier and sorrier sight as the minutes marched on. Just as I was giving up hope, I heard the door chime ring and saw her come in. She wasn't alone.

Hanging off her shoulder, she wore a guy wearing her lipstick on his cheek. She looked around for me and waved, then ran over. "Hey! Sorry I'm late. I had to convince Matt to come."
Matt was pulling a chair up to our two person table. "What I do to get laid, eh?" She laughed, and I tried to. "So...um, Matt, eh? Is....he, um, your boyfriend, or something?"
"We met last night at Sarah's Valentine's Eve party," she explained, and then chiming in, "Oh God, I was SO drunk..."
I looked over at him and resisted the urge to mutter, "Obviously."

She went on, "You should've come. It was so much fun. Right, Matt?" offering him a wink that made my teeth grind.
"I would have," I grumbled, "had anyone told me about it."
I felt as bitter as the cold coffee I was sipping but wasn't tasting, and I think she noticed. Just as she was about to say something, though, Matt interjected. "Oh man, my back is killing me..."
She got up, stepped behind him, and began to massage him, delicately rubbing his shoulders. Was he trying to ease the tension? Because it sure wasn't helping. Every once in a while, she'd bend over and kiss his neck.

The couple behind me were sweet-talking each other in French, and my mouth felt as dry as the cornfields of Virginia.

IV. Summer

It was the kind of day where the sky looked like a matte painting and all the world felt like a stage. The blinding heat of the sun seemed to scorch the pavement, and the windows on the buildings were like mirrors. All the windows except the one that I stared out of, for the first time since February.

I felt a little silly sitting there without ordering anything. I think that the barista was starring down on me with eagle eyes; he probably disapproved of my loitering, but he didn't want to say a thing, and just smugly stood there in his green apron, shining an already sparkling glass. It's not like I didn't like their coffee; it's just that it was the beginning of summer, and - you can call me close-minded, if you like - I can't stand the idea of a cold coffee beverage. So I just sat there, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for her. And that's when the spectre floated in like a ghost.

Her face was smeared with smudged makeup, like dirt in the rain. "I'm sorry," she said, slowly sitting down sadly. I asked her what for, and she shook her head, "I don't know...I don't..." before breaking off and falling into a river of tears. I guess I wanted to comfort her, but I didn't know what to say to her, then.

After a moment, she stopped and sniffed a little, wiping her eyes delicately with her delicate hands. "I'm sorry," she said again, and this time followed, "it's just...that, Matt and I broke up today. Last night, I guess. I caught him..." and again, she collapsed into her hands. I knew what she was going to say, and it didn't surprise me in the slightest.

"You think...you think...that it doesn't really matter," she sobbed, "but...I guess, one day you realize...that you think that they'll always be there. That they're perfect for you. But they're not." She looked up at me and straight in my eye, "They're not perfect at all. And you've been lying to yourself the whole time, and you never questioned it, because you wanted to believe it."
And I still didn't know what to say. So we just sat there in silence, for just a little while. It wasn't an awkward silence, like the ones we used to have sometimes, when I knew what I wanted to say but was too afraid to say it. It was the kind of silence you have when there's genuinely nothing to say between two people.

But, eventually, it broke, when she asked the question I was always afraid she'd ask.

"Were you...I mean, are you...were you in love with me?"

And I sat there quietly, with my eyes closed. I sighed, and I bit my lip, and I licked my lips and then pursed them, and closed my eyes just a bit tighter for a split moment before opening them. And I looked her straight in the eye and I told her just what I never thought I'd say, but what I knew I had to say to her, now.

"No, I'm not. And I guess...I guess I never was. I sure as hell thought I was, though. But I wasn't in love with you. I was in love with who I thought you were. I was in love with...someone, some perfect girl that just doesn't exist, I guess. But...but, I was never in love with you."

And I got up from my chair, letting it scrap against the rough floor; the barista, who had been staring at us the whole time, pretended to have heard nothing. I grabbed an overpriced juice drink from the ice in the counter in front of him, and threw a five back on to the counter beside it. "Keep the change", I gruffly told the guy, and I walked out into the summer heat.

The humid haze of summer swirled around me. The end of the roads blurred like mirages, and after a few minutes of brooding about, trying to clear my head, the sticky hair that stuck to it by sweat began to bear down on me the same way that the sun was. I found a bench to sit down on, so I slumped down and buried my face in my hands, and tried unsuccessfully not to cry. So I just sat there, crying, ruminating on the past 10 months I gave away, letting the heat carry my mind and heart away as the sound of cars and motorbikes passed me by.

Eventually, enough time had gone by, and I pulled out my cellphone to check just how much. And then, looking at it, I suddenly remembered. Today...I had gotten Jenna's phone number earlier today. Maybe I should call her. She was pretty cute. We could catch a movie, I guess.

...And in spite of everything, I think, just maybe, this might be a good summer.

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