“I think that possibly, maybe I'm falling for you
Yes there's a chance that I've fallen quite hard over you.
I've seen the waters that make your eyes shine
Now I'm shining too.”

Falling in love at a coffee shop – Landon Pigg

*

It started in the rain, as all good love stories should. It was a late February evening, and the sky was tinged with hues of grey and blue. The rain came bucketing down, causing my hair to cling to my forehead like a long lost friend.  In truth I didn’t know what had compelled me to that spot, but as I stood there, feeling the rain wash over me, covering every part of me as though it too understood my yearning to become invisible, I turned my head to the sky and sighed.

As much as I wanted nothing more than to stand there in that moment forever, I had no desire to contract pneumonia, so I reluctantly turned and pushed open the brown mahogany door that lead to the inside of small café behind me. As I entered I was enveloped by a warm blanket of air, filled with the bitter aroma of fresh, rich coffee and baked goods. Mahogany panels covered the bottom part of the wall, and the dark red ceiling appeared almost close enough to touch. The gentle murmur of voices filled the air, overshadowed at intervals by the harsh, churning sound of the small brown coffee machine behind the counter.

As I approached the counter and took in the appearance of the person standing there, I suddenly became increasingly aware of my own bedraggled state. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a mop of dark hair and heavy, solemn brows that were offset by a boyish grin. A pair of eyes the colour of sea glass gleamed behind square-framed glasses that rested precariously on the tip of his nose. Oddly enough, my dishevelled appearance didn’t seem to faze him at all, as he merely turned towards me, a dazzling smile on his lips. The unguarded nature of his smile caught me off guard, the pure honesty and joy behind it was foreign to me and it caused my stomach to flip.

“What can I get you?” He spoke with a vague accent, the way he clipped his consonants implying that he was Canadian, perhaps from Ontario, but I couldn’t be sure.

“One white chocolate latte please.” The familiar words flowed of my lips as naturally as air. I ordered the same thing, without fail, every time I visited a coffee shop.

“That’ll be $6.50 please.” He turned to the coffee machine behind him and began preparing my drink, as I rummaged in my pockets for change. Placing the cash on the countertop, I gratefully took the mug he had placed carefully in front of me, and with a quick nod, made my way to a small secluded table beside the window.

As the first drops of the sweet, milky coffee passed my lips, creating a mild burning sensation on my tongue; I turned my head and began studying the street outside the shop. The rain streamed down the windowpane in small rivers, twisting and winding randomly, as though hindered by unseen obstacles. Through the downpour I could vaguely make out the blurred shapes of people hurrying past. They all seemed to moving with a purpose, a stark contrast to the distracted compulsion that had lead me to that same street just fifteen minutes before.

The downpour worsened, eventually obstructing my already faint view of the street outside. Sighing I turned my head back to face  the table just in time to see the boy who had served me earlier sliding into the seat adjacent to mine, a small smile on his face.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked, raising his eyebrows inquisitively.

Ignoring the butterflies his words awoke in my stomach I merely shook my head, the ability to speak deserting me.

The small smile that had previously occupied his face, broadened until it was a full blown grin. I felt his eyes on me as I continued to sip what was left of my drink. Finally I lifted gaze to meet his, my breath catching in my throat as my crystal blue eyes met his bright green ones. Both of us were unwilling to look away first and so, we found ourselves unwittingly entering into a staring contest of sorts. We stayed that way for several minutes, neither of us moving, except to bring our cups to and from our lips, until the silence was broken by the tinkling of the bell overhead, indicating that someone had opened the door to the shop.

Looking up I saw the backs of the middle aged couple that had previously occupied the table behind mine, as they stepped out into the gloomy street and hurried away, their jackets drawn tightly around them. Looking around I realised that I was the only patron left in the shop. Turning back towards the boy sitting opposite me I could see that he had just noticed the same thing.

“My name’s Ethan by the way,” smirking slightly as he spoke; he reached his hand across the table for me to shake.

“I’m Zoe.” As I took his hand and shook it I was immediately struck my how familiar it felt. There was no awkward air surrounding us, and I realised that I felt more comfortable sitting beside this stranger than I’d felt in a long time. His hand was coarse and warm, in comparison to my small pale one.

“So what brings you to this humble coffee shop alone on Valentine’s Day?” He gestured dramatically around the shop as he spoke, his words clearly intended humorously, yet they still caused my chest to tighten. For weeks on end I had managed to ignore the signs of the upcoming holiday that were mercilessly plastered on every shop front in an attempt to further commercialise a holiday that was already broken beyond repair. The sudden disinterring of the thoughts I’d spent so long trying to hide caused the small slip of paper resting in my jeans pocket seem heavier than ever before.

Forcing a smile onto my face, I merely shrugged in reply, keeping my eyes firmly on the table. There was a short, easy silence before he reached across the table for the second time in minutes, his had cupping the soft curve of my chin and bringing my head up to meet the scrutiny of his gaze. After analysing my expression for several minutes he spoke suddenly.

“You know Zoe; there comes a point in everyone’s life when they find themselves overwhelmed by a series of thoughts and feelings that they have no idea how to express. Sometimes the only way to deal with those feelings is to talk about them. And sometimes the best person to talk to is a stranger you met in a coffee shop.”

Surprise washed through me as I glanced up at him, unable to fault his logic, yet still unwilling to spill my guts to someone whom I had only just met. Someone who I was unlikely to ever meet again. As I struggled with my conflicted emotions I found my gaze being drawn away from Ethan and towards a large blue poster that was haphazardly hung towards the back of the coffee shop.

“Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.”

-Kobi Yamada.

And just like that I took a deep breath. And jumped.

We sat there for at least an hour, our rapidly cooling drinks long since forgotten, our voices the only audible sound in the small room. We were completely blind to everything else, the world around us ceasing to exist as I told him everything. I told him about that Valentine’s Day three years ago when my mother had walked out on my family without so much as a backward glance. I told him how my father had struggled to keep it together in front of us, even though everyone that knew him could tell that he was far from okay. I told him that I found my mother’s address scrawled upon a crumpled piece of paper in my father’s trash can weeks ago. That I had intended to visit her today but as I stood outside her house I found myself unable to even step onto the dark asphalt of her driveway.

As I talked his eyes never once left mine. His eyebrows furrowed as he listened intently, his concentration never straying from the conversation. As I finished talking I found myself, for the first time that day, suddenly shy. My fears proved unfounded however as he took my hands in his and looked at me with an emotion so strong that it made me shiver. An emotion that I couldn’t decipher, that caused a physical response that I couldn’t explain.

“Sometimes we have to experience challenging situations in order to become who we truly are. I know that it seems difficult right now, and I can only imagine how hard it is for you to watch your father go through what he goes through every day, knowing that there’s nothing that you can do to help because you’re hurting too, just as much as he is. But sometimes that’s what it’s about. You may have to work on getting through this, but you can work on it together. And I also know that you will never be the person that you were before your mother left but that’s okay. Because if your experience doesn’t change you then what’s the point? No one would ever change. And if we didn’t change then life wouldn’t be a journey. It would be a destination.”

I stared at him stunned as I struggled to take in everything that he had just said. I knew that he was right; in the short time that I’d known him I’d come to realise that somehow he was always right, but I was having difficulty processing the words that had just come from his mouth.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re very poetic?” I remarked shakily, in a weak attempt at humour, my mind still struggling to comprehend his previous speech.

A brief smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he replied. “Many times.”

And as we sat there in a quaint little coffee shop in the middle of New York City, I realised that I was finally okay. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen my mother in three years because I had a father that loved me, even if he had trouble showing it sometimes.

And as I sat there I also realised that I had been wrong about Valentine’s Day. It was still over commercialised but that didn’t matter. What that mattered was that love was real. Sometimes it comes and goes, sometimes you don’t even realise that you had it until it’s gone and sometimes it lasts forever. And sometimes, just sometimes, you find it in a quaint little coffee shop in the middle of New York City.