A girl sits at a coffee shop, the bottom half of her forehead covered by a book from 1969. Her knees are pulled close to her chest, and her left shoulder is pressed firmly into the back of the wooden chair. She drops the book into her lap, startled when she hears the door open and the bell ring. She looks up at the unknown man who walks in, disappointed. She pushes her glasses closer to her eyes and takes a sip of her coffee. She placed her phone across the table over an hour ago and hasn’t touched it since. Someone could easily walk by and take it, but no one does.
She is solely herself at this moment. She has lost sight of the old friend that doesn’t want to spend time with her anymore and the failed math test and the boy who talked disgusting words about her to his friends. She is merely a timeless girl sitting in her most comfortable position in her most welcoming place slowly sipping on her favorite mocha as she lets words on a page capture all of her attention.
She had been awaiting this day for weeks now. College had pulled her far from home, and she desperately craved a Saturday at her hometown coffee shop. The last time she sat here, post-its and highlighters were smeared around the table like a little kid’s art station at camp. Unlike the joy that toddlers feel when they see the station, she had not given a warm welcome to the table on that last afternoon. She was stressed out about finding the right quote for an English essay and remembering a definition for a math final. She regretted not taking a moment to appreciate how the sun bounced off of the metal awning on the shop across the street and landed into her lap, creating the ultimate lighting for reading.
She carefully places her earbuds in her ears and turns on the playlist that is filled with the songs that remind her of long rides in rusted pickup trucks and hockey tournaments when she was five and McDonalds ice cream breaks in the middle of tennis practice as a teenager. The fist song surprises her with its inappropriate words. Chuckling loudly, not noticing the stares coming her way, she removes the song from her playlist. The shiny sounds of the drums from her all-time favorite band follows. She smiles widely remembering her brothers geared up for hockey practice. Taking another sip of her warm coffee, she holds it to her heart. Using one hand, she makes sure that the book is balanced on her thighs. Cozying up to the back of the chair and the coffee on her chest, she lowers her head again, welcoming herself into the world of a man who’s convinced he’s been abducted by aliens.