Coffee

When I opened the door on that foggy, August night, I was opening a door to the past. A past that I forced myself to forget, forced myself to put in a solid chest and lose the key forever. When I saw her face, it was as if the key had found me once again, as if it knew I was here and was waiting to catch me when I least expected it to. I had made up my mind years ago that I would never talk to her again, see her again, think about her again. At the time it made the pain a little bit easier to deal with, but in the long run scarred me worse than I would ever know. She was the reason food lost its taste for me, laughs were less frequent, the water in the shower seemed colder than it used to be when I was younger and carefree. She was the reason days were longer, but the sun seemed to be out less and less, and didn’t have the beautiful, fluorescent glow it once used to have. The glow that reminded me there was so much beauty in this world that I had once taken for granted. But here she stood in front of me, once again, as flawless as the day I left her. Imperfection was a word unknown to her, a presence that seemed to break and crumble when it tried to penetrate her grace and beauty. It was everything I tried to block out, everything I wanted to leave my memory forever so I could get some peace of mind. I convinced myself over the years that her face was now a blank slate in my head, something lost and forgotten, and when she turned her back on my love, denied my feelings, her face was washed away from my memory, from time itself. But that was a lie I told myself. Even after all these years, before she turned up on my front porch, hair dripping from the damp, summer rain, I could remember every distinct feature on that heavenly face, even the most obscure details that she probably never even noticed herself. I remember the way she made my stomach twist and turn when she would raise her eyebrows when she got surprised or excited, and when her lips would curl up when she would get nervous or anxious. That’s when she was the most beautiful, when the world was against her and she knew it. And here she was, unchanged as if time froze for her and only her, as everything and everyone around her got older. I wanted to punch my walls in until nothing stood but debris and wreckage. I wanted to curse. I wanted to kick my walls in and scream until I lost my voice. I wanted to climb to the highest building and dare to defy gravity. But I didn’t scream. I didn’t climb a building or scream vulgar and obscene words. I greeted her with a smile, as she greeted me with that beautiful face of hers. I didn’t kick in any walls or punch through something. I merely smiled, and invited her in for a cup of coffee. There were things I wanted to say to her, but I didn’t. But it wasn’t like I knew how to say the things on my mind that night anyway. I remained calm, collected, pretending my feelings had subsided after all these years, pretended they were nonexistent and had diminished the day we separated ways. I didn’t want to ruin this perfect moment. And besides, the thought of coffee with an old best friend on a chilly, summer night didn’t seem that bad.