MAXIE
Was it weird that Maxie waited for Trey to come into the shop considering the fact that she had never spoken as much as a complete sentence to him? Almost two years ago, not too long after she moved in with her brother, an isolated, anti social, boy walked into the coffee shop, she could tell that he was English from his accent when she took his order. He was cute, Very cute, at least she thought so.
He wore his dark brunette hair in bangs that complemented his chiseled jaw. He rarely ever smiled but when he did, it lit up his brown eyes which caused her heart to skip a few beats, more like a few hundred beats. He was a little taller than average height. This was good because she was average height and she always liked guys taller than her.
“Is he late today?” her older brother, Zac, asked as he whisked past her to the counter. She quickly sat up right from the position she was in. she had been slouching on the counter with her chin resting on her palm that was brought up to it. She must have looked like a girl waiting for her man. Pathetic, is how she would have described it if she was asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s never late. It’s just ten past four. He’ll be here before four-thirty, trust me.”
“You do remember that school closes by three, right?” Zac asked
“Yeah?”
“And if he comes straight from school every day. That would mean his coming from detention...Every day. Is that the kind of boy you would want in your life Max?”
“Never judge a book by its cover…or how many times it’s been in detention. He probably has a good reason why he’s in detention every day.”
“Why don’t you figure out what that is while serving table four, okay?” he said before whisking past her again and into the kitchen.
Maxie jumped off the seat she was on and got out from behind the counter and walked over to table four where a young couple was seated with her notepad. “What would you like?” she asked.
She absent mindedly scribbled down their order as a tall, brown eyed, brunette teenager entered the coffee shop. As usual, he rushed to the corner seat where he always sat when he came in. He had no idea how much she had literally fought off customers from the booth when she knew it was only a matter of time before he arrived. Thank goodness, her brother had been so patient with her.
She gave the order to one of the other waitresses to deliver to the kitchen as she served the couple their coffee.
Leaning on the counter, she watched as Trey got comfortable in ‘his’ booth. “Why are you so in love with that dude? He’s so weird.” Cassie, a fellow waitress asked as she stood beside her.
Cassie was in her early twenties and was Zac right hand when it came to the shop. She was a full time waitress there and was the person in charge when he wasn’t around. Zac really trusted her.
Maxie brushed aside a stray lock from her face “there’s nothing weird about a loner.” She stared at him for a second before adding “we don’t know his story so we can’t judge him for being the way he is.”
She knew Cassie understood by the mutual silence. Together, they watched him sit silently as though he was lost in thought. He just sat there, thinking. Different emotions crossed his face, from depression, to anger, and maybe even frustration… “Woah, I think he’s pretty deep.” Cassie added in her best surfer-dude impression.
“I don’t pay you guys to stand around and stare. We have customers here.” Zac said coming up behind them from nowhere.
“Well, technically, you don’t pay me.” Maxie added as Cassie scurried off.
“And technically you don’t pay rent so we’re even.” Zac said “get back to work Maxie or go over there and talk to the guy…either way, you should be doing something beneficial with your time.” He said before heading towards his office.
No one would believe that Zac was just twenty-five. He was an old soul inside, the mature one. He was a great listener and he really understood her. He took care of everyone around him especially her, he was always there for her.
Her elder sister Kelly was the fun one, a bit crazy and really beautiful. Like Zac, she too had been popular in high school. Kelly was sort of a tornado, there was no stopping her especially when she put her mind to something and everybody loved her, well almost everybody, Maxie couldn’t particularly stand her.
Maxie came from a pretty understanding family. She had amazing parents and more amazing siblings. They loved spending time together and her parents were absolutely the best, hilarious and down to earth. And other people wished they had parents like them.
Maxie had pretty big shoes to fill. She always felt like she had to live up to her parents’ perfection and she knew for the life of her she couldn’t have the kinda life her siblings had. She had never been part of the cool crowd. She went through an awkward stage of puberty and never really did fit in.
All that is behind her now, after she cleaned up her act, her parents agreed that she needed a fresh start. Her brother had suggested she moved in with him, he hadn’t seen much of her in the recent years and he had missed her. It didn’t take much to convince her though, and it became the best decision she ever made. She looked her best now, she might even be able to describe herself as beautiful, therapy was going great and she even had friends now.
“Are you serving Trey?” she asked snapping out of her reverie as Cassie passed by her with a notepad.
“You mean the weird dude, yeah?”
She decided to take her brother’s advice “can I serve him?” she asked shyly.
Cassie paused for a second before adding “knock yourself out.”
Maxie walked up to Trey’s table…and choked. She had served him a million times before but never having a problem taking his order. Probably because this time around she wasn’t going to just take his order she was hoping to talk to him as well.
“Ginseng tea, extra cream, extra sugar.” He said as he looked up and saw her. ‘As usual’ she thought as she walked away.
Coming out of the kitchen she saw him pull out a brown leather notebook, the one he always used in everyday. She was dying to know what it contained, maybe it had his deepest darkest thoughts.
She knew his routine. At first he would order coffee and later he would order a slice of cake, whatever was on the specials menu. She shook her head vigorously...she really needed a new habit other than stalking the hot English fellow that would never know how she felt about him. Oh brother.
COLE
“Whoever said the pen was mightier than the sword never actually used the pen in combat…Or maybe he did and now he’s dead.” Cole laughed
“Or maybe he had a really amazing pen.” His mother, Anne, said.
“How amazing can be a pen be, mom?”
“You’re the writer, tell me.” Anne said before looking at her watch… “Sweetie, I have to go.” She said getting up from the table where they had just had lunch.
“We never spend time anymore. You used to be the world’s most awesome mother.” He said getting up from the table.
“I’m still the world’s most awesome mother…I just work nights now.”
“And sleep all morning, the only time we have together are these lunches.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t miss them.” She said as he cleared the table. “You should stop by the club today, we could chill out back.” She said with a guilty smile.
“You know most mothers tell their kids to stay out of clubs till they’re twenty one.”
“I’m not like most mothers…so will I see you at the club today.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t…I’m working on something…”
“Okay sweetie.” She said getting up from the table and giving him a light kiss on his cheek. “See you during lunch tomorrow. I’ll let you get creative.”
Cole was sure his mother was gone by the time he was done with the dishes. “I’ll let you get creative.” His mother had said.
A year ago, Cole had the worst kind of writer’s block imaginable. He wasn’t able to even raise a pen. Besides his mother, writing was all he had. He had been so devastated losing the only thing he felt completely at home with. He was good at a lot of things but writing was the one thing he was completely in charge of, he controlled the outcomes, he decided the fates of his characters and there were no external factors to say otherwise. His mother had been too busy opening her night club to take time to help him through it but she had been so bothered that she encouraged him to attend a writing camp hoping it would help.
‘Help’ was such a strong word, the camp had been a disaster. It didn’t help a bit. His stories had been monotonous and predictable. His teachers had applauded his writing style but urged him to think outside the box and become more creative.
As he walked to his room, he randomly remembered all the competitions he had won growing up, he was proud of his achievements so far but he was scared that was going to be all for him. During camp, he met a fellow writer that been through the same thing as he had, and he had also been gracious enough to also let him in on how he got rid of it.
As Cole entered his room, he sat on his desk and switched on his laptop. He stared at the blank page he had just opened. He really wanted to try writing without the ‘helpful’ way he had recently been taught.
Hours later, not a word had been typed on the page. But he had to admit, the ‘helpful’ way had been pretty helpful. He had had the bizarrest ideas ever, won two competitions and even started a book, a really good book. The kind he hoped publishing houses would scramble for.
He locked his room door before bringing out the bottle of vodka he had bought on his way back from school. He then reached under seat where he taped a little black bag to, in an attempt to prevent his mother from finding it.
She had always been so proud of him, he was her perfect son, her best friend and he never wanted to let her down. But his writing was also something she had been proud of, so in a way he had hoped she’d understand when she saw the result. The end justifies the means, right?
He took his laptop over to his bed as well as his bottle of vodka and little black bag. He opened up the bag and pulled out a transparent bag that was full of a white powdery substance. Cocaine.
This was the ‘helpful’ way he had been introduced to. Drugs and alcohol. Before now, he had never as much as sniffed alcohol, even when his mother was drinking. But now he used it every day.
As soon as his mother had gone to work, he got out his secret weapons and put them to use. He was usually passed out before his mother came back and he cleaned himself up when he woke the next morning while she was asleep.
He had even found a dealer in his school that supplied him. His creativity now depended on these things he knew so badly that he shouldn’t be using.
He took a shot of vodka before he brought his nose down to the back of his note book where he had lined up the coke. He did what he had to do, it was in the name of art, he had told himself times without number. It was in the name of art.
TREY
As per routine, Trey was already seated in the corner booth of the coffee shop. Hanging out at the coffee shop after school till late had begun as a protective mechanism for him, it later turned into a habit before officially becoming a lifestyle.
Life had been miserable back in Manchester, the bullying, the assault, the taunting. And now here, at Winston, Rhode Island, everything was exactly the same. When his father had gotten the promotion, he had expected things to be different here, but it wasn’t. There were still the jocks that picked on him, the pretty girls that wouldn’t talk to him, and the bullies that made his life a living hell.
He wasn’t the only one in his family that had been disappointed with Winston, his father had also expected things to be better. With the better pay, he didn’t think that his wife would mind being moved all the way to another continent, leaving all her friends and family behind to start a new life. He honestly didn’t think she’d mind that he made such a life changing decision with talking to her first. But most of all, he thought she would have been happy for him.
How wrong he had been. Well, partially anyway. Trey’s mother had been genuinely happy for her husband when she heard he had gotten a promotion. But it was the catch it came with that threw her off balance. She was going to have to sell her shop, and leave all she knew behind and begin a life in a country she had never been to with a family she loved and that was what was important, right? Being with family.
Trey couldn’t tell anymore, his mother began drinking immensely and his father began staying late at work to avoid the drama and the battery of accusations his wife paraded him with. Calling him selfish, and saying that he hated her and just was looking for a way to punish her for a crime she didn’t know she committed. Often times, she would drunkenly beg him to forgive her so that they could all move back to England and be happy again. The begging fell on deaf grounds. His father had worked hard for the promotion and they were going to stay.
Sometimes, Trey would go weeks without seeing his father because he had been avoiding his mother and during those weeks he would not have had an actual conversation with his mother because she was drunk out of her mind. As a result, Trey had learnt how to take care of himself, doing his own laundry, cooking his own meals, keeping the house together. And being his own ‘parents’.
Imagine after being beaten the crap out of in school coming home to a house like that- a drunken mother and an absent father. He avoided the house as much as he could and that was the reason he spent so much time at the coffee shop. So how does a teenager handle all that, he had a creative outlet. His art. He spent all his free time documenting his life in comic form in his series of brown leather bound books.
His books contained his life, they were his life. Sure he had turned it into something it wasn’t, entertaining and suspenseful. It was almost like an actual superhero comic book but for the fact that he wouldn’t show anyone else. He admired the suspense because he, as well, was also in suspense. He didn’t know what was going to happen between the times he dropped his pencil and when he picked it up again. He called it his ‘comic journal’.
Expressing how he felt had helped him deal with what he went through every day. And he had hoped often times without number that kids like him…that went through what he did also had a way of expressing themselves.
He hoped that one day after he overcame the mess hole of a life he was living, people would read his work and appreciate what he went through to be wherever he will be but until then… “Ginseng tea, extra cream, extra sugar.” He said to the waitress that came to his table to get his order.
Today in school he had gotten sucker punched and when he had tried to defend himself he had gotten detention and was called a trouble maker. How misunderstood he was.
He brought out his pencil case and his current brown leather bound book. And flipped to page that had kept him busy during detention. He briefly went through it before turning to a fresh page. Good thing is that at least he now knew that the protagonist in his comic had a crappy day.
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