Coffee House Silence

On a perfect March evening, when the wind was just right, he walked into that familiar café, hopeful. In the corner, the 'reason' for his visit sat quietly, propped against a wall as always. A book in one hand, and a coffee mug in the other, she seemed lost in her own little world. He sat down on the same table that he used to sit on, from which he could have a clear view of her. He wasn't too near, yet not too far away from her.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed that he had walked in. Somehow, it seemed that the wonderful weather seemed to follow him inside as he walked in, and cheered the aromatic surroundings a little bit more. She smiled quietly to herself for a nanosecond, and the world missed it.

He kept throwing glances at her, a bit afraid that she might notice him. At the same time, a part of him secretly wished that she would notice that fact, that he was shooting those glances at her. He kept thinking about the many days that he would wait for her to look up from the book that she always used to carry with her. He remembered the time that he played a game with her, where he kept guessing the color of her eyes – until the time that she looked up and he saw that he had been right all along.

She used to keep looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. Her eyes would follow him every time that he got up for a refill of coffee; every time he would come back to his seat after paying the bill and check if he had left anything at his seat. She would keep looking at him, until the very last moment, when his eyes would sweep the café one last time before he left. That's when her nerve would fail her, and she would avert her eyes.

This day was different though. This time, he wasn't the first one to decide to leave. He stayed on, till the time that she looked at him. He stayed on, till he had the nerve to look into her eyes. As luck would have it, she also looked up at the same time. That's how their eyes met.

"And that's how their story began," said the narrator, with a twinkle in his eyes.

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There was a purposeful difference in the style of this story, and that change was brought about to avoid the stereotype which I noticed was creeping up in my posts. Now I'm curious to find out what everyone thinks about it J

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Image Courtesy hiromy