DATE STARTED: MARCH 26, 2016
DATE FINISHED: MARCH 31, 2016
DATE EDITED: APRIL 4, 2016
WORD COUNT: 2,419

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I hated public display of affection between couples. It was the reason why I had chosen a table that had a limited view of the café so I could avoid as much of the puke-fest as possible.

I took a seat at the table on one side of the café facing the stairs that led to the first floor of the establishment, placing my laptop bag on the seat in front of me before settling down on my own mahogany chair.

I ran a hand through my hair, shaking out my thoughts. On the way here, I thought I'd glimpsed at her hair. A weird combination of fiery red and light blonde, making it yellow in low light and orange in the sun, one she had dyed for her contest and won fourth place for. She'd always told me about how she wanted to continue to dye it until she'd found the right hair color for her, claiming she wouldn't rest until she'd tried green or purple.

I had argued to her about that, telling her that no respectful lawyer would have purple hair. She brushed me off saying that hair color didn't matter as long as she won her case and that anyway, she still had ten more years to go before she would become a lawyer. I chalked up the argument to the both of us only being 17 and still not mature enough.

A voice cleared its throat, knocking me out of my reminiscent state. It was the waiter with my drink. A Caramel Frappuccino.

As I took a sip from the drink, I started to wonder what her favorite drink was. We had never gotten to really go on a date or to sit in some café somewhere and just talk. I was too busy for that. I was too busy for her.

The scene also brought me back to one particular occasion when I had nothing to do and I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere with me to hang out and I had forgotten it was the day of her debate contest and I got sad that she couldn't go with me and I decided to go with my friends rather than support and cheer her on.

Suddenly, I remembered my paper. I reached for my bag and took out my laptop, booting it up as I took another sip of my drink.

She would have loved this place. The walls were painted yellow and there were different types of origami creations tacked to the corkboard, right beside the sticky notes that people left in the store as a marker that said they had been here and that they had made memories in this place. If she was here, our names would have already been up there, with all the other couple-y notes, but she wasn't. And it was my fault.

My eyes drifted back to my laptop and the unfinished work I had to do for my Physics class. I erased her from my mind for a moment to focus on my task on hand. And for twenty minutes, the hum of the air conditioner and the sound of my own fingers tapping away on my keyboard kept me occupied and away from my present world of loneliness.

I took a break from my typing to take three long sips from my drink and to take another look around of my surroundings. I was the only person on the whole floor and there were eight empty tables in my area and then my eyes fell onto the other flight stairs that led to a sort of inside balcony overlooking my area. There were tatami tables up there for people who would rather sit on the floor than sit on chairs. I could almost see her gravitating towards that area if she ever came in here.

I needed to stop thinking about her. I needed to stop seeing her everywhere. I needed to get over her but I can't. Jerri told me she planned to make sure I'd never forget her. That everywhere I went on campus, I was going to see her name or face because she'd won something again or she'd represented the university for something. I'm glad she felt that way because she had a pretty face that deserved to be put up.

No. Back to work. If I could ignore her when she was there for me, I most certainly still could ignore her now that she isn't here for me.

Another twenty minutes zipped by and all of a sudden people started pouring into my sanctuary as I zoned out of the real world and into my paper, occasionally sipping my sweet drink. When all that was left of my drink was the whipped cream on top, I removed my fingers from my laptop and held the glass in one hand and the straw in the other, scooping up the cream and dropping it into my mouth.

On my fifth scoop, I heard a tinkle of laughter coming from the stairs leading downstairs. The voice sounded familiar so I turned to look at the voice as it continued to laugh and walk up the stairs.

I saw flaxen hair followed by a mop of black hair. It can't be them.

Jerri. And her new boyfriend.

"No but I'm pretty sure that Monika deserved to win season three, boo. She's a much better than Gani, shit you not."

I was right about her practically gravitating towards the padded floors, knowing fully well that the girl loved the floor as much as the floor loved her since she was closer to the ground than most people.

Jerri led the way, heading up to the tatami tables with my replacement following her, his hand holding hers intimately. She had sweaty hands, something she admitted to me the moment I first held them. It was one of the many quirks she had that made everything a little bit more difficult for us. I was fine with holding her hands even if they were sweaty but she hated it, never really telling me why to this day. Not that it mattered anymore.

I watched as she dragged the guy up the stairs and the guy smiling goofily as he balanced between keeping his footing and lugging both of their backpacks. The spectacle seemed to be part of a romcom that Jerri would watch. It made me think of the time she asked me to go with her to buy a schoolbook and how I got mad at her for dragging me across the bookstore with our fingers entwined, telling her that we could get caught.

She was dressed in her usual clothes. A white, cotton shirt, her sketchers and shockingly, leggings. Something she had never worn since even before she met me. This guy really changed her, probably for the better. When we were together, the only time I had ever seen my baby in a skirt was when she was wearing her school uniform.

I had only ever really seen her wearing shorts thrice back then. Two of them where gym shorts and one was a high-waist she tucked her shirt into. Jerri was never ugly but she was sort of fat. On one occasion, she and I were talking to her classmate, Gerard, and we were objectifying a girl's body and I had told her that from the waist-up, she was pretty but from the waist-down, she wasn't all that appealing. She didn't really react to that but I had never seen her worn shorts since.

They had chosen the table closest to the edge of the balcony, placing their backpacks on one side of the table and then sitting beside each other. One thing I had noticed was how the guy was able to crack joke after joke to keep Jerri's smile on her face and how Jerri was able to do the same to him. She seemed happy and oblivious to the fact that I was in the same café she was and staring at her. I knew she still hated me. Still resented me for leaving her the way I did.

My eyes went back to my work. Unfinished but I was too distracted to continue. Her presence was always distracting. She and I were always opposites. She was light-skinned and I was dark. She chose politics, I chose healing. Her schedule was as free as mine was packed. We never had time for each other so she resorted to texting me every spare minute she had, spamming me if she knew I had a vacant hour. An hour which I always used to study.

I sucked in breath. My mind went back to the day I told her that I found her annoying, that I never found peace in her, that she would disrupt my study time. That the only time I could study was when she had class. She argued saying that we barely got to see each other because I was always studying, that I always spent more time with my friends than with her. Technically, this was true, but only because we studied together. I studied every second I could and she texted me every second she could to try to keep the relationship alive.

She'd confessed to a friend about how our relationship felt a lot like her last one with a guy that was 7,710 miles away but only worse because most of the time, we were both on campus grounds and the university wasn't even that big. I knew that she had cried countless of times because of me, because of how much I had failed her as a boyfriend. I also knew that she cried more times and more deeply when I had broken up with her than when I was still with her.

She professed her love for me plenty times and I felt like I loved her but my studies should always come first, despite my feelings since affection would never pay the bills.

Her laughter brought me back to reality. My eyes darted towards her as she gathered her hair, twisted it a bit and set it on her shoulder, knowing fully well that because it was wild and too curly for proper words, it was going to go back to its messy formation. The guy was probably talking about something funny and she was listening intently to him, her shoulders arched towards him and her fingers playing with his on the table making me miss her touch and how she liked to lay her head on my shoulder and how I had always pushed her away, detesting the public display of affection.

A pang on my chest made me sadder. I pushed away this amazing girl, making her sacrifice things that were important to her and making her take the time and effort to be the best girlfriend she could be to someone like me. Someone who wanted to study hard so I could work hard so I could give the both of us a good future. A future that I had focused so much on that I had forgotten to live in the present with her, to secure that I would be having a future with her.

On the night of September 2nd, we were walking home, something I had detested doing but did because it was the only time of the day I could give her, and we were talking about the probability of the both of us staying together to reach our first anniversary. She was a realist that believed that we were going to make it to a year despite the struggles and I was the realist that believed that we weren't going to make it because of my attitude and my busy schedule. She called me a pessimist that night and we proposed a bet. And the loser had to buy the winner pizza.

When we were both home that night, she messaged me saying that she had marked the date on her calendar as the day "He Owes You Pizza". She was excited and for a while, we were happy. Obviously, she owed me pizza. Knowing my ex-girlfriend, she'd probably still remembered the bet to this day as she brushed her new boyfriend's hair with her fingers, and probably contemplated on what the toppings should be on the pizza she was going to give me on the second day of September.

Their order had arrived. A glass of green apple fizz for Jerri and a frappe for her guy. For some reason, they seemed closer than they were earlier, almost as if they had moved a little bit to close the gap between them.

The guy saw Jerri staring at his glass, and pushed it towards her, obviously offering for her to try it. Jerri scrunched her face, presumably thinking about the offer before pulling it closer to her and then staring at it. The guy chuckled, taking her hands in his and putting the straw to her lips to coerce her to drink the concoction. It took a second for her to comply.

Another memory flashed in my mind. The moment Jerri told me she was lactose intolerant, I never allowed her to eat ice cream or anything with dairy on it. Sometimes she'd text me, telling me that she was craving ice cream and I always told her that she might die if she ate too much and I didn't want that to happen. She usually called me a drama queen because of the way I would act. And here this guy was, letting her sip from his frappe which most likely had a lot of dairy in it. I felt another pang coming from my chest.

After she took a couple of sips, the guy gave her a peck on the cheek, probably as a form of reward for trying the poop-inducing mixture.

My concentration returned to the couple and my eyes met hers. A flash of recognition and then a weak smile was sent my way. She muttered my name under her breath and the arm of the person beside her moved to rest on her shoulder and her attention was taken away from me and back to her conversation. Almost as if she had never locked her eyes with mine and mumbled, "Mitch" in a way she had never done before.

Oh, did I mention how much I hated public displays of affection?