Romance In A Column

chapter seventeen,

      Eryn does not know when it dawned on her. It could've been after the bitter gulp of this dark brew or when sunlight couldn't find gaps in the cloak of clouds to filter through, thus rendering this a day veiled in gray.

     Either way, it seeped into her lungs, cold and bitter – a coffee left to stew, the fire fawning the bosom of the pot, snubbed. Eryn wishes it had gotten caught in her throat as the smoke from college cigs had done so many times before, but vapor still rose from her parted mouth.

     It seems the crave to see the golden ring – embers brought alive with every drag – rendering something to cinders, was as consuming as the realization life didn't owe her anything.

     Call it juvenile but Eryn had always felt as if despite it all, she'd stand, one day, ankle deep in snow and snowflakes would crown her blonde head, tangle in her eyelashes, kissing her skin with every blink and it'd feel as if the closing credits were next to play.

     Call it stupid but Eryn Sallow had never had the heart to admit to herself life is not a movie. There is no certainty that you'll get that job, that apartment, that dream fulfilled, there is no certainty that when the screen turns black, the last scene played would've made sense.

     "A good movie isn't one with a happy ending," Melina had always said, her head resting on Eryn's shoulder. The old couch would sag under their weight and stray popcorns would slide between the cushions. "A good movie is one that, even if the last minutes were an image of a gravestone, you feel like it makes sense – it's sad, yes, but it would've been the only way to make everything, well, make sense."

     Life doesn't owe you sense, it does not owe you a knotted ending without gaps to question – the screen will turn black and you'll feel oddly empty. "There's more," you'll say. You'll sit and only find frustration where you search for meaning. "There ought to be . . . what kind of ending is that?"

     You'll never know, not even when you sit on a coffee shop alone, with a steaming cup of what your mother drank in gallons before long hours away from home; what your sister credits for her graduation cap and the sleepless nights bent over notes with information she felt as if she ought to know but couldn't recall until she turn the flashcard over.

     You've lost the taste for it, caffeine hasn't woken you in years, but it is what you drink in a sea of people with styrofoam cups in their grips because age has drained you of color that even the shift of black into brown as droplets slush down onto the table feels like artwork.

     "Would you like anything else, ma'am?" The waitress offers, "our croissants filled with dark chocolate and sprinkled with almonds are known to make regulars out of customers."

     "Thanks . . ." Eryn says, resting her back onto the chair, reading her name tag previously hidden behind the tray she carries. ". . . Isobel, but I'm waiting on some friends, they should be here soon, I think, and I don't want to order without them, you know?

"I find it kind of awkward when other people are eating and you kind of just sit there staring at them eat 'cause you already finished and, uh, yeah."

     Isobel's laugh makes a few patron's heads turn in their direction, the girl herself hardly seems concerned. She tucks a strand behind her ear and like a pebble atop of a lake, it causes a ripple down her hair; it's pretty, her brown mane, in a way you can easily picture it littered with forget-me-nots.

     "I've saved you the introductions, Eryn." A bag spills onto the chair besides Eryn and Avella Melendez side-steps the waitress.

     "New York City's subway does have a way of bringing people together," says Alice, affectionately squeezing Eryn's shoulder before sitting down. "You, my dear friend, are going to need alcohol to tolerate me and Avella for the extent of this – is this a brunch? Has New York made me a bitch that brunches?"