The Coffee Shop

Amandla tried to avoid that coffee shop. The one with his chair and his typical order and his house just a few blocks down.

She had tried going in once. Not even to get coffee, just a simple latte. It hadn’t gone well.

She heard his voice intertwined with the jazz music that always played a little too quietly and his laugh in between the whipping cream cans and clanking glasses. She saw him, whispers of him on the table they had always sat at. Next to the window but away from the counter. Where he had drawn hearts on the foggy windows in winter and she would help him with math until the shop closed. Where she had once spilled her sugar packets and he had laughed so hard he had spit out his black coffee. Glimpses of him echoed next to the counter where they would wait for her pumpkin scone and the line up where he would give his order the wrong name for fun. Where they would pass by everytime before going to his house and smell the roasting coffee beans tempting them or feel the warmth from the shop during the freezing winters.

Amandla used to think of the coffee place as sort of magical. It was where she had fallen in love with him. Where anything seemed posible. And now, she let the magic it used to hold wither and fade. Instead of pausing in front of the door and wondering if maybe he was in there, she didn't. Although it killed a little part of her heart every time, she just avoided the shop.