Author's note: I did not cooperate with Costa Coffee and wrote this story as a commercial or an ad campaign for the brand. However, there's a little history behind this story that does correlate with why it is christened 'Costa Cofee'. I actually conducted writing this tale on my cell phone at a Costa Coffee shop when I was abroad to visit my family. So as to commemorate that lightening bolt moment of mine, I decided to name it after the brand that offers the best Green Tea Latte on earth. (: So, hope you enjoy. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coffee shop, for Susan, was not only a place for beverages but a salvaging house of lost hopes since in her imagination, it was where all love stories began and the recreations of outdated fairytales were conducted. It held a kind of ambience that made people feel like falling in love, like romance could promisingly interject between every little action done there, from ordering the drinks to patiently waiting for them to be done, or sitting at the corner booth looking out the street. Love could come amidst all those things, silently, just like fate did.

Today was no different. Susan woke up at nine and by now, she was comfortably sitting there, at the Costa Coffee, people watching and leading herself into a haze of irrelevant thoughts. It was just so easy to get lost here. Time seemed to be frozen anytime she let the smell of coffee wrap her up.

As how she expected, the coffee shop was vacant. After all, who hung out at 10 in the morning other than a newly graduate struggling with life and what it might bring? The phone suddenly vibrated in her shorts' pocket. Pulling it out, she paid a glance. Mary was the name shown on the screen. Mary, as in her best friend, as in the nationally known writer whose book just topped the chart of New York Times's list, to whom success came early.

"What's up?" - The text was casual, very Mary-alike. It was peculiar for a writer to get rid of big words when she was out of her writing cycle.

"Nothing. Just hanging out at Costa Coffee? You?" - Susan texted back, her fingers slid on the screen. Less than 10 seconds after, the vibration signified another text delivered to her cell phone.

“And cogitating about life? So you. Anyway, I just woke up and am getting ready to hit the airport for a book tour around the nation.”

‘Lucky her’ - Susan thought. Unlike Susan, at 22, what Mary’d been achieving was zealously desirable. She already had two bestselling books coming out in the last three years and the third one was about to be released next week. Not so very strange, it was also a hot pick that promised two million dollars added to her fortune, which was already huge.

“Sounds good. I’m here all by myself. Thinking of asking you to come down here so we can have a chat. But since you’re busy, that’s fine. Have a great trip, you lucky ducky”. An impish smile crept up to Susan’s lips, cracking the expressively serious touch on her visage. It was good to have such a friend, around whom she could be herself. Nothing more, nothing less.

The phone vibrated again, this time demonstrating an incoming call. Mary. As usual. She always gave Susan a call after two or three messages. A writer could get lazy at writing sometimes.

“Hey” – Mary greeted. Without waiting for a response from Susan, she continued. “Thank you, sunflower. I’m sure gonna have the best time of my life. Maybe the third best time.” At this, Susan lips curled up into a light smile. The cleverness of her friend was sufficiently entertaining.

“Sure thing” – Susan replied rather brusquely. Only to Mary could she react this way without being labeled incommunicative.

“You know what?” – Mary suddenly diverged. “I’ve just developed a new theory that my prophecy is pretty accurate as how it might eventually turn out. Yesterday, I saw a couple when me and Jay hung out and I told him that they were about to break up. Guess what, they did, after all, which amazed Jay to the fullest.” – Mary babbled. In this moment, Susan developed another theory. Writers inclined to be loquacious.

“Really? There must have been some sign that directed you to that prediction.” – Susan questioned skeptically to instantly receive a firm denial from Mary. She wanted to argue with her friend, but forthwith apprehension of the uselessness of such a doing stopped her. Instead, she continued with a trademark jocular.  “Uh huh? Do some prediction for me and my life. Let’s see how good you are.”

“Hmm, I predict that your life would get better real soon. You will get a job in no time and the love of your life would show up within 24 hours. Mark my words” – She sounded assured, as though retelling how a movie ended.

“We’ll see” – Susan replied with certainty. Things would turn out in a way that proved Mary’s predictions wrong. If this was a bet, she would definitely win.

“Yeah. I’m positive about the rightness of my premonitions. Anyway, I gotta go right now if I don’t wanna be tardy, which, to tell you, was inhabitable for me. So see you later, okay?” – Mary ended their conversation with a question, which left Susan no option but mutter an okay back and nod unconsciously.

As she put her phone down, she turned back to minding her own business, as in other words, people watching and being bored. Half of the coffee cup was drunk down her throat; still the occupied seats remained scant. Delving in her purse which looked too old for a usable one, she yanked out a book that had been holding her captive mentally for awhile. It was Mary’s favorite book that was recommended to Susan two nights ago, when they talked via skype. The book revolved around two people questing for love in a game and ended up apart with two broken hearts. As a believer in love and happy ending, that was not her kind of amusement generator, but since the prose was tautly and beautifully written, she read on anyway.

It was at the part where the two protagonists quarreled over a minimal detail that Susan found so ludicrous when someone yelled. Startled at the sound, she flung her right arm, which was put on the table, to the side, knocking over her coffee cup and brining the remnant inner liquid to the floor. At that moment, a white shoe appeared right where the coffee splashed down. Cinematically fast as airbrushed with special motional effects, the shoe was stained with such a sizable brown spot that to be honest, looked unpleasant, even to Susan’s eyes. Letting out a squeaky yelp, she looked to the shoe’s owner and faintly mumbled an apology. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. It was totally my fault.”

Contrasted to what she imagined in her mind, the face of the shoe’s owner was not shriveled in anger nor disgust, instead, his face lighted up with something like confusion. “Hey, Are you Susan Richman?” – His utterance of words led to the bulging of her eyes. She was confounded by his saying of her appellation. He looked familiar, yes, but not in a way that sprang recognition to her brain.

“Yeah?” – Cynicism, here it went.

The man grabbed the napkin on the table, bent down and wiped ferociously at the drenched coffee on his shoe. Concurrently, he spoke to Susan in a creamily smooth voice. “You probably don’t remember me as I do you.” Retuning to his standing posture, he pulled out his other hand to greet Susan. “I’m Robert Hunter. Middleton Elementary School. Class 2002. Does any of this ring a bell?”

“The school, yeah. But you, I’m sorry” – Susan insisted on not taking his hand at first, but after a while, she did, hesitantly though.

“That’s okay. I used to be drowned in the mainstream of our classmates anyway. But please know that I do remember you. That’s enough” – He cracked a smile. Though his words seemed to send a pang of guilt to her chest, she couldn’t help but get astounded by his look and that just added up to the bamboozlement she already felt. If it weren’t for he knew her already, such an attractive man wouldn’t approach her at all costs.

Pulling out of his seemingly too tight of a grip of hands, she was not sure what to say. As successfully reading her mind, he raised his voice, forcing her eyes on his again.  “Would you mind if I sit here?”  

“No, of course not” – Susan averted her gaze to the table, refusing to glance at his face for the fear of being swept away by the look and the honest glint in his eyes.

When he settled in the chair, he took a small sip of coffee and began to lead her into a backward account of what happened years ago. This was like digging the past and laying it all here again. Strangely, he made her feel good in her guts.

“Don’t you remember when we were in the forth grade and you had that ponytail? You looked so cute” – His tone, flirtatious, sent her butterflies, the kind that propelled her mind into a downward centrifugal motion. Unbalance, was that what she felt in her cerebrum?   

“Yeah? It was actually the cause of my devastation back then.” – Words slipped out of her mouth, uncontrollably. That was how it worked when she got nervous, especially with boys, which, in all honesty, didn’t happen very frequently. And she hated herself for that. When would she morph into someone with much sophistication, not just an uncouth person?

He laughed lightly. Endearment coated every action of his. Susan blushed crimson, assuming that she just made a complete fool out of herself but what he said afterwards instantly made her feel better, yet brought more burning color to her cheeks. “You’re just so cute” – He murmured.

What continued whirled her and rendered her speechless. Susan got caught up in how boisterous Robert was. He appeared childish at some part, yet flicked to being mature and experienced. The unfurling of his personality through the revelation of his life was pure bedazzlement to Susan. His carefully ironed suit bespoke his occupation as a businessman but the way he told the story of his life was exhilarating. He must be an excellent story teller, who declined to embellish or amplify the truth, but told it in an artsy way. His carefully gelled hair glistened, though as half as how his eyes did.

“Don’t you have to work?” – Susan suddenly questioned in the middle of all the laughter and inundation of memory Robert brought back. A smile issued from his lips. ‘Yes. But not today.”

Susan smiled back. Today was an ordinary day but what happened wasn’t, for her heart just experienced an atypical change. Yet, she feared that after today, Robert would walk away without no remembrance of her but a name and those way-back-when memories they shared. She was frightened that somewhere along the way, she fell in love with him already. But he must have his own life and being a part of it seemed like a mission Susan couldn’t accomplish. The thought suddenly deflated her eagerness. What were the last thirty minutes for? Yes, her heart did beat a little faster. Okay, a lot. But that would be nothing at the end. Tomorrow, when she woke up, she still remained the same Susan, who had nothing but a stupid and delusive imagination. People just walked in and out of her life naturally like decided by destiny. Sometimes, she just wished they would never appear for that wouldn’t bring her any hope, which near the crest of it all, she figured out was forlorn.

Her chain of thought came to a halt when Robert raised his voice. “It’s about noon. I think I might have to go now.” There it went. That put an end to everything, Susan thought. End of the conversation. End of the connection between two figures. That meant the end of her infatuation also. She should learn to do that.

Susan nodded, not sure what to say, but certainly not asking for his contact because it was overly suggestive of her desperation. She wouldn’t admit it. Not a chance.

Before she could voice her consent of letting him go, he bewildered her by a question that by no chance could ever be asked more properly. “Can we meet again?” His voice was soft, his eyes longing, everything about him and his question injected amazement into her. This had to be a dream, dreamt by the biggest dreamer of all kind. She was lost for words but that didn’t seem to distract or addle him. Carefully, he pulled her right arm towards him, grabbed the pen from his shirt pocket and wrote his number on it. The pen moved over her skin, as swiftly as a caress she suddenly longed for from him.

“Hope you’re not allergic to ink” – Robert teased before turning away, not forgetting to give Susan a light wave, a wave that meant more than just a normal goodbye gesture. It seemed to contain a message transferred silently: “I want us to meet again”. Susan lighted up at the thought. She flicked her eyes down to her arm. An array of number was inscribed there. But they are not just numbers; they are the code to open up the door to her future, to decipher what fate had in store for her. Maybe Mary was partly right. The love of her life did come and his image was unveiled.