Page 26 of The Moment I Knew

“Depends,” I said. “Are you watching me in a stalkery way?”

“Oh absolutely. I’m just obsessed with you.”

“I—”

“Heartbreaker!” the perky blonde barista called out at the end of the counter. She hesitated for a moment before adding, “No name.”

Then she threw a quizzical look in the boy’s direction, which he waved off, gesturing vaguely at me.

“Not a very good stalker if you don’t know my name,” I said. I wondered whether he’d left it off on purpose or if he really had forgotten my name in the last twenty-four hours. Somehow, I found that hard to believe, when he’d remembered my drink so easily. It was like he was trying to act like he didn’t remember me, despite proving that he did.

I walked to the end to grab the coffee and the gingerbread loaf that she pushed across the counter a moment later. Then I crossed the room to the table by the window, taking the dark purple chair pressed up against the corner of the room. The table in front of it was big enough that I could spread my books out and still have space for my coffee and food. It was the perfect spot. It could be my usual table if I could stand the idea of seeing Cole more frequently, which I could not.

I felt eyes on me as I pulled off my coat but when I looked over, he was staring at the coffee machine as if he’d been working there for the last ten minutes and hadn’t even noticed me come in. I wrapped my hands around the cup like it might anchor me and pulled my notebook closer, lining everything up just so. Tablet to the left. Book open, spine carefully flattened. Pencil parallel to the edge of the table. Order restored.

I had just settled into the rhythm of reading, underlining, jotting half-formed thoughts in the margins, when a shadow fell across my page.

I didn’t look up right away. “Do you make a habit of hovering over customers while they work?”

He leaned one hip against the edge of the table anyway, completely uninvited. I caught sight of him in my peripheral vision: arms crossed, sleeves still pushed up, gaze angled down at my notebook like it belonged to him.

“You looked like you needed help.”

I deliberately flipped a page, dismissing him. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

For a second, I thought he might actually leave. He shifted away and I started to relax, until I realized he was just grabbing an extra chair. He sat backwards, straddling it with his arms folded across the top. Way too close. Close enough that I could smell coffee and something cleaner underneath—soap, maybe. Or laundry detergent. Something unfairly pleasant that took me right back to two days ago, hiding with him in the closet.

“I’m busy,” I snapped.

“I can see that.”

He still didn’t get up. I sighed and pointedly flipped a page.

“You don’t have to hang around.” I spared a glance at him then looked away just as quickly. “I promise I won’t spill anything or go breaking into your flat this time.”

He shrugged as if that didn’t matter to him at all. “We just call them apartments here..”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m not from here.”

I swear the corner of his lips tip up, but it was so fast it might have been a figment of my imagination. “Obviously.”

I make a shooing motion with my hands. “You can go now.”

He rested his chin on his palm. “I’m on my break.”

I barely held back my eye roll. “Good for you.”

At first, he didn’t respond and I hoped my bland answers were enough to make him want to leave. Then he picked up my copy of The Kite Runner and started flipping it through it like he was going to read it. I was tempted to knock it out of his hands, but instead, my eyes snagged on the bruises on his knuckles. Had those been there before and I missed them? Or had he gotten into a recent fight?

Either way, I thought it was probably better that I didn’t antagonize him.

I wrote another sentence, paused, then crossed it out, irritated that my handwriting suddenly looked messier than usual. The silence stretched on for too long. I could feel his eyes on the page, on my hand, tracking the movement of my pencil. It made my skin prickle, like I was being graded in real time.

“Your second paragraph is all wrong.”

I looked up slowly. “Excuse me?”

He tipped his head, unfazed. “You’re summarizing instead of arguing. Everything you say is technically true, but it’s all just paraphrasing sources. English teachers hate that.”