Thus with a Kiss

Chapter twenty.

Paige.

We walk in silence for the first five minutes. My feet carry me aimlessly, following a straight path down the road to wherever it is that Lawrence is taking us. Part of me wants to ask where we’re going and what we’re doing, but the other part of me is screaming to just be wild and see where the day takes us – it isn’t every day that I’m afforded the opportunity of spending a day with someone who looks like he’s walked straight off the set of a Hollywood movie. I refuse to waste my time panicking over being unable to control the day, and instead make sure I enjoy what the universe has sent my way.

‘So, I thought we could start the day with coffee, and then go from there’. Lawrence glances over at me, just at the same time the sun decides to hide behind the clouds. The low light of the morning makes his eyes even darker; they become a black hole so dangerously intoxicating, that for a moment, just one small second, I forget what it means to breathe. And I can feel it, some indefinable tug between us, but its there; he is gravity and I’m falling hopelessly towards the earth, unable to resist the natural laws of science. And I think he could be both the worst and best thing to happen to me. Just looking into his eyes awakens something in me, a quiet yearning for life that I’ve smothered for too long for fear of the world finding me lacking. And even if this is the last time I see him, I know I won’t be able to put the veritable genie back in the lamp: it is outside of myself now, this desire to be adventurous, to live, and how can I rein life back into myself, when the world is so hungry for every drop of our existence?

Realising I haven’t answered Lawrence, I smile back at him, too busy drowning in his eyes to take mind of the ground beneath my feet. Too busy to stop myself from tripping over the cracked pavement, my shoe catching on the upturned corner, arms flailing like a mad woman to help regain my balance. Even despite pinwheeling my arms in a frenzy to regain my equilibrium, the floor starts to look closer than it did two minutes ago. I cringe, waiting for the painful thud of my face hitting the concrete, my pride and dignity in shreds along the road. As I’m preparing for the impact, my eyes clenched in anticipation, I feel a firm but gentle grip on my arm and then my waist. I blink, somehow unable to actualise the reality of not falling flat on my face with the knowledge that Lawrence saved me from both a painful and embarrassing fall. We stand still for a moment, his hand still on my waist, his mouth open as if he’s about to speak. I cut him off before he can make some joke to further my embarrassment and say thank you, moving just out of reach of his hands, now empty and hovering in the air as if without a purpose.

‘Coffee sounds perfect to me’, pretending as though the past two minutes didn’t occur, I carrying on walking, hoping Lawrence will take my lead on the situation and follow. And it isn’t just humiliation that spurs me onwards, my eyes now fixed obsessively on the pavement to ensure no other mishaps occur. But for those few precious moments when his hands were on my skin and his eyes were pouring into my soul, again I felt that stirring of longing, this time so potent and raw that the possibility of ignoring it is like ignoring the blistering sun in scorching desert: impossible and painful. I sneak a glance over at Lawrence, hopeful that I might just find the same confusion I feel inside me written bright as day on his beautiful face. Instead it is devastatingly blank, a frozen lake of passivity, as unaffected by me as a wolf disturbed by a sparrow.

And just like that, I can’t breathe again, the stupidity of my own heart and capacity to romanticise the world, once again leaving reality a dull grey blur in comparison to the world and desires conjured by my own mind.

We turn left instead of carrying straight on, veering from the route to the closest coffee shop. I look to Lawrence in silent question, the action alone enough to illicit a response.

‘I thought it would be nice to try somewhere new today’, he winks at me, as if knowing my penchant for going to the same place every day, the ease and comfort of a familiar setting.

‘As long as the coffee is nice, I don’t mind where we go’. And I really hope it is nice because there’s nothing worse than a disappointing coffee. Even if my standards for coffee are pretty low in the eyes of any coffee connoisseur out there. A friend at uni once told me that real, good coffee is made from beans with fruity undertones and that the coffee beans used in big chains like Costa or Starbucks are pathetic excuses for coffee in comparison. But I have to disagree. And maybe that makes me a fraud, an imposter who likes the idea of what coffee represents, the image it exudes to the world, the feeling I get when it scalds the back of my throat, rather than the taste of it itself, but coffee without syrup or sugar, or with the acrid notes of fruit, just aren’t worth my time. Drinking coffee isn’t just gulping down the caffeine it barely provides, it’s an experience that one indulges themselves in.

‘I would say this place has quickly become my favourite, not just for the coffee, but the establishment itself is quite unique.’ And I can’t deny that his words have left me intrigued, curious to see the place that has somehow enticed him, in ways, perhaps, I have failed to. He pauses outside what looks to be a renovated semi-detached house, the front wall knocked out and replaced with floor to ceiling stained glass windows. Lawrence reaches the door and opens it, beckoning me inside with a brush of his hand against my lower back. And damn, if a tiny part of me doesn’t sigh with content at that contact, small though it may be. As I walk inside, the colour of the windows is refracted like fireworks over the walls, the sun hitting the glass at just the right angle to make the entire place look like a dancing fireplace. Words fails me as I drink it all in: the wood floor beneath my feet is rich and worn, matching wooden tables line the back two walls, with smaller, rectangular tables dotted throughout the rest of the open space. Hand-dyed rugs of varying colours and patterns are scattered along the floor, adding an extra layer of comfort to the place that makes it feel welcoming and familiar, even though I’ve never been here before. The lighting is understated, the place lit up mostly by the colours of the window and yellow overhead lights dotted sparingly throughout. Lawrence was right, the uniqueness of this place holds it’s own sort of charm, a siren calling all her would-be lovers home. And that’s what this place feels like, like home, in the way that any strange place, that makes one recognises as safety, feels. Like a haven in a storm of human activity, this place is calm, it beats and breathes at a tempo outside of the bustle of every day life. It’s tranquil.

‘This place is- it’s’, again I struggle to put into words how peaceful and intriguing this place is. Lawrence smiles at me, as if knowing what I want to say, despite words failing me.

‘I know’, he nods, making his way towards the counter. ‘Caramel latte?’, he asks, indicating the chalk board menu behind the till. And I’m suddenly hit with a sense of déjà vu, taken back to the first time we shared coffee after nearly running him over. Mischief dances in Lawrence’s eyes as if he’s thinking of the same thing too.

‘Yes please, I’ll get this coffee though, since you got the last one’, I edge in front of him, getting closer to the till so I can put the order in and pay before he does.

‘Absolutely not Paige, I’ll get the coffee, you get a seat’, And I don’t know if it’s because it’s the first time hearing my name on his lips, or the sheer demand in his tone when he says it, but I find myself nodding along subconsciously, my body drifting towards a small table tucked away in the back, nestled between two large fabric armchairs. I sit and wait whilst he orders the coffee, not noticing much of anything other than his husky voice over the background noise of coffee machines and hushed chit chat. And even though we’ve been here before, sharing quiet conversation over coffee, I don’t mind it one bit. And not just because I’m a stickler for habits, for craving the comfort familiar patterns and routines grant me, but because spending time with Lawrence feels natural, in a way other aspects of life so rarely seem to be.

Lawrence walks over with my coffee in his hand, his other hand painfully empty. He sets it down in front of me, the heart shaped design of the milk a good indication of a well-seasoned barista.

‘Here you go, I’ll just be two secs’, he nods towards the counter where the barista is making his own coffee.

‘That’s okay, no problem, I can wait’. And what I don’t say is that I could wait forever, that sitting here in this place with him seems like an escape; a microcosm of suspended reality, emersed within, but completely separate from, the world outside. And what I wouldn’t give to hold on to this feeling for eternity.

I think I would give my life for it, for this silence, this stillness, without a second thought.