Click to Subscribe - By L. M. Augustine Page 0,21

even though she can’t hear me.

And now I’m standing in the middle of a failure of a coffee shop that doesn’t even sell coffee, with the cashier snoring to my right and a group of three old women staring at me like I’m from another planet and the one person I care about most in this world running away from me. Oh, and also, as if this could get any more exciting, the girl of my dreams doesn’t exist.

Somehow, this is not how I pictured the meet-up going.

“Well?” one of the old ladies, who is dressed in her oversized sweater and pink scarf, says. “Aren’t you going to run after her?” I don’t respond. I just stare at her, dumbfounded, like a complete moron. Words still refuse to come. It’s like I’m back in fifth goddamn grade and trying to recite my thirty-line poem in front of the whole school; I have a serious case of tongue-brokenness and no idea how to fix it. “You know if you don’t run after her you’ll lose her, right? Why would you want to lose your girlfriend?”

“She’s not…” I say, shaking my head. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

The old lady raises her eyebrow. “I noticed the look in that girl’s eyes the moment she saw you. If that wasn’t the love of a girlfriend, I don’t know what it is.”

I stop. My heart slows. “What look?”

“Bah,” she says, turning to her two old-lady cohorts and sharing a smile like they know something I don’t. “Young people these days,” she says and the other two burst into sluggish, 90+-year-old laughter. The woman turns back at me. “Hun, from that one look of hers, I know you have a girl who loves you more than anything in the world. That’s valuable stuff. Don’t let her go.”

“Are you… are you sure?” I can’t think clearly anymore.

“I am most certainly sure,” she says, reaching out a bony hand.

And I must be crazy because now I’m taking advice from random old ladies, but the next thing I know, I run after Cat. I burst through the coffee shop door, cheered on by the three of them, sprint down the sidewalk, and follow Cat’s bobbing head over the crowd of people.

I push past stranger after stranger, keeping my gaze trained on Cat, and I just keep running and running. The wind whips against me and the air tastes like cigarettes, but I barely notice any of it. All of my concentration is on Cat now.

When I finally catch up to her, she’s fast-walking through another crowd of people, speeding up with each step. I grab her arm and pull her back, breathing heavily. “Hey,” I say. She tries to fight my grip. “Hey.”

“Let go of me!” she shouts, jerking away from me and nearly taking out a little girl to her right. “I told you I’m sorry! What more do you want from me? Do you want my dignity too? My happiness? My life? Because I’m sure that’s just about up for sale at this point.” She spins back around to face me, her eyes wild and sad at the same time. Tears sting her eyes, and it hurts to see her like this—like, physically hurts. She looks at me, exasperated. Cat, the strong one who always kept me in balance, exasperated. Oh my god, what have I done? “Well?” she says when I don’t respond. My jaw is still totally slack. “Aren’t you going to say something? I just told you I love you and you have zero fucking reaction?”

I’m consciously aware of my hand on her arm, my skin touching her skin. She is warm and shaking, rattled in a way I’ve never seen her before. I have no idea what to say, what to do. I feel so fucking pathetic all of a sudden, because she just told me probably the biggest thing you can tell someone and I can’t even find the words to respond.

“You really made that account because you love me?” I finally say like a blundering idiot, too scared to meet her gaze, to focus on anything but the slight tremble in my toes.

“I did,” she says slowly, watching me as if I’m about to pull I knife on her. I nod. She sighs then, and I watch as she turns her head to look out at the sun beyond the crowded street of people.

“What, Cat?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

I step forward. “Cat,” I say. “Tell me.”

She hesitates, but does. “Remember when