Me, Myself, and I

fifth wheel

Understandably, Brooke and Alex didn't buy that I had let the whole "go find my mom" thing go. A new groupchat with the two of them sprung up on my phone the next morning with a "Ping!" Stacks. Dinner. You in? Two more "Pings!" later and I realized that they were setting up a triple date, because I was in a chat with Alex, Brooke, Paige, and Ben.

I knew what they were doing. They thought they were a step ahead of me. Showing me everything I had here in Delcoph. Why I didn't need to go find anything else. Blah blah blah. Whatever. I was too exhausted to care. And I needed Stacks coffee.

The parking lot was empty besides the familiar vehicles. Alex was there to open my door for me. I kissed him, as one does. Brooke's car up ahead was filled with passengers. Paige and Ben's heads poked out of the back seat. He towered over her. They hopped out. Both giggling.

Paige usually seemed to suck the life out of the very grass she stood on. Now she looked lighter; she repelled darkness.

I waved at them with three fingers and turned towards the Stacks door. We all froze. A giant mustard-yellow sign stood in the place of the usual clear glass pane, no lights illuminating the insight.

"What do they mean, 'Store Closing'?" Paige gaped. "It's Stacks. You don't close Stacks."

"Maybe they're cutting down hours?" Alex offered.

Brooke leaned closer, the fine print. Gotta love the fine print. "Close. No. The owner is moving next month. Place will be up for grabs by this summer."

"They can't close Stacks!" Paige said.

Brooke rolled her eyes. "We'll just find another place to go. Chill. Or I'll deck you."

I imagined the place disintegrating before my eyes. Our corner booth. What would happen to our corner booth? Stupid question. They wouldn't tear the place down. Some other buyer would go in. Right? They had to. This place stapled the line of Delcoph, kept our fractured city into a cohesive unit.

"Jewels, you coming?" Alex called. I felt his shadow linger over me. "It's just a coffee shop, yeah?"

Right. Just the bricks that held a coffee aroma. Tables that barricaded memories beneath their stains and placematts.

"BEN! THERE'S A KARAOKE BAR OUTSIDE OF TOWN!!! LET'S GOOOO!"

I realized that Alex's shadow wasn't the one on my shoulder. But Ben's. He lifted his hand to the sign, careful below the lettering. Then he followed his girlfriend's call back to Brooke's car. I let myself follow his lead.

We piled in Brooke's tiny little excuse for a car. Followed the GPS about twenty five minutes, all of us frozen in the humming of the wheels on the icy roads.

The windows of the karaoke bar were dimmed, but the man out front didn't ask for ID. "Don't stay past ten," he muttered.

Didn't smell like coffee. French fries and expired ketchup, hint of oregano. No booths, just circular tables behind a stage.

Truthfully, the words hadn't processed yet. My internal reactor was all too similar to Paige at the sight of that red sign. Like a house being sold. Or a celebrity dying. It's not allowed to happen. You need the facts of existence to stay. But I would not agree with Paige, so keeping quiet was the best way to do that.

Stacks wouldn't close. How could it?

We sat around the table; the chairs squeaked a bit. Their coffee tasted like creamer. I thought I'd throw up.

"How are you doing, by the way, Ben?" Alex said, swigging a rootbeer.

He shrugged. "I remembered Joey puking in the trashcans now."