Game Theory × NH

064 | gadolinium

× Mercury

This was the same coffee house Harry took me on our first date. That had been so long ago and yet everything about the place was the same. There wasn't anything slick about it, no impressive fonts or white cling on drawings stuck to the glass. You could pick the whole thing up and send it back forty years and it wouldn't look out of place.

The three of us sat at a table in the corner of the shop. Once Hazel had dropped her news, we went back inside the café, outside of the cold with warm beverages in our hands, so she could explain everything - her treat.

"I have stage three sarcoma cancer," Hazel started.

The latte in my hand was over-priced and bitter. It sat prettily in a white china cup, a leaf pattern in delicate milky foam among the brown. I watched Hazel as she sipped at hers like it was a great luxury, her fingers wrapped around it, enjoying the heat that spread through her hands.

Jace on the other hand, hasn't touched his cocoa since I placed it on the table for him. He seemed to find his fingers far more interesting than anything else in the room.

"I'm sorry for contacting you like this," Hazel continued. "But I needed to talk to someone who would listen and care."

"What about your parents?" Jace finally spoke, looking up at Hazel for the first time since we sat down. "Where are they in all this?"

"Working," she explained. "They try to be there for me, but that only goes so far. They have to make a living, too. And besides; I wanted to talk to you, Jace. I missed you."

I knew this wasn't a conversation I was supposed to be involved in, but Jace had insisted I stay by his side. Even so, I wasn't going to make it obvious that I was even there. So I paid all my attention on the coffee in my hand and the noises around the shop.

I was obsessed with coffee shops when I lived in California. Part of me romanticizes them in some way. It probably has to do with growing up in a large city with the only real sanctuary for me was in a coffee shop.

Sitting in that room, with no drive through and minimal commotion, it gave me a sense of peace - it gave me a sense of home.

"I took a couple years off of school to figure out what I wanted to do," Hazel said, drawing me back into the conversation. "I thought it would only be a year, but you know how indecisive I am, Jace. While all my friends went off to university in different parts of the world, I was left here in London, alone."

The sadness in her eyes was evident. I fortunately never had the bad luck of losing all my friends, but I could imagine the feeling. Watching everyone you grew up with leave town to start something they had always dreamed about. You were happy for them, of course, but you also couldn't help being a little bitter.

"When I heard that you were still in the city, I was so excited," Hazel continued, a small smile on her lips now. "I always wondered where you ended up, you know that? Learning that you were on the football team here made me happy because I knew that was the one thing in the world that you loved the most. I've spent a lot of time thinking about everything the two of us did together, and I missed those feelings. Jace, I..."

She trailed off then, and I knew, no matter how much Jace would protest, that I was eavesdropping into a conversation for their ears only. I didn't know Hazel and I didn't know Jace when they were together, so I knew that it was my time to leave. At least temporarily.