Seraphina's Awakening

Chapter Five: Prophecies

The morning sun streams its way through the blinds, slowly creeping across the carpet until it remains on Sera's face like a spotlight. The light is a gentle reminder that it's time to wake up. Sera rolls over to face the wall and escape the sun, which is growing brighter and brighter by the minute. She finds herself unable to wake from this new dream. For months, the handsome stranger was just out of reach, and now she can feel him somewhere within the deepest parts of her. She refuses to let that go. Not soon after she rolls away from the impending morning does she begin to hear the raucous noise of the garbage truck hunkering its way down her dead-end street. Sera clamps her eyes shut. Tin garbage cans are thrown around and the truck screeches into her gravel drive before it turns around and putters away.

She's allowed a few blissful moments of silence before her alarm clock clicks on, blaring the news: "It's a gorgeous, brisk December morning in Angelica, the temperature at an all-time low like the county hasn't ever seen. Makes me wonder, Diane, if this is all going to catch up to us at some point." Sera sighs loudly, rolling onto her back to face the blank ceiling. "I sense a monster storm coming on. These quiet days are leading up to something, I can feel it."

"Alright, alright, I'm up already!" She slams her palm on the off button. Her feet drop to the floor, and she swings out of bed. Sera hates waking up in general, but this dream—it was just getting good.

Sera's white sedan idles in the parking spot in front of Jack's Coffee Bean. Her fingers tinker with the keys a few times, debating whether to go inside or not. Sera tends to avoid awkward situations and confrontation in general, so her knee jerk reaction is to flee. Finally, she reaches across the console for her purse, grabs the cell phone, and types out a message to Amanda. Should she play hard to get? Should she just act normal? Should she swoon? What the heck is the protocol anymore? The message is only a few sentences long but her finger pauses, hovering over the send button.

This is insane. Shaking her head, she tosses the phone back into her purse. I need to man up. I can do this, it's just Jack. The car door swings open with a gust of bravado. Sera briskly walks to the door, swings it open, and steps in before she can change her mind.

Once inside, she relaxes slightly, pausing to take in her surroundings. Something's strange. The shop is completely back to normal, not even a drop of water on the floor, the sprinklers have retracted, and there's no music playing. To add fuel to the weird fire, the store is completely vacant. According to her cell only moments ago, it was a few minutes after 8:30 a.m., prime-coffee-time. There's been mornings she had to wait in line twenty minutes for a cup of Jack's special coffee. That's not the case today. Sera uneasily makes her way to the counter, glancing back over her shoulder a few times almost expecting someone to enter soon. The shop is eerily silent; one could hear a pin drop. Anxiety bubbles inside her once more. She turns to leave, and Jack bursts through the double doors. They flap back and forth behind him as he pauses for a second with one hand on his hip and the other tangled in his curls. His face is blank when his eyes meet Sera's before a look of surprise and relief flood into his posture. Without a word, he walks over to her.

"Sera," he breathes like a silent thank you to the universe. "I didn't think you'd be back anytime soon." Sera revels in the fact that she is braver than they both thought.

She doesn't have the heart to tell him she almost wasn't. It might be the softness behind his eyes, or the way he appears just a little bit more vulnerable to her. The sexy Jack she idolized is no more. Now he's a china doll she feels will break with one wrong move. Sera doesn't like the feeling; there's something about that kind of power she feels uncomfortable having. "Well, after the excitement of that first date, it makes a girl wonder what could possibly happen next time..." She lets the sentence drift off between them. Jack's face brightens, but his hands are still hidden in the pockets of his apron. She turns her gaze down toward her shoes.