I wrote a thing about a pretty stranger

            The girl sitting across from me at Starbucks has nothing but her laptop and her iphone on the table in front of her. The lighted apple on the back of her computer appears lavender through the gray laptop case, almost the same color as her faded cardigan. She has dark eyes and several gold bracelets around her right wrist. Her perfectly threaded brow is furrowed intently whether she’s looking at her phone or her computer – she alternates between the two. She has shiny dark hair parted to the right and often looks away from her computer or phone with a calculating or even confused look, as though working on a very hard problem. She has gorgeous skin, and appears to have some sort of south asian background. As I’m typing, a dark boy with a rust colored beanie comes to meet her and sits across from her at the small table. He hands her a drink and her lips purse as she takes a sip as though it is not her ideal drink. She then explains that she is trying to memorize a story. The two begin to engage in very sporadic small talk as they work on their individual assignments. He has never heard of Jane Eyre. This kind of grosses her out.

             

            Lena’s right leg absent mindedly vibrated as she waited, checking her phone every few seconds between attempting to memorize her lines. Her French partner was already fifteen minutes late and if they didn’t rehearse she knew she would not get out of the C range in this French class that she probably shouldn’t have tested into in the first place. Lena recalled the only time previously she had rehearsed with Jake, and was not looking forward to today’s sequel to the encounter.

            After another five minutes of anxiously preparing for the “date,” as Jake had grossly called it, she saw him descending the stairs, carrying a two beverages. She eagerly took the one he extended to her, grateful despite herself for free caffeine, but her brows immediately joined in disgust as she tasted grainy chocolate.

            “What is it?” She asked.

            “Peppermint  mocha,” Jake replied with that half smile that followed the curve of his chin strap facial hair. “What, you don’t like it?”

            “No it’s fine. It’s just… strong. It’s a lot. I usually get something more coffee based.”

            Silence. Lena turned back to her computer, indicating to Jake that she needed another minute to go over her lines. Feeling the silence weighing on her, she said, not looking away from her computer, “So do you come here often?”

            Jake replied to unhearing ears, as Lena had no interest in Jake’s spare time activities.

            More silence. Jake had not so much as touched his drink. “So do you wanna get started?” suggested Jake.

            “Yeah, fine, sure.”

            Lena cleared her throat and took one last glance over the format, knowing that Jake was unlikely to have prepared thoroughly enough, and she might have to cover for him. “Go ahead.”

            “La semaine dermiere, je suis allée au Chicago pour –“

            “Á Chicago,” Lena interrupted.

            “What?”
            “It should be á Chicago because it’s a city. That’s the preposition.”

            “Oh.”

            “Go on.”

            “Je suis allée Á Chicago pour la match de football americain contre Northwestern et Michigan.”

            Prepared, Lena replied, “Oh, qui a gagné?”

            “Shouldn’t it be ‘ce qui?’”

            “What?”
            “It should be ‘ce qui’ because there’s no noun preceding the relative pronoun.”

            Lena exhaled sharply, frustrated at his correctness. He was so lazy yet somehow he did better on the exams. Tense, Lena glowered over at Jake, who merely shrugged his shoulders. For some inexplicable reason, Lena’s face was getting hot and she felt a lump in her throat.
            “Everything okay?” Asked Jake.

            “I just don’t get why I can’t fucking GET this relative pronoun thing. I’m in calc three for engineering and I can’t fucking figure out the difference between ‘qui’ and ‘ce qui?’ What the fuck is wrong with me?”

            “Whoa whoa, baby, calm down, it’s okay, it’s all cool,” cooed Jake, rubbing her arm.

            Lena jumped violently and knocked over her drink.

            “Don’t touch me, don’t call me that, please don’t touch me.”

            “Can you calm down? You’re making a scene,” replied Jake, not removing his hand from her shoulder.

            “Can you not touch me? Can you please not touch me?”

            “I’m trying to help you, I’m afraid you’re gonna go crazy,” explained Jake, still not raising his voice even a decibel.

            Lena was frustrated by his calmness. Why did she hate him? Why was she getting so upset over a French grammatical error? Why did she feel so threatened by him?

            “You spilled your drink. Let me get you another one.”

            “I don’t want another drink! I don’t want your gross chocolate abomination!”

            “Then drink mine.”