Excerpt: We Are a Continuum

Sixteen cups of coffee stretch out for miles between them, marking a space that separates the “then” and “now”. Clyde makes a tally for each paper cup in his head. He is reluctant when he takes a sip. He waits for the bitter taste to pass as the searing liquid reaches the tip of his tongue in slow drips. He hates coffee; she is enjoying hers though she tries not to show it.

“Hi,” he says. His voice cracks and the cracks in his argument are showing as he tries to convince himself that this is not worth nothing.

Oh, it’s you, her eyes say. Wringing her hands on her lap, “Hey… Clyde.” Her countenance refuses to acknowledge his existence with anything but surprise and more slyly, annoyance. “I didn’t know you liked this place too.”

He doesn’t say that he hates coffee and caffeine makes him jumpy and that he knows that she does not share these traits with him; she does not ask him about it. “Yeah,” murmuring self-consciously. A strand of dark hair falls across her features and he presses his arms tightly against his sides to resist the urge to tuck it behind her ear. The moment is too slow for him, revealing all of his flaws in each frame. His thoughts refuse to be contained as awkwardness ensues.

“Well,” she tells him. “I have to go somewhere.” Her tone is hasty. He wants her to stop, wants to ask her to stay, but she is already turned away and doesn’t look back as she abandons him and the coffee shop.

Her name is Jane. She likes exactly two packets of sugar in her coffee. She sneaks glances at those around her, suspiciously, when she thinks no one is watching though obviously she is no better at intrigue that he is. He watches her from afar, half-hidden by his own thinning indifference, finding himself tempted to reach, to act, to do anything except to stand still in his place.

“You are such a stalker.”

The words slice through him. Evenly, “I don’t deny it, Darren,” says Clyde.

“Acceptance is the first step to recovery, Clyde.” Darren’s face, pale and angular, is covered by freckles and a bright smirk. That is to say he is as smug as usual.

“What do I owe you for these wonderful pearls of wisdom?” he asks, rolling his eyes.

“A dollar-fifty and a cup of tea, thanks,” Darren tells him, prying Clyde’s wallet from his grip. It falls open as he searches for the appropriate amount of change, grinning lopsidedly. “You have a picture of her in there? Why am I not surprised?”

“Because I am a stalker?” he deadpans.

“How could I forget?” Darren replies in mock-surprise, as Clyde punches him on the arm. “Hey, no need to get violent! She definitely does not like that!” He leaves the mirth in his green eyes unshielded from Clyde’s gaze, then leaves him for a moment to place his order.

Clyde represses a groan of exasperation, looking as though he would very much like the earth to swallow him whole. He tries to pretend that he doesn’t care that every syllable streaming out of his best friend’s mouth is an arrow that will make bulls-eye, but it is impossible for his attempt to be anything except a failure that clings to his flushed face. It’s all very melodramatic.

The melting brim of his paper cup reaches his lips as he decides to give coffee a second chance, or a sixteenth chance, and to his disappointment it is just as harsh and bitter as he remembers it. The taste pales in comparison to the disgusted-sympathetic tone of her voice that is all he can hear from her, like she is funny and nice like he knows she is to a world that does not include him. “I’m going to go,” is murmured listlessly.

“I think she’s already dating someone, you know,” says Darren.

Though he knows he will regret this in the very near future, Clyde cannot help but ask, “Who?”

“Ashley.”

What?

“That’s a girl’s name.” Gulping, he adds, “I’m pretty sure Jane is straight?” While it would be wonderful for her sexuality to be the reason she is unreceptive to his charms, Clyde is not so optimistic that he had even considered this as an option. Should he have realized the “girl of his dreams” does not actually swing “this way”? Why is Darren telling him this just now? What kind of friend is he?

“He is a trumpet player,” says Darren

“What a tool.” Clyde isn’t even sure if he knows Ashley the Trumpet Player but he knows he definitely does not like him on principle, though the more logical side of him covertly informs him in an undertone that unreasonable dislike is, in fact, quite unprincipled.

“He went out with Bonnie, remember?” he mentions.

Clyde balls his hands into tight fists that he forces against his sides. “He went out with my sister and now he’s going out with Jane? Where is going to stop? Somebody needs to draw a line on which he stops. Right now.”

“Don’t you know anything about your sister?”

“When did you become an expert on all things related to my sister?” he snaps to his friend despite knowing that it is vicious of him. Darren shrugs away the blow with a languid rise and fall of his shoulders and a knowing glance in Clyde’s direction, skilled in the art of deflection. “You dated her, didn’t you?”

“No, you freak,” exclaims Darren, clearly horrified. “When was the last time you talked to her?”

“We text.”

“She must like me more then.”

“We text,” Clyde maintains, and it is Darren’s turn to roll his eyes.

As per status quo, Darren hits nail right on the head once again and Clyde is struck by his own looming idiocy while finding himself unable to do anything to pry the nail from the surface of his mind. When he realizes that it doesn’t quite work to pretend he can’t affect his present situation at all, he tips the cup of coffee into his gaping mouth to finish it, trying to pretend he actually likes it and that the frantic feeling shooting through his veins is just caffeine.