Fateful Summer
an excerpt
The night I found the note, I was desperate: for change, adventure, connection. Adrift in a sea of possibility and without a single lifeboat of love or security, I was determined to make a life for myself in this sun-drenched beach town.
I’d been here a month with only a dead-end job to show for it when I wandered into the cafe. It was trendy in a low-key way. A way that was trying hard not to be trying too hard. Plush jewel-toned chairs clustered around wooden tables that must’ve been salvaged from thrift stores and yard sales. Enticing descriptions of fancy lattes and homemade baked goods were scribbled on a chalkboard menu. It was a place for intimate conversation, where readers could easily lose a day, a quiet refuge where lonely souls like me could pretend to belong.
I ordered a London fog and claimed a spot in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, people window-shopped for antiques and expensive clothing in the watercoloured morning light. A stall selling bouquets and homemade jams stood watch over tourists and locals alike. The tea was hot and I revelled in the pain that scalded my mouth with every sip. I wondered at the stories of the other cafe-goers and lost myself in jealousy. This life was too close to what I had left behind. Moving sixteen hours away from my landlocked West-coast city was meant to give me more than this.
I stood, unable to stand my thoughts any longer, leaving my half-finished drink the way I left everything: half finished, unsatisfied. It was then that I noticed the corner of a napkin peeking out from a drawer in the low coffee table. I yanked it out, my restless fingers ready to tear it to shreds and leave it for the baristas to deal with. The urge quelled when I noticed the thick black ink that bled into the crisp white, crumpled but legible. I sat back down, smoothed it out on the table and read hungrily:
“Camille, I have always loved you. There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting across the table from you here, in our favourite place, on our fifth anniversary. May we always return here, and to one another.”
