Chapter Text
Her mother always says that a coffee shop is a place of beginnings. There might be truth to that statement, but it definitely isn’t applicable to her own life, Cassandra thinks. Right now, a coffee shop is just a place she wants to go to get out of the cold. Snow stings her skin and turns to slush around her boots as she hurries down the sidewalk. She shivers, pulling her chevron scarf higher over her face to little avail.
Google Maps says, “Turn around. Your destination is fifty meters to your right,” and Cass swears aloud. Even after four years in this city, she still gets lost all the time.
She finally finds the right door, and a bell tinkles cheerfully as she pushes it open. The cafe is named Fox in the Snow, and it has the new-age hipster vibe: exposed plumbing in the ceiling, dark hardwood accents, rough-edged napkins made from recycled paper. Cassandra unbuttons her coat with a grateful sigh. This is not her usual coffee shop—far from it, in fact—but she feels like trying something new. She’s too restless right now to settle for a latte from Starbucks.
Cass skims the menu and notes that the prices here aren’t much cheaper than Starbucks, but at least she’s supporting a local business. “Can I get… a green tea macchiato, please?” she asks.
The cashier rings her up with a smile that Cass returns brightly. She loves little interactions like these—they have a mundane beauty that gives life its spark. She drops her change into the tip jar and heads for the nearest table.
Then out of the corner of her eye, she spots a hauntingly familiar head of curly hair. Her pulse jumps into triple time. Why the fuck is he here?
It can’t be him, surely. Not two thousand miles—and half a lifetime—away from the last instance they’d seen each other. But then the boy turns his head, and any doubt Cassandra has is instantly dispelled. She’d recognize his sharp gaze anywhere, the determined set of his chin and mop of dark curls.
It’s been four years since she’s last seen Will Treaty, and he still somehow looks exactly the same.
She shrinks farther back into her seat, her mind whirling. In truth, Cassandra wouldn’t mind seeing Will on his own. It’s his fucking best friend Alyss that she’s worried about, because back in high school, they were nearly inseperable.
Alyss Mainwaring. Cass’s first crush and first heartbreak. The memories of their relationship are the ones that haunt her when she lies awake at three in the morning. The ones that flicker through her brain when she’s waiting to catch the bus or toweling off after a shower.
I don’t like you in that way, she remembers Alyss saying. I don’t like any girl in that way—I just… don’t. Like she was trying to convince herself as much as Cassandra. Five years later, it still makes her heart twist.
There’s a chance that Alyss isn’t actually here, right? That Will is in this city alone, and this is just a coincidental run-in? Please, Jesus , Cass prays. Her life right now is confusing enough as it is. Midterms are in two weeks. She doesn’t need her middle school ex popping up like a zit before picture day.
But fate is clearly not on her side today, because as the barista calls her order—a medium green tea macchiato—someone looks up. Cassandra whips in the other direction so that she doesn’t make eye contact, her heart pounding in her chest.
Because it’s her , goddammit, it’s Alyss . Even in the fringes of her peripheral vision, she sees enough. Black hair pulled into a messy French braid. Wire-rimmed glasses that she remembers Alyss only wears when she’s too lazy to put in contacts. Soft blue sweater that sets off her tan skin unfairly well.
As Cass picks up the macchiato, it occurs to her that this used to be her go-to order when she was twelve years old. Could it be that Alyss somehow remembers—that she hasn’t moved on either–
No, she tells herself firmly, quashing the faint hope that rises in her chest. Alyss is the one that ended it, the one that wanted nothing to do with Cass afterwards. She wouldn’t even return a single text or call after Cassandra moved halfway across the country. Their relationship is a thing of the past. Cassandra has better things to do than pine after her former childhood best-friend-turned-girlfriend.
If you want something , her father likes to say, you either work for it or stop complaining about it. Choose to step away from a problem you cannot solve.
And Cass decided long ago to step away from Alyss Mainwaring.
She opens her laptop with perhaps more force than is necessary, takes a sip of her drink and tries not to yell out loud, but it’s fine. This is fine. Everything is fine.
No, everything is not fine, her brain screams, at war with itself. Every atom in her body aches at knowing Alyss is so close—it’s like there’s a fucking inferno in the corner of the coffee shop, blistering, blazing, burning bright. Cassandra doesn’t know if she wants to run toward or away from the flames.
With a monumental force of will, she turns her attention back to the paper. It’s supposed to be three thousand words long, due in a week, and she’s just barely started. The words swim before her on the screen, stark black and utterly meaningless. Cassandra groans and buries her head in her hands.
Then she hears a quiet laugh and looks up in time to see Alyss throw her head back. The fluorescent light glints off her glasses, framing her eyes like streaks of quicksilver. Cass swallows at the sheer openness of her expression and knows that she is seeing the real Alyss, not the quiet reserved one that she likes to present to the world.
She could lose herself in the curve of Alyss’s neck, the laugh lines crinkling around her eyes, the dark hair falling behind her in waves. Cass’s skin still holds the memory of what it feels like to wind her fingers through it.
In that same moment, she knows that she can never step away from Alyss. Not truly, not ever. Cassandra sees again in her head the way Alyss looked up when the barista called her order. She remembers.
Sure, it could’ve been a coincidence, but Cass is willing to take that bet. In a way, she’s already beaten the odds. Because out of millions of people in thousands of cafés across hundreds of cities, she managed to run into Alyss again, and maybe this is the universe giving her a second chance.
There’s hardly a question as to what to do next. Alyss remembers Cass’s old go-to order, and Cassandra still knows hers.
She stumbles to her feet, almost knocking into an older man on the way to the counter. “A double-shot espresso with caramel sauce, please,” she says to the barista, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she waits for the coffee. The impatience in her crescendoes until it becomes nearly unbearable. Alyss is so close to her— Alyss fucking Mainwaring . She lifts one hand and notes that the tips of her fingers are trembling. Goddammit . When was the last time Cassandra was this nervous about giving someone her number?
She nearly spills the espresso over herself when the barista hands it to her. Swearing under her breath, Cass drops another dollar into the tip jar and thanks the girl profusely. “One more thing,” she says, trying to get her nerves under control. “Do you have a marker or pen of some kind?”
“I think so.” The barista searches her many apron pockets. “Here.” She fishes one out and hands it to Cassandra.
Her hands are shaky as she writes her number on the lid, so that the last 1 almost becomes an L, but it’s fine. The fact that her writing is legible at all right now is a miracle. “Thank you so much,” she says, and makes her way over to Alyss.
She has a split second to choose between two approaches—the Cassandra she is now, or the Cassandra she was when they dated?—but then Alyss looks up, and Cass suddenly feels like a little girl again. An eleven-year-old, to be precise, looking at her best friend and wondering if what she was thinking was no longer entirely friend territory.
“Hey,” she says before Alyss even opens her mouth. Her heartbeat is thundering so loud she can barely hear herself. “I, uh, got you this.” Cass sets the cup on the table a little too hard, so that some of the espresso sloshes out onto the lid. “And… my number, so text me?”
Alyss stares at her like she’s seen a ghost, and Cassandra has never been gladder that her skin is too dark to flush red. “Or, I mean, don’t text me?” Her voice rises awkwardly in pitch, and she coughs, trying to clear her throat. “Either way works—uh, don’t feel obligated, you know, just because I bought you a drink.”
She hesitates for another split second and then turns away, making her escape and leaving both Alyss and Will gaping after her. It’s a struggle to not speed-walk straight out the door.
“Oh my god,” Cass mutters aloud as soon as she’s back out in the snow. “Oh my god, you useless gay idiot.” She pulls her scarf angrily around her face again.
Of course Alyss is the only person on earth she can’t even flirt with. Cassandra spent all of high school hooking up with people to piss off her dad—she has finding hot one-night stands down to a science —but she can’t even look her childhood best friend in the eyes without having a meltdown.
Alyss is never going to text her back, and Cassandra’s going to spend her whole life pining, and it’s going to be fucking awful –
Her phone chimes.
Cass’s heart jumps so high in her chest it hurts. She pulls it out so fast she nearly fumbles it onto the pavement, ripping off her gloves and checking her notifications with painful eagerness.
Aly still uses the same number she had in middle school. The contact picture is of twelve-year-old Alyss, gangly and stick-thin, smile stretched wide with braces. Cassandra swallows back the memory before she actually checks the text:
the way u flirt is shameful.
The text bubble comes up again, and this time it’s a picture that Cass stares at for a solid ten seconds before her brain reboots again. Will must’ve just taken it: Alyss is smiling at the camera, her brown eyes dancing, face resting on one hand, strands of black hair escaping her elegant braid.
Fingers shaking, Cass sets it as her new contact photo. She texts back,
thanks :) get coffee again sometime?
She hits send and puts her phone back in her pocket.
The emotion that rises in her chest feels strangely like hope.