Chapter Text
The campus coffee shop smelt of burnt espresso and those disgusting pumpkin spice lattes. Erik has already claimed the seat by the window as I walk in, swinging on it, acting like he was the king of the world, he's not. He's far from it.
He looks the same. His short, shaggy black hair and his hazel eyes that never miss anything. The kind of guy that listens, even when he's pretending not to. I wave anyway, because I wave at everyone.
"Late again." He says as I drop onto the chair opposite him.
"Fashionably," I reply, sweeping my hair out of my eyes. It gets annoying having long hair, the weird stares, hard to keep from being tangled or being mistaken for a girl. Like seriously, I'm a guy! My hairs wavy and a bright ginger, easy to spot from far, I guess. I've tried shorter styles before. They never stuck. My hairs part of my personality. Loud, annoying and hard to ignore.
Erik snorts and goes back to his drink.
The barista calls out my name. Enzo, drawn out like a question. And I catch my reflection in the glass as I stand. Green eyes. I've been told they give me away. Too expressive. I've also been told I'm approachable, which is the polite way of saying strangers feel way too comfortable telling me things
I bring my coffee back and keep talking, because silence has never been my thing. I talk with my hands, with my whole body. Leaning forward, leaning back or tapping the table when I get excited. Erik just watches, he always does, like he's cataloguing everything for later.
"You ever notice," I lower my voice, even though nobody listening. "How places like this have their own groups too?"
Erik raises an eyebrow, "You're doing that thing again."
"I always do the thing!"
I glance around the shop. The regulars. A couple who pretends they're not on the verge of breaking up, the group of popular girls and then there's Dianna... That self-centred brat, everything must go her way, it's so annoying. Anyways, I see all of it. That's the downside of being noticeable, you notice everything back.
And siting there, laughing too hard, hair impossible to miss. People won't just remember me as that talkative guy with orange hair.
They will remember me because I was there
Erik's phone buzzes. He flips it face down without looking, which is how I know it's something he has read but doesn't want to talk about.
“That’s healthy” I say. “Very emotionally open of you.”
He sighs. “Can you not psychoanalyse me before noon?”
“No promises.”
I take a sip of my coffee and at once regret it. Too hot. I talk anyways, because pain has never stopped me before. The table wobbles when I lean back, one shorter than the others, like it's always on the verge of giving up
A woman at the counter laughs. Sharp, sudden. Heads turn. Then everything settles back into place, like nothing happened. I watch the people return to their conversations, to their groups, relief written all over them. False alarm. No disruption.
Sounds like I have a pretty normal life, right? Well, I guess. I was just a normal 19-year-old in college. Classes, caffeine, acting like I had everything together. Until someone got murdered, and suddenly normal felt like people used to avoid thinking too hard. Everyone treated it as background noise, something tragic, something just for the news, but I couldn't leave it alone. I kept replaying details, conversations and moments that didn't sit right. I dragged Erik in, telling him my theories and half-formed connections, whilst he just yawned and nodded. He said it wasn't our problem, to leave it to the police.