Chapter 5: Coffee
1163 Words
The weekend passed slowly.
Not unpleasantly — Peter dragged Abdullahi and me to a college football game on Saturday that Abdullahi attended with polite tolerance and Peter attended like a man whose life depended on the outcome. Sunday was quieter. Laundry, leftover pizza, a chapter of reading I kept losing my place in.
By Monday morning I was ready for Tuesday.
Which was a strange thing to admit, even privately.
---
Tuesday came.
I arrived at Room 204 earlier than necessary and sat in the same middle row. Not the same seat — one seat to the right of where I had been Friday, which felt like a reasonable adjustment without being obvious about anything.
Prisca arrived seven minutes before the hour.
Without Dora this time.
She came in alone, scanning the room briefly, and when she found me her expression did its usual thing — neutral recognition, small adjustment, nothing performed. She moved down the row and sat in the same seat as Friday, which put her directly beside me again.
"Dora?" I asked.
"Dropped the course," Prisca said, unpacking her notebook. "She decided Research Methods conflicted with her Thursday internship schedule so she swapped it for Media Ethics."
"She didn't mention that Friday."
"She didn't know Friday." Prisca uncapped her pen. "Dora makes decisions at speed."
---
Ellis was sharper than Friday — moving faster, demanding more, calling on people without warning. The lecture covered sampling methodology and research design and it was genuinely interesting in the way that things are interesting when someone who actually cares about them explains them.
Prisca kept up easily today. No diagrams needed.
But at one point, when Ellis shifted to discussing bias in self-reported data, Prisca leaned slightly toward me and said, quietly, "She's going to make this class difficult."
"Probably," I said.
Prisca looked at me sideways. Caught the echo of her own word. A small smile — gone quickly, but real.
---
After class we fell into step naturally.
No negotiation, no suggestion from either side. Just the same rhythm as Friday — two people leaving the same room, moving in the same direction, for a little while.
"Are you heading back?" I asked.
"I need coffee first," she said. "There's a place on Harlow Avenue. I can't do a Tuesday afternoon without coffee."
A beat passed.
I was not certain whether that was an invitation or just information. Prisca delivered both in the same even tone.
"I know that place," I said. "I go there most mornings."
She glanced at me. "Then you know it's worth the detour."
That, I decided, was close enough to an invitation.
---
Harlow Brew was small and warm and smelled like every good decision ever made. It had exposed brick walls, mismatched chairs, and a chalkboard menu that changed weekly. The kind of place that felt settled into itself, unbothered by trends.
We ordered at the counter — Prisca got a flat white, I got black coffee, and she looked at my cup with brief assessment.
"Black," she said.
"Is that a problem?"
"No opinion. Just noting." She picked up her cup. "You seem like someone with strong preferences."
We found a small table by the window — not the same window energy as the registrar's hall, but something about it felt quietly circular. I didn't mention that.
"Strong preferences," I repeated. "Is that good or bad?"
"Depends on the preference." She wrapped both hands around her cup. "What's your major?"
"Social Sciences. Concentrating in sociology." I leaned back. "You?"
"Same faculty. Communications and media."
"That explains the course swap logic. Media Ethics makes more sense for your track."
She nodded. "Dora's pre-law underneath the chaos. She just takes whatever interests her until junior requirements force her hand."
I smiled. "That sounds exactly like Dora."
"You've known her two days."
"She's legible," I said. "Within the first conversation."
Prisca considered that. "She is," she agreed. "Most people take longer to understand that what looks like chaos is actually just confidence." She paused. "She liked you, by the way."
"Dora?"
"She told me Sunday. Said you had good instincts." A small beat. "Coming from Dora, that is a significant endorsement."
Something about that landed warmly. Not because of Dora specifically — but because Prisca had mentioned it. Had chosen to pass it along.
"What about you?" I asked.
She looked at me over her cup. Even. Unhurried. "What about me?"
"Same question, different source. What's your read?"
A quiet moment passed. Outside the window, Harlow Avenue moved at its usual Tuesday pace — students, cyclists, a delivery truck navigating the narrow street.
"You're observant," she said finally. "Careful with words, mostly. You listen before you talk, which is rarer than it should be." She set her cup down. "And you shared your notes without being asked, which either means you're genuinely generous or you were looking for a reason to interact."
The directness of it — clean and unhurried — caught me slightly off guard.
"Can it be both?" I said.
She held my gaze for a moment. Then the corner of her mouth moved.
"It can be both," she said.
---
We stayed for forty minutes.
Not by design — the conversation just continued finding new ground without forcing it. She told me she was from Portland originally, moved to Boston for school, had one younger brother named Caleb who was sixteen and already taller than her. I told her I was from Chicago, that my parents had disagreed about everything except the Cubs, and that I had chosen Harlow specifically because it was far enough from home to feel like a separate life.
She listened the way she did everything — fully, without performing it.
At some point the light through the window had shifted, the afternoon pulling toward early evening.
She looked at the time and gathered her things.
"I have a reading group at five," she said.
"I'll walk out with you."
On the sidewalk outside, the air had the particular sharpness of a Boston afternoon going cold at the edges. She pulled her jacket slightly closer.
"Same class Friday," I said.
"Same class Friday," she confirmed.
She started walking. Then — and I was beginning to understand this was simply how she moved through departures — she half-turned without fully stopping.
"Next time I'm buying the coffee, Daniel."
Then she faced forward.
I stood on the sidewalk outside Harlow Brew and did not move for a moment.
*Next time.*
She had said next time.
---
I called Peter before I was even back at the apartment.
"She said next time," I said, without greeting.
A pause. Then — "Next time what?"
"Coffee. She said next time she's buying."
Another pause. Longer. Then Peter's voice, with great solemnity: "Daniel. She likes you."
"You don't know that."
"Next time means she's already planning the next time. That is not ambiguous."
I didn't answer.
"Are you smiling?" he asked.
"No."
"You're smiling."
I was.
- Writer
