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Important Note: If you notice that this novel is strikingly similar to one you read by NiftyNovelist...that's because it is. I shut down my NiftyNovelist account because I figured if I have active stories on both accounts, it's easier and more logical to just have one active account with all my stories. So...there you go.
Enjoy! And make sure to review...I like to know what my readers think.
Everything began the day I had first seen him standing on the subway platform staring at me as if I had been the only person around. I remembered that day vividly. It had been the day everything began changing.
It was raining again, as it always did. Water droplets pelted the ground as I weaved a path through the black sea of bobbing umbrellas. Soaking my clothing and plastering my shoulder-length brown hair to my head, the water ran down my body like a sheet, pouring from my fingertips and dripping from my nose. Taxis, city buses, and cars filled the streets with a cacophony of angry noises and rude displays of road rage. They ran through the large puddles forming on the street, creating sprays of water that arced away from the vehicle, soaking passing pedestrians who chose to walk too close to the curb.
The walk to the subway station, although only a few blocks from the animal shelter where I worked, seemed far too long. I had left my apartment that morning without my umbrella, the weatherman predicting sunny skies and fluffy clouds, and now regretted not having it with me. By the time I descended the numerous concrete steps into the belly of the city’s subway system, my long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans clung to me like a glove, and my shoes created wet squelching noises with every step I took, leaving puddles of water in my wake.
My subway train waited patiently on its tracks. I boarded it, stepping over the strip of yellow safety paint, thankful for the quiet of a nearly empty car after an afternoon spent in the company of barking dogs. Moving to the back of the subway car, I slumped tiredly in a seat and closed my eyes, resting my head against the window, the vibration from the engine jostling my head. The peace of the moment washed over me like a wave of warm water, urging me to forget the stress school and work had brought. However, my quiet moment to myself ended abruptly when a mother with a screaming child took the seat next to me. Politely, I scooted over, allowing room for her numerous shopping bags, and stared out the window.
I let my eyes relax slowly, the edges of my vision blurring, and gazed at the window’s reflection. A young woman with layered, shoulder-length brown hair, and big blue eyes stared back at me. Faint dark spots shadowed the skin beneath her eyes, and I rubbed tiredly at them, before refocusing to watch the people on the platform. A small crowd of subway riders convened around the subway, talking on cell phones, checking departure times on the chart affixed to the wall, and boarding one of the many subway cars waiting on the track.
Off to the side, an elderly couple stood waiting for their turn to board. Hand in hand, they exchanged loving gazes, their wrinkled features crinkling gently as the devotion for each other shined through. Watching them, I smiled as a distant, faded memory of another similar couple floated up from the depths of my memory. They reminded me strongly of my first foster family, the first of many. Sighing, I kept watching as they boarded a car far down the tracks and disappeared from my line of vision.
The couple out of sight, my eyes roamed over the heads of the people still standing on the platform, pausing on each face for a split second before moving on to the next.
And that was when I saw him.
He couldn’t have been much older than me, standing among the milling crowd of passengers like an island. Spiky black hair covered his head, and liquid-silver eyes bored steadily into my own oceanic blue ones. Although he wasn’t much taller than the passengers moving around him, he seemed to stick out from the crowd like a sore thumb, his wildly spiked hair contrasting sharply with the primly composed hair of the men and woman surrounding him.
With my car swaying back and forth, the train began to move, first slowly before gradually building speed. Noticing a strange marking on the young man’s neck, I craned my neck, wanting to see it better. However, my attempts proved futile as the mark became obscured as another subway passenger passed in front of him. Sighing in defeat, I sat back in the chair, my eyes still lingering on the young man. As the train built momentum, the station began to speed out of sight as did the young man still watching me.
“I saw him again,” I said, glancing up at him.
He paused in wiping down the table next to mine, adjusting the black monogrammed apron the café required employees to wear, and looked at me briefly. A few strands of his shaggy brown hair fell into his eyes, and he frowned, a single crease forming in the normally smooth skin between his eyebrows. “Who? The guy with silver eyes you told me about the other day?”
“Yeah, he was across the street from me when I was walking here.” I watched as my friend threw the damp rag into the bucket next to the counter, untie the apron from around his waist, glance at the clock on the far wall, and prepare to take his break. He tossed his apron onto the table, the silver nametag pinned to the front, reading Marlo Del Luche, clinked against the tabletop.
“This is third time you’ve seen him, right?” Marlo plopped down into the wooden chair across from me and leant back, balancing on the chair’s back two legs. The vintage Woodstock t-shirt he had found at a thrift store the other day rode up slightly, revealing a fading summer tan, as he linked his fingers behind his head.
“Fourth…the fourth time I’ve seen him in three days,” I corrected him.
Marlo frowned and dropped his arms into his lap. “Ella, I really think you should go to the police. This guy might be trouble.”
“Why? He hasn’t exactly done anything,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee, deciding to add yet another packet of sugar to the already sweetened liquid.
“What if he does do something?”
“But he hasn’t.”
“But what if he does? You do live alone,” Marlo insisted, fiddling with a few coffee creamer tubs scattered across the table. His eyes met mine for a brief pleading moment before returning to the table.
“Marlo,” I said, reaching out and grabbing his hand. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. I have been doing it my whole life.”
His murky green eyes met mine again, and a small sigh of defeat escaped his lips. “I know you grew up fending for yourself half of the time, but I still worry about you sometimes, especially in this city,” he said, resting his chin in his palm.
I watched as he concentrated on stacking coffee creamer tubs, one on top of the other, while shadows of worry crossed his eyes. When he finished the tower, Marlo halfheartedly poked at it, and the precariously balanced tower came tumbling down. In the two years that I had known Marlo, I hated it most when he worried about me like this.
Sighing, I poked him gently in the shoulder. “You know, you’re going to give yourself wrinkles if you keep worrying about me like this,” I said, wanting him to smile.
However, my efforts proved to be in vain.
“Look,” I said leaning in towards him, “if this guy does do anything to me…even talk to me…I’ll go to the police.”
Marlo seemed to consider my offer, chewing his bottom lip slightly as he thought it over. After a moment of contemplation, he finally looked up. “Do you promise?”
Smiling, I made a small ‘x’ over my heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Pinky swear it?” he said, a small grin showing up on his face.
I grinned widely and held up my right pinky finger, hooking it with Marlo’s and gave it a firm squeeze. “I pinky swear.”
The door to the café opened, letting in a small gust of cool autumn air and jingled the string of bells tied to the door handle. A petite young woman with a mess of curly black hair knotted into a bun entered the café and arrived at our table, dropping her things on the floor beside one of the chairs. Unbuttoning the large black buttons on her dark gray wool coat, she shrugged out of it, draping it over the back of the chair next to me and sat down.
“Hey guys,” she said, adjusting the black knee-length skirt she wore.
“Hey Amy,” Marlo and I said in return.
“I was wondering when you’d get here.” I glanced at the clock on the far wall over the counter, noticing she had arrived nearly ten minutes later than she normally did.
“Yeah, sorry about that, my lecture ran over. My professor just kept on talking and talking and talking,” Amy laughed, making wild gestures with her hands. “I thought she’d never stop.”
“I hate when that happens,” Marlo remarked. “It’s like they think we don’t have anywhere else to be.” Standing from the table, he grabbed his apron and slipped it over his head, reaching behind his back to tie the strings. “Well, my break’s up. I’ll have to talk to you two later on.”
“All right,” Amy said as I waved.
Marlo returned to work, stepping behind the counter to help take orders from the line of customers waiting, and Amy left soon after to buy herself a cup of coffee. She returned moments later with a steaming cup in one hand and a bottle of chocolate syrup in the other.
“So, what were you guys talking about earlier?” she asked, dumping three tubs of creamer into her coffee before adding a hefty dollop of chocolate syrup. “You two looked so serious when I came in,”
“Well, the other day I saw this guy staring at me on the subway platform.”
“Yeah? And…” she waved her hand, gesturing for me to continue.
“And…” I said, tracing the rim of my half empty coffee cup with my finger. “I’ve seen him every day since then.”
Amy looked at me slyly over the brim of the coffee cup she drank from, wagging her eyebrows up and down suggestively. “Was he cute?”
“What kind of a question is that?” I half-laughed, fully expecting Amy to ask that question.
“A perfectly viable question,” she retorted, drinking her chocolate-laced coffee while continuing to watch me over the brim of her cup. “Now, was he cute?”
I considered her question for a moment, my hands poised over my cup, soaking up the waves of warmth still radiating from the liquid.
“I suppose,” I said, and predictably Amy squealed, clapping her hand together excitedly.
“But it’s not like I’m interested in him or anything,” I hastily added, not wanting her to get any wrong ideas.
Amy set her cup down and rested one of her manicured hands over mine, the classy overhead lights reflecting off the glossy finish. “Oh honey, I know that. Honestly, if you were interested in him, I’d be a little concerned.”
Relieved, I nodded.
“Plus,” she added. “You don’t even know him. He might be your total opposite.” Her bright, blue eyes stared at me meaningfully before turning sly and mischievous. “However,” she said, grinning like a cat that had just spotted a mouse, “if you were to suddenly become interested in Marlo…I’d fully support you.”
Shaking my head wearily, I closed my eyes, resting my forehead in my palm.
“Amy, Marlo and I are just friends,” I said for what must have been the hundredth time in the year and a half that I’ve known her. “Just friends,” I repeated, emphasizing each word heavily.
“Personally,” she said, leaning her forearms on the table, “I think Marlo wants something more.” Amy nodded her head over to the counter where Marlo stood taking people’s orders, relaying them to the girl standing behind him, making and pouring the coffee.
I glanced at him, and he grinned boyishly at me, his straight white teeth showing, and handed a steaming to-go paper cup of coffee to the woman across from him. Hesitantly, I returned his smile, not fancying where the conversation headed.
“I think you’d make a cute couple.” Amy glanced between Marlo and me several times. “A very cute couple.”
“I think you think about me and Marlo too much.” I shook my head in disbelief.
A wide grin spread across Amy’s face, and her eyes lit up. “So you admit there’s a you and Marlo.”
Groaning, I rested my head in my hands.
“No. We’re just friends, Amy. Just friends,” I said, stressing the last two words.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes…”
“Because I’m sure things would work out between you two…if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.
Shaking my head, I stared Amy directly in the eye. “I just don’t see him in that way.”
Amy studied me for a moment, her red painted lips pursing, before speaking. “Ok, if that’s what you want, dear,” she said disbelievingly before turning to look at the clock. “Oh, I need to leave for work. Mary’s called in sick, so I’m covering her shift too.” Amy gulped down the last of her coffee and placed the cup and bottle of chocolate syrup on the front counter before returning to the table, crouching down next to me.
“You have a good night, sweetie.” She slung one arm over my shoulders and squeezed.
I bid her a goodnight, promising I would call her the next day. She straightened up, waved goodbye to Marlo, and left the café, the bells on the door jingling as she departed. For a few moments, my eyes lingered on the glass-paneled door, a barrage of thoughts racing through my mind and nagging at my consciousness. I let them hang from the edges of my mind before shaking my head, returning to the reality of the present.
Lazily, I finish the rest of my coffee while watching Marlo at the counter as he wiped the surface down with a white cloth, shifting glass jars of cookies and biscotti to the side as he worked. Feeling my eyes on him, he looked up and smiled at me, a lock of brown hair falling into his eyes that soon was brushed to the side with his hand. Heat crept up my cheeks, igniting my face in a burning embarrassment, and I hastily looked away. Biting the corner of my lip, I slid my cup, vacant of any coffee, back and forth between my hands on the table. My eyes darted uncomfortably around the café before coming to a stop on my half-open bag. Standing from the table, I quickly grabbed my things and threw my bag over my shoulder. Depositing my empty coffee cup among the other dirty cups and plates sprinkled with cookie crumbs on the counter, I waved to Marlo and left the café.
Night fell quickly in the city, the waning sunlight being blocked by the tall buildings clustered closely together in such a small space. By the time I walked the short distance to my apartment, artificial light had begun to brighten the streets, pooling on the paved streets and sidewalks like puddles. As darkness began to claim the streets, the more seedy inhabitants of the city began to emerge from the shadows, slinking down the streets and merging with the few business men and women still present at this time of night. With a quick apprehensive glance at the people on the sidewalk, I opened the door to my building and quietly slipped inside.
However, before the door closed, I caught a glimpse of a familiar head of black, spiky hair standing across the street, his eyes meeting mine, only to be broken by the door shutting.