3

Sally opened the door to Starbucks and walked in, taking a quick look around to see if Zach was already there. Seeing that he wasn’t, she walked up to the counter.
A woman in her early twenties with shoulder length black hair and a smile greeted her in a cheery tone ‘Hi, can I get you anything?’
Sally tried her hardest not to flinch, how happy positive people annoyed her - she probably had a really bubbly personality too, she thought. She took a minute to compose herself before saying ‘Yeah, what’s the hottest thing you have?’
The girl behind the counter looked at her for a second slightly confused but before she could reply, Sally spoke again ‘Actually, don’t answer that. I couldn’t care less what the name of it is, just give me it in the biggest size you have.’
The woman behind the counter nodded and put back on her (now fake) smile and turned around. ‘What a bitch,’ she said to herself under her breath.

Zach pushed open the door of the Starbucks and walked in dripping wet; before he was given a chance to look around he heard Sally speak ‘You’re late...you know I don’t appreciate people being late, especially when they look like they’ve just been swimming.’ She laughed as she took in his appearance.
Zach quickly turned around to see her; Sally was sitting at a nearby table with a cup of coffee she didn’t appear to be drinking. She was wearing a pair of black jeans and a band t-shirt, with a band name on it he didn’t recognise, a long black coat was hanging over the chair behind her; Zach looked at her hair and then spoke ‘Do you change your hair colour as often as your clothes?’
‘Nah, I only dye it every weekend.’
‘Your hair can’t be healthy.’
‘Healthy hair wouldn’t go with the rest of me.’
‘Touché,’ he said.

Just then the woman from the behind the counter came over to Zach ‘Do you want anything?’ She asked smiling.
Before Zach got a chance to even think about it, Sally answered for him, ‘No he’s grand, he’ll have more than enough coffee on him in a second.’ she said with a smirk. The woman looked at them with a confused look for a second before smiling and retreating back behind the counter where she mouthed another curse word about Sally.
‘So am I to assume that, that is the coffee you plan on throwing on me?’ He said with a half-smile, while looking at the cup next to Sally.
Sally picked up the coffee for the first time and took a sip of it before answering ‘Oh no, this has gone far too cold. I’ll need a fresh cup...why don’t you be a gentleman and buy me one?’
‘Not a chance,’ he said with a laugh ‘If I felt like doing something to get myself burnt, I could do it at home for free.’
‘But it wouldn’t be quite as fun for me that way, now would it?’ She said with a smile, ‘Oh well, I guess if you annoy me quickly enough, it will still be warm...so let’s just get this over and done with, shall we?’ She picked up her coffee again and took another small sip, just to make sure it was still warm.

‘So...’ Sally said after Zach had been silent for several minutes, his hair and clothes were still completely soaked from the rain and the manager who had just walked out of the back room seemed quite unimpressed by his appearance (although his sole concern was the damage he could cause to the chairs). ‘You know if you bought something maybe the manager wouldn’t keep looking at you like that.’
‘Or maybe he’d still do it and have my money too, that sounds pretty lose-lose for me, don’t you think?’ Zach replied.
‘Can’t you just be positive for once?’
‘Oh I can...under the sole condition that what I’m being positive about has nothing to do with me or anything remotely relating to me...and I could just as easily ask you the same question.’
‘You could but you haven’t.’
‘And what if I asked it now?’
‘I’d tell you to shut up!’

‘Typical...typical you,’ He said with his tone becoming noticeably more frustrated.
‘How is it typical me?’ She retorted loudly ‘You don’t even know me, nobody knows me, what gives you the right to comment on me and my life Zach?’
‘I know more than enough about you...like how you’re afraid to face life.’
‘I’m not afraid...’ She said her voice nearly turning to a whisper.
‘Then why do you spend all your time asleep?’
‘I don’t...I’m here right now aren’t I? So that completely absolves your theory...’ Sally said attempting to make her tone sound slightly less serious but failing completely. She waited several seconds before saying anything else; ‘You don’t want to get on my nerves Zach; you really don’t.’
‘Why don’t I?’ The second he said it, Sally reached for her coffee cup and threw its contents over Zach ‘God! You bitch!’ He exclaimed as the slightly below scalding coffee hit his skin ‘I thought you said it wasn’t hot!’
‘Oh I was speaking relatively...by hot I meant would scald you enough to leave a permanent mark...but alas, this will have to do,’ She said with obvious pleasure over what said had just done. Over in the corner of the room, the manager let out an audible gasp, his face turning into an aggressive scowl as he walked over to where Zach and Sally were (soon to be no longer) sitting.

Zach stepped back out into the rain, quickly followed by Sally; the manager hadn’t taken too kindly to her covering Zach (and the seat) in coffee, and (not so) kindly asked them to leave and never return, unless of course they felt like paying for the chair themselves (which they obviously didn’t). ‘Damn them...’ Zach said with obvious frustration ‘And damn you, what the hell were you thinking throwing coffee all over me?’
‘Doing exactly what I said I would do, don’t you recall? And anyway, it smells sorta nice don’t you think? An improvement over your norm at least,’ Sally said (still showing signs of the enjoyment she received when she dumped the coffee over him). As she put on her coat, she looked at Zach for a second puzzled and then said ‘Didn’t you have a jacket or a coat or anything with you?’ Zach looked at her, and shook his head. Sally’s mouth opened slightly, and didn’t move again for close to twenty seconds ‘What the hell is wrong with you? It’s winter! You’re just wearing a bloody t-shirt, are you bloody insane? You’ll freeze! Jesus and people say I have problems!’

Zach looked at her for a moment, unsure of exactly what to say, his mind couldn’t understand why Sally seemed to be acting like she actually cared about him; it didn’t make any sense, unless she wasn’t as much of a bitch as she seemed, maybe he really didn’t know her at all like she’d said. Just as he was thinking this his phone rang, taking it out of his pocket he noticed he had a text message from Liz. Sally looked at him curiously, whatever it was that Zach had just received was making him smirk (in what looked more like a real smile than she had ever seen on him before). ‘Hey, apparently we’re having sex right now, just thought I’d let you know because apparently it’s sort of a big deal’ he said putting the phone back in his pocket.
‘Really?’ She said ‘Sure feels different from the last time.’ She noticed Zach laugh, she wondered if that really was a real laugh, or maybe Zach was just becoming a better actor, still; she couldn’t help but wonder. ‘So who’s spreading that nasty rumour?’
‘Wait, Nasty? Should I feel insulted by that?’
‘Not if you’ve already come to terms with just how unattractive you really are; I’ve never been attracted to the swimmer look much myself.’’

‘Oh look at yourself, in case you haven’t noticed you’re soaked to the bone too.’ He was right; the rain was getting heavier every second, she was nearly as wet as him except she didn’t smell like she used coffee-scented shower-gel and shampoo.
‘We should probably get out of this rain then...I live nearby if you want to go there...’ She said, Zach didn’t know what to think for a second, this didn’t exactly seem like the Sally he (thought he) knew, she seemed more open or at least not hiding her emotions in the same way; then again he (and everyone else in the school) only ever knew her from a distance, he couldn’t remember the last time someone spoke more than a couple of sentences to her (including the teachers, they just seemed to leave her be). ‘...well you still want to talk don’t you? My house is warm, well at least warmer than here, a lot less wet too and anyway if we go there I can make more coffee in case you annoy me some more.’
‘All right...I guess...what have I got to lose?’
‘Just your skin, but don’t worry it doesn’t look that good anyway.’ she said as she began to walk away; Zach followed her, already rethinking his decision.

Zach had to admit Sally’s house was not what he was expecting to it to be, then again he wasn’t sure what he really did expect it to be, maybe a little more mysterious, in a way that fitted in with Sally’s personality but this house just didn’t, it seemed normal, regular, on a street where every house was painted the exact same colour, no this was too normal, too conformed to be where Sally lived; and yet the door opened when she put her key into it. She started rubbing her feet on the doormat to try to dry them a little (to no avail) and then signalled for Zach to come in. The inside of the house was the same as the outside, just as regular, nothing out of the ordinary. Zach wondered if it was possible that she’d just stolen the key off someone, and that soon she’d disappear into the other room only for him to be greeted several minutes later with the sound of Garda cars coming to arrest him for Breaking and Entering; that would explain why she was (seemingly) acting so out of character. ‘Go in here for a few minutes and I’ll be right back,’ he heard her say as she was pointing to a room, that appeared to be the sitting room; Zach nodded and walked in.

As he sat down, Zach started to survey the room, again nothing out of the ordinary, a couch, a couple of arm chairs, a TV, some photos on the wall; he stopped at the photos, there was something about them that caught his eye but he wasn’t sure what it was. He stood up and made his way over to the set that were just by the TV to try and get a closer look. Again, (along with everything else in the house) they were regular pictures, nothing out of the ordinary about them; they were photos of a family (father, mother and daughter) on holiday, probably in Spain, or Portugal, maybe Italy, some country were temperatures above twenty-five degrees were not just an urban-legend but more an everyday reality, nothing that explained why they caught his eye.

Then he realised what had caught his attention about the photos, it wasn’t that they were out of the ordinary, it was that they were ordinary, and that was strange because the little girl in the photo was Sally; there was no mistaking it, that ordinary little girl with the open-mouthed smile, natural hair-colour, bright-coloured clothes, things that’d he’d never seen on Sally (granted he’d never seen her outside of school uniform before but he still couldn’t imagine her wearing anything similar to this outfit), she looked like an average thirteen maybe fourteen year old girl, these photos couldn’t have been more than four years old and yet the girl in them was in no single way the Sally he (thought he) knew.

Just then he heard Sally enter the room carrying a cup, ‘Who’s the coffee for?’ he enquired.
‘Well for the moment it’s for me, but if you need some more I won’t hesitate to provide it for you.’ She replied, Zach couldn’t tell if she was teasing him or not, part of him hoped that she was and her tone of voice seemed to support that but he’d already had enough coffee on him today to decide that maybe he shouldn’t take any more chances. Sally sat down in one of the armchairs and looked at him inquisitively; ‘Oh...’ he said looking at the pictures again ‘did you not want me to see those?’
‘Well my parents will be happy you saw them; that’s why they have them up there, me on the other hand...’ Her voice trailed off and seemed to have no intention of continuing.
‘You don’t like them?’ He asked.
‘I don’t like how I look in them,’ she said, starting to get slightly defensive.
‘You look normal.’
‘Yeah, that’s exactly it, I look normal in those, but I’m not normal and haven’t been normal for a long time.’
‘What happened?’
‘Life,’ she said her voice almost completely emotionless.

Zach tried to think of a reply but couldn’t, he knew he should say something but he couldn’t think what, all he knew was that he understood what she was saying perfectly, part of him wanted to tell her that but another part didn’t because he knew that would probably lead the conversation into a place where both of them would have to be a lot more open about everything and he just wasn’t ready for that yet. All today had taught him was that he really didn’t know Sally at all, too much about what he thought about her was wrong, and right now he wasn’t sure which bits could be right. With that the conversation died, Zach stood by the pictures looking at the normal young teenage girl in the them, trying to figure out how that could ever be Sally, and Sally sat in the armchair slowly drinking her coffee not uttering another word, because she feared that she had already said too much.