Ailish Delaney
The beginning. I was reading in a cafÊ when I heard the scratch of the bar stool next against the floor as it was dragged out. It was you who sat down. You were drinking a flat white with one sugar, which I later learned was your regular. You smiled at me as you sat down, as if to say hello. We sat in silence for a while, you were writing notes about something in a journal. That was the first time I saw you. The next time I saw you was in the same coffee shop a week later. It was this time that you started a conversation, after all you had sat next to me on the same stool again. This was the first time I really looked at you. I saw your slightly shaggy hair and the way the skin around your eyes creased when you smiled. I noticed the freckles that dotted your cheeks and the lopsided grin I’d later fall in love with. Your eyes were a piercing blue yet warm and welcoming. I wanted to get to know you and apparently you thought the same of me. It was in spring that we began. A season of firsts and of blooming. We had our first date, the typical dinner and a movie. We grew together and learnt who the other really was. Your favourite colour was blue, mine red. You wanted to live in Canada someday, so did I. Your favourite movie was Mad Max, mine was We Bought a Zoo. You liked to read, had one sibling, loved animals, and wanted to travel. We were caught up in our own world, trying to take it all in as fast as we could. We wanted to know everything about each other. local riot magazine // 117