by Geoff Gouveia

The seat Eric sat in was the seat he always sat in. Eric picked the seat by accident and a healthy dose of divine grace. The seat itself was not special.  Its power lay in the positioning to wait for her to come in.

The first time Eric saw her, he had happened to pause from his sketchbook. A momentary glance and his eyes bounced off the page back towards her. Her blonde hair shone angel white. She stood under the soft luminescent glow- amber around her but vibrant on her. The hair was vivid and California sun-tainted. California had soaked into her roots and then shot out golden beams from the top of her head to her shoulders. Shoulders tanned, her fair arms moved when she smiled her thank you to the barista. Eric saw her and knew, finally, the feeling of longing.

Hidden from her view, Eric could stare at the golden halo without suspicion of social awkwardness. She had the perfect proportions needed to be both wonderful to look at and to touch. How Eric wished he could do more than the first. Always in his mind it played out the same way.

He would walk to her and remark at her scarf color. She would smile. He would laugh a nervous laugh reserved for these moments. It stopped at the laugh, the laugh that lasted forever because his feet never moved towards her. Fate intervened once.

Eric doctored his coffee at the cream station when she walked in that day. A dollar, his green opportunity, dropped from her purse. Eric jumped at it.

“Miss! You dropped your dollar,” he spoke and in his mind, I love you.

She turned.

“Thank you,” she replied aloud while asking silent of herself, how could I drop that?

Geoff Gouveia

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Thank you for reading that story! Here is another one about love and longing.