Coffee

I interrupt your boring blog search to bring you… My first guest post! Thank you so much for this Giggles. Suck Read it nerds!

Megan sat at her desk, her leg bouncing up and down faster than she realized, trying to concentrate on her grade 12 physics test. It was so violent, that it started to vibrate the seat next to her. Allison, Miss “I’m so much better than you”, shot Megan a dirty glance over her shoulder as she tried to focus on her own test.

“Quit. It.” Allison hissed as loudly as she dared without Mr. Robinson hearing her and reprimanding her.

Megan tried to still her leg, focusing her nervous energy on her pen instead. Hitting it off her test paper, twirling it around down her fingers and then back up again. The paper kept going in and out of focus. Megan looked at the clock – 9:52 am. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get to Frazer until 10:30, in between second and third period. She knew this was going to happen when she left her house that morning. But she had overslept. She could usually control the cravings if she had a cup of coffee first. The bigger the better. Especially if she had to wait to meet up with Frazer.

Do you remember your first ever cup of coffee? Megan could. At first, she didn’t like it. It was too bitter for her to manage to drink more than a few sips. Over time she built up a tolerance. Her mom’s boyfriend would add a little bit of Bailey’s cream into it if her mom wasn’t around to say no. Now that’s a way to start a morning! A nice big cup of coffee and a little bit of coffee liqueur. Soon it turned into half a cup of coffee, and half a cup of liqueur.

It was hard to believe that was almost three years ago now, just when Megan was starting grade 10. The same year she met Frazer.

Frazer was an interesting sort of guy. Megan’s mom referred to him as an “acquired taste”. You could say that adults viewed him that way since he styled his hair into twelve-inch green spikes, and wore more chains and piercings than any other person Megan had ever met.

Megan and Frazer had first period together in grade 10. When she started to bring a coffee cup to school every morning, he would lift his from across the room in a show of solidarity for their hatred of early classes. They were paired up for a project once when he noticed the smell of the Baileys coming out of her cup.

“A little bit early for an Irish coffee, don’t ya think?” he smirked at her.

Megan, feeling her face flush, tried to stammer out a response. Before she had the chance to form a word, Frazer continued, “I prefer Kahlua myself. It has a much smoother taste.” A smile appeared on Megan’s face, the tension was broken, and the two switched cups to see which really was the better tasting cup of coffee.

Frazer started walking with Megan to class every morning. Each day they would switch off who would bring the coffee. Soon, Megan was finding herself at his table at lunch, with his friends who were all part of “the wrong crowd”, sometimes being a human buffer between a baggie of pills being passed around and the rest of the school cafeteria. Megan didn’t mind, she found their company entertaining.

It wasn’t long until Megan noticed that her coffee and liqueur mornings weren’t enough to get her through the day. Frazer started to notice as well. This was his area of expertise, after all. He needed to be able to read when people needed a little bit more of a boost, or when they needed to be taken down a little bit. With Megan, he slowly introduced a little boost. At first, he didn’t tell her. He brought their regular coffee one morning, but instead of just Kahlua, he decided to just crush up one of his many uppers into the bottom of the cup. Megan soared through the rest of the day. He took notice and made a note to adjust it. Megan had also noticed the boost and had questioned him about it. That wasn’t a part of high school life she wanted to be experimenting with. She was upset at first, but after realizing how much easier her day had been, she told Frazer that as long as it was tiny doses, she’d be fine.

That was grade 10, and it felt like a thousand years ago. Now, Megan had exams and papers and university applications to consider. She had volunteer hours to complete, as well as her responsibilities as student class president. She needed a little bit more than coffee and Bailey’s to keep her going every day. She needed to see Frazer. She needed to get her boost – even if it just meant that her hands would stop their insistent shaking!

Megan looked down at her test. She had answered all the questions she knew the answers to and even made up a few answers along the way. This was physics, if she didn’t know it when she sat down, no amount of imagination would help her out. She breathed a sigh of resignation over itand glanced up at the clock. 10:23 am. Seven more minutes. She might be able to make it seven more minutes.

Vaishnavi, thank you for letting me use your picture for this post!