Better Than Home

Raindrops pattered against the window, and the sun hid behind grey clouds. The street lights flickered, lighting up the dark road. People scurried along the sidewalk, armed with umbrellas. Amongst all the footsteps and raindrops, was a small coffee shop, the LED lights like stars shining in the night sky.

The fairy lights glimmered against the jagged brick wall, the fragrance of cinnamon and coffee enveloped the room. Baristas rushed around like bees, buzzing to get their work done. Customers chattered in their stools, faced parallel to one another. 

"Welcome to MarBucks!" Paris sighed as he watched the customer scan the menu, wiping the sweat from his hands with a dirty rag.

The customer slouched her leather bag down from her shoulder, struggling to take out a brown wallet because her hair was tangled in between the zipper. She spoke in short breaths. "A pumpkin spice latte, please."

Paris turned around, repeating the order in a voice lower than a shout to his half brother and sister, who were behind him awaiting their next order.

His head spun like a blender, mixing in with the nausea and sweat. But he didn't care, working was much better than going home. The wonderful smells of the coffee shop wavered around his nose, and he put the dirty rag down. 

"Your order will arrive soon.’’ he tapped his finger against the smooth marble counter, running his other hand through his coarse, dark brown hair.

Soon it would be 9:00, and MarBucks would close.

He lived in MarBucks. It was a family business. He wasn't born into it, but it was a foster home.

He had to work. He had to keep working, he had a job to do. But he couldn't stop thinking about how his life was fine one day, then not the next. It was like trying to solve a puzzle with the wrong puzzle board. He kept trying to fit the pieces of his life into others. All he did was mess it up. And he only broke his puzzle pieces more, to the point they were useless. 

Paris froze. He told Inaya and Zahir that he was going to take a break, and ordered a coffee for himself before sitting down on one of the polished barstools. He sat there, and all of the laughing, talking, and drinking drowned out. He remembered, or at least tried to remember, what went wrong. 

The sounds of people talking seemed to drown out as he waded through his ocean of memories. He wasn't in the coffee shop anymore. He was back in his old foster home, walking through the busy halls of Conway High.

“Hey Paris!” A squeaky voice said, loud enough for everybody to crane their necks for a second.

Paris walked throughout a busy hall of high schoolers, him blending in perfectly with his black hoodie and denim jeans. The lockers faced across to each other, a busy crowd of teens filling in the hallway. Similar to MarBucks, but also entirely different. He opened his locker and ignored the squeaky voice.

Her name was Varicella, and she was always bothering everyone, mostly him. 

Paris had been in his Conway Springs foster home for most of his life. He arrived there when he was only 7, because his parents were 'unfit' for him. His best friend was Varicella, but as he grew up, people formed “groups”. Each group had its own stereotype to follow, and there wasn’t any bullying between each other, just an awkward separation between them. 

Varicella didn’t have a group. She believed in having her own group. 

He always tried to avoid her, because she was always attracting attention, and not the good type of attention. 

What he didn’t know was every time he treated her like he didn't know her, a little part of her broke.

It wasn't bullying.

It had been nothing more than an awkward separation.

Again.

Again.

And again.

Shut up.

“Go away!” Paris moved his hand out of instinct, pushing her to the floor. She had a look of shock plastered to her face. 

Varicella said nothing. Before she got up and walked away, she turned around, in hopes of a “sorry”, but he said nothing. She deserved it.

Plus, he could always say sorry the next day.

Right?

But there was no next day for Varicella. That day she walked through an isolated route instead of taking the usual bus or subway. She wasn’t in the mood to.

 An ostracized person like her was a perfect victim. It was so easy to just drown her in chloroform, to just take her away. 

She wasn’t at school the next day.

Or the next.

Or the next.

He could’ve said sorry. Maybe she would’ve taken the bus, or the subway, instead of walking down the alley. Maybe she would’ve still been here. Maybe they would have their own group. 

If he said sorry, she wouldn’t feel lonely. She wouldn’t have gone down a lonely route.  

Maybe she would get kidnapped anyways.

It wasn’t his fault, maybe she still would have gone down the alley route either ways.

It wasn’t his fault.

It wasn’t.

There was nothing he could do about it.

Nothing at all.

An enthusiastic voice broke through his web of thought. “Breaks over pal, you gotta go to bed!"

That's the thing. He couldn't go to bed. His family treated him like a wounded puppy. They acted like they were best friends when Varicella got abducted. They hid it from everyone, pretended that he was their child. They made it seem like he didn't run away from his old foster home, and that time would heal his wounds. He was a secret. He couldn't ruin their reputation. They acted like he cared.

He didn’t care.

He didn’t care.

he didn't care.

His puzzle was unsolvable.

No, not unsolvable.

Broken.

The noisy chattering died down as people began to leave. The rain pattered just like before, and the store shone just as bright. But without the liveliness of MarBucks, it was just a coffee shop. Paris brushed his fingers along the mahogany chairs, grabbing his coat and his free coffee beans. He pushed the door open, the cold metal leaving his hands moist. 

There was no home for him. He was going to get sent to boarding school soon anyways.

He had to go. He had to get away.

The warm smell of the coffee shop began to fade as he trudged down the sidewalk, gravel crunching under his leather boots. His hoodie didn’t seem to give him the shelter he needed, and the raindrops seeped through the denim, dampening his hair. 

It was cold. And dark. But it was better than going home.