33rd and First

She had lived thirty-three different lives, yet she was still an absolute failure.

“No, wait. That came out wrong.” Spencer groaned, removing his metal frames to rub both temples.

But it was too late, it came out.

Aya felt like he had taken a vacuum and sucked the air from her lungs. And then sent it straight back at her ears. She couldn’t tell if the crowded cafe had gone quiet or if the noise had been drowned out by the wind roaring down her canals. If only that wind could blow across her face. She thought she could probably fry an egg on her cheek if she wanted to.

“Oh, it came out how you meant it,” She waved dismissively before folding her arms across the thick knit of her cream sweater. “I get it. You’ve known me my whole life and I’ve accomplished nothing.”

Her eyes wandered The Magic Bean, looking anywhere but at her closest friend. The walls were lined with bookshelves, spines of all colors and sizes, plants and random items acting as bookends—a dusty typewriter here, a golden lighthouse there. Anywhere there weren’t shelves, there were clocks of all shapes, ticking at different times, and eclectic frames—some housing art, some with quotes, and some with nothing but the brick behind it.

“That's not what I meant,” Spencer urged, satin sleeves reaching across the uneven mosaic table, but Aya only pushed farther back against her iron chair. Any more force and both the metal and her body would have met the concrete floor. That would have been the second thing to knock her off her feet that day.

“You know I care about you, Aya,” His dark brows furrowed as he leaned back against the plush of his chair before crossing an ankle over his tailored slacks. He cleared his throat and studied Aya, who sat two feet from him, but now a world away. “I just think it’s time that you—”

“This really isn’t necessary.” Aya placed both hands on the cool bumpy surface.

As though the shameful conversation wasn’t enough, her chair wanted a piece of her dignity too. It screeched as she stood, announcing her hasty exit to all—though it hadn’t slipped past Aya that the adjacent tables had been sipping their drinks too casually, too quietly.

On the back of her chair hung a shearling jacket in vintage mauve, detailed with embroidered flowers—petals of deep scarlet and golden ochre, stems and leaves of forest green. Her fingers grasped the soft cream fur of the collar.

“Oh come on, Aya, don’t be like that. Don’t leave.” Spencer sat forward.

As she pulled each sleeve over an arm, she examined, for the third time that day, the sill of the stained-glass window beside their table. This was her favorite seat in the cafe because of what sat on that sill: an old chess board with an unfinished game and a happy peace lily in a swan pot, perched upon a pile of books.

“Relax, Spence. It’s not about you.” She slung her leather hobo bag, worn and filled with everything she needed, onto her tired shoulder. “I just have somewhere to be, that’s all. I’ll see you next week?”

“Yeah alright, Aya.” He sighed and took a long sip of his coffee. Before he could place the ceramic mug back down, Aya had muttered a quick farewell and turned to flee from her favorite coffee shop.

She wove her way through the maze of diverse tables and chairs, hand maneuvering her bag to keep from whacking the back of unassuming heads, the occasional "excuse me” from her lips. Her gaze caught on the quote next to the door, as it always had, in ominous medieval font it read: “The Stars incline, but do not bind.”

She pushed the creaky black doors open and rushed into the autumn breeze. White Sonys slipped over her ears, the color a stark contrast against her auburn waves, and with nowhere to be, she began her walk home leisurely.

The space between where she was coming from and where she was going was her favorite place to be. She could exist without expectation. She could witness the leaves change from green to shades of red and watch them as they danced their way down to the street. She could listen to her latest favorite song for the 33rd time.

A car zoomed by, chilling Aya with a gust of wind and she pulled her coat tighter, wrapping her arms around her waist. Clouds reflected by a puddle dispersed as her heavy boot slapped against the surface. Her music could not drown out Spencer’s words, they bounced around in her head.

She knew as he said the words that they were true. It was nothing she hadn’t already said to herself. Yes, she was a failure. No, he hadn’t said those exact words, but he might as well have.

“I always had this feeling that you’d grow up to do something big. What happened, Aya?”

She knew that he didn’t know about her thirty-three lives—all her accomplishments, some of her failures. But she had loved them all, because they were hers. She swore to herself she was content, how was it that she was still empty?

She caught her reflection in the window of Twice Sold Tales, rows and rows of loved books beyond the glass.

Aya had been a successful author, she had written best-sellers that moved people and changed lives. She did what she loved from the comfort of her cozy beachside cottage. Her desk set before a large glass pane, soft pale hills and salty rolling waves beyond it. She thought up worlds and wrote them on pages to share from her plush, ergonomic chair with a cup of warm coffee in her favorite alphabet mug. The parts she hadn’t loved, like the marketing campaign tours, weren’t all that bad because she met her readers and that only fueled her to write more.

Aya smiled fondly. A flash of black caught her eye—above one of the shops, a black cat sat behind an open window, watching the street below.

It reminded her of the cat she once had, Quill, but she would have never allowed him to sit near the open window like that. He went everywhere with her, even to the studio she had for her small business—it sat above a store on a cobblestone street much like this one. Large windows, light oak floorboards, and art supplies organized on Ikea pegboards. The light would change from bright to a warm soft glow as she sat in that studio, sipping matcha from the cafe down the street, designing products that made her—and her customers—smile. She was busy, overworked, and was never able to clear her inbox; but she was happy.

Aya passed Treasure Thrift, the door propped open, a sign that read: “Looking for Treasure? Find it here.” A girl passed by at the same time, talking to a Canon on a small tripod. “...so excited to set up the new place, but first I wanted to grab coffee from this cute little place up the street…”

Aya remembered how at home she once felt talking to a camera. She would go on, discussing her many thoughts on life and documenting her adventures. It didn’t matter what content she made, her followers loved to experience life alongside her and that’s what had made her feel so fulfilled. She filmed in daylight, but what no one had seen were the hours spent in the dead of night editing her footage. The glow of her screen on her face as she found the perfect splice, the perfect font, the perfect moment. Sometimes she would discover new things about herself. But filming her whole life came at a price. Cancel culture did not leave her unscathed and the guilt of her ignorant teen years nearly ate her alive.

She moved to an isolated cottage in the forest with nothing but her saved funds to hide from the public eye, but found herself falling in love with the farmer next door. She lived a quiet, slow life, and took videos of their children instead.

All of these lives that Aya held close, she knew them by heart. She could see them like they had happened just yesterday.

Her sole scuffed against the pavement as she halted to a stop. Holding out a palm to the sky, she felt it again.

A drop.

Then another.

Until it became a rhythmic patter against stone.

Tilting her head up, she could see the individual drops as they fell.

Coming from somewhere, heading the same way.

Her gaze caught on the shiny street signs above her.

At the corner of 33rd and First, she decided to run.

Boots slapped against wet rock as Aya ran the three blocks home. Breath clouded, chest heaving, ears hot beneath foam cushions.

She burst into her tiny apartment, dropping her bag before the door could swing shut. Shedding her wet coat, she kicked off her squeaky boots and tossed her headset on the pile of mail on the kitchen counter. She scrambled around her cozy space, things falling and toppling over as she searched through her things.

She tore paper into five small pieces and scribbled on them.

Between her heavy wooden desk and a stuffed bookcase sat the dartboard she was gifted for white elephant one year at her receptionist job.

There, she pinned five scraps between white and black, red and green.

She stepped back, until her legs hit the front of her wrinkled and cracking sofa.

A single red dart in hand.

Plastic pressed to lips, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

Her hair dripped, soft taps against hardwood and leather.

The cat clock ticked, tail swinging in time.

She waited for the adrenaline coursing through her to become a gentle hum.

Then she exhaled with a clouded puff.

Her eyes opened a split second before she threw.

A red flash.

THWACK!

A shaky breath.

Thin cotton socks crept against cold floorboards.

A creak with every careful step.

Until blurry ink sharpened to clear lines.

Her face split into a grin.