I’ve heard a saying that “life is a surprise”. Call me skeptical, but I generally scoff at lines that scream of us expecting too much. My love story may be short on words, and it may not be exactly unheard of, but it's filled every thought and day of my existence with happiness.
I’m a guy, a 24-year-old guy that works at a job he likes. A guy who hangs out with his friends when the sun goes down. And one who, when the story begins, is still single, but not because I want to be. I think it’s weird to be single, but maybe that’s just what all guys think. I’m just a guy that’s been searching high and low for that girl who can make him happy. You know, how your heart stops beating for just a second, your throat goes dry, you get goosebumps, and the works.
I haven’t felt that. Most of my friends haven’t either but they’re all going out with someone. They say stuff like that only happens when you’re suffering from high temperatures. The story of me falling in love didn’t exactly go as I expected. My throat never got dry, my heart never stopped beating, but then all of a sudden, I liked a girl. Of course, it wasn’t “love”,  technically it wasn’t even “like”. As a matter of fact, I have no idea what I felt.
I spend my evenings at this cafe, next to this huge television display they’ve acquired, and whether I like the channel or not, I end up spending my time staring at it. And just like me, there’s this cute girl who comes to the the cafe and stares at the same television set everyday, sipping her coffee and scribbling furiously in a journal or occasionally reading a magazine that was left on the cafe coffee table.
  We used to glance across at each other, but nothing more. No jolt. No sweat. No knots in my stomach. The days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to a couple months. That’s a long time once you’ve pictured the scene outside the world of literature. Long, long ago seems so cute in a book, but an hour in a suffocating classroom? Murder! And without actually knowing it, I was attracted to this girl. I actually really admire her.
One day in the cold month of November, I walked into the cafe, taking cover from the snow that was plummeting across the city for a few hours. The coffee shop was crowded, filled with businessmen, mothers, college students and an assortment of people with unidentifiable occupations, all doing the same thing as me. When I walked in, the barista smiled. There was sweat trickling off her forehead, her red hair falling out of her braid, and I could tell from just that she had been working hard to serve the vast amounts of people; well, that and the fact that she appeared to be the only one working. “Would you like the usual?” she asked. I nodded.
I took a seat in the corner of the room, at the small table with only one chair, or as I like to call it, “the forever alone” table. It was right next to the fireplace, so I guess I like it. I warmed my freezing hands, feeling the cold melt away as I glanced around the room. The cafe looked beautiful. Christmas lights hanging from the counter, ornaments dangling from the ceiling and the roaring fire lighting up the rest of the shop. I took off my jacket, pulling my leather notebook from my backpack and a black pen, attempting to work on my latest novel.
“August,” the barista called my name, handing me my coffee and giving another smile as she passed it over the counter.
“Thank you,” I replied, tugging a few quarters and a dime out of my jeans pocket to put in the tip jar.
As I turned away, taking a sip of my coffee, I glanced up, just in time to run right into somebody. Before I even knew what was happening, there was coffee all over my shirt and when I looked up to apologize to the girl, I realized it was… her. I don’t know how else to describe her. It’s not like we’re friends… we just happen to go to the same coffee shop.
I had never realized how pretty she was until that moment, I’m not quite sure why, but I couldn’t think clearly while looking at her. Her hair was a rich shade of mahogany, and it rested across her cheeks to adorn her glowing, porcelain-like skin. Her eyes, framed by long lashes, were bright, emerald-green and seemed to brighten the room.
“I’m so sorry,” I told her, lifting a hand to help her up.
Everything after that is a blur to me. Maybe she said she was sorry too? Maybe she yelled at me? I don’t remember which but I do know that she was too pretty to stop looking at. That always seemed to happen to me. A teacher would yell, and I would be thinking about what I would do if a zombie apocalypse started right then. My mom would try to sit me down and have a serious conversation with me, and I would be thinking about what I wanted to eat for dinner. My inner-monologue always seemed to be playing, and I can’t even remember how many conversations I’ve been in where I find myself confused while everyone else is laughing at whatever was said. My life is just so much more interesting inside my head. Why do you think I became an author? To write news articles? Yeah, right.
       "Are you okay?" I asked.
        She gave me a look of what is wrong with you? And honestly she was saying more in that look than she ever had to me. "Ugh," slipped from her mouth as she grabbed her coffee and a few napkins, sitting down at her table with her friends. I'll take that as she yelled at me. Her friends started to giggle, the barista turned away to keep from laughing at me and I think I even heard the bum in the corner chuckling. 
       "Was it really that bad?" I asked the barista.
        She continued to giggle, replying with "Yes," and continuing to make the drinks.
       Oh, you thought my love story involved the girl I tripped into, didn’t you? No, and thank the Lord for that. I found out a few weeks ago that she was arrested for drug dealing and assault and battery, so I guess I’m glad we never went further than me accidently tripping her. Dodged a bullet there, huh?
The rest of my love story happened the following week, same weather conditions, same cold chill in the air, and the same amounts of people. My apartment building had been snowed in, there was no way to get in and no way to get out. I tried to rent a hotel room but they said they wouldn’t have any openings for a few more hours due to the fact that other folks were snowed out of their buildings too, or snowed off the roads, so I went to the cafe to kill some time.
When I walked in, everything seemed the same, except the barista didn’t look like she had been working herself over the edge. Her hair was pulled into a loose braid under her hat, and there was a soft pink color painted onto her lips. She greeted me with the same big smile, and as always, she asked me if I wanted the usual. I told her to surprise me this time instead.
I sat at the same “forever alone” table, writing away in my novel as I usually did. I crossed out ideas, created new ones, and basically just made a huge mess on paper of arrows, quotations, and doodles I did while bored or filled with writer’s block.
Just like any other day, the barista called my name, and after placing the cap back on my pen, I walked over to the counter to take my drink. This time, although, something different happened. When I spun my cup around to take a drink, there was a message written on the side in black sharpie:

August,
  I hope you enjoy the latte, it’s one of my favorites.
  You should give me a call sometime.
   -Emily,
208-818-7645

The next evening, we went to the cafe, and for the first time, she and I sat at the same table. She wasn’t “just the barista” anymore, and I wasn’t the “mysterious guy at the forever alone table”. We were more than that, we were artists and writers and a world of different things that we get to learn about one another. “Life is a surprise” I couldn’t agree with that more.
I don’t believe in fate, or love at first sight, but I do believe in happily ever after. Because of her, I am living my happily ever after. Every day when I wake up to see her gorgeous smile I ask myself, What if I never came in that day? What if she never wrote her phone number on the side of that cup? What if I was too stupid to call her? I look back on that day occasionally and smile, remembering when I called her for the first time, remembering the first time I held her hand, remembering our first kiss. Time stood still when it was just the two of us.
So yeah, my love story is definitely short on words, and it definitely isn’t as exciting as something like running into each other as two spies from different countries, but my life is bigger with her. The story that I will be leaving behind is more than just a guy who has a job and has friends. My world is now complete with her in it.
One can never tell how love will come into your life, or how you can experience your own short love stories out of the blue. But a great love story awaits us all, and it’s just around the corner. After all, didn’t someone say that life is a surprise?