"Matcha and Coffee" by Annabelle Taghinia

You ask to stop at the café, that pretty little one on Berry Street, because you’re thirsty and need caffeine, and I ask you if I’m really that boring and you laugh so musically while pushing open the door that your voice blends with the tinkle of chimes announcing our arrival to the café and it sounds like a song we’d sing together while I stretched out my legs and pushed my toes into the dashboard of your navy blue 2011 Prius and you’d drive us home, one hand on the wheel and the other around your coffee, and the barista holds up two fingers like a peace sign, and I remember how I spilled my matcha on my tie dye pajama shirt, the ugly one, and you laughed and then let me borrow a shirt, the one you’re wearing now with the white lace, after I threw out the soggy lump of tie dye in a public trash can in Idaho, and you join me while we wait for your drink and tell me about the video you saw this morning about the lunch place you’re taking us to, some hole-in-the-wall ramen shop with noodles that the influencer in the video says are to die for, and then the barista calls your name and pushes two cups forward, and I say that you only got one drink, didn’t you, but you’re walking forward and taking both and you hand me one, an iced matcha, and you smile, say that you know what I like, tell me not to worry, it’s on you, and then we walk on.

Annabelle Taghinia is a junior in high school and spends her free time writing fiction. Her work has been recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Pithead Chapel, Lost Balloon, South Florida Poetry Journal and others.