Lonesome Roach

Story Sent in by Kevin:

Cleo wrote to me online. Her message was friendly enough, and I checked out her profile. It didn't seem like we had a lot in common, and she wasn't really my type, but I wrote her back all the same, as we had both written on our profiles that we were interested in making new friends.

Additionally, I made it clear to her that I was only looking to be friends. She said, "No problem!" to that and so I didn't see any harm in meeting up with her over coffee.

I showed up in a shirt and jeans. She arrived in something approaching formal wear, and she gave me a big hug.

I knew that things were heading in the wrong direction when not long after we sat down, she asked me, "Why do you just want to be friends? Is it me?"

I lied, "I just don't have the time right now for something serious."

As if I didn't say anything, she went on, "Because I can change, if you need me to."

"I don't think I'll need you to."

She drank some of her coffee and said, "I haven't been in a relationship since high school. I'm not desperate, but I really want to know what I've been doing wrong, you know?"

I said, "Probably nothing. It's all a matter of timing. Just don't force it."

She was sipping her coffee when at once, she spat it out, jerked up, and threw her mostly full cup on the ground, as if she had drank poison.

"What is it?" I asked, standing up, myself, "What's wrong?"

"Cockroach! Cockroach in the coffee!" she screamed.

I looked into the cup, around the floor, and on her chair. There was no sign of anything resembling a cockroach. I asked her, "Where did you see it?"

She replied, "It was in my coffee!"

"Your coffee had a lid on it. How did you see it?"

"I just knew it was in there!" She then walked over to me and clutched me tight. "Can we get out of here? Just us, together?"

We left, her still clutching at me, and we weren't a minute away from the place before she turned to me and said, "This is like one of those stories we'd tell our kids about our first date. Like a bonding experience between you and I, you know?"

"Yeah," I said, "Funny how I couldn't find that cockroach."

"It was there," she insisted, grabbing my sleeve all the tighter, "It was there."

Not long after, I wished her a good night. She wrote and left me messages quite often over the following weeks, telling me how much she enjoyed our date, and how much she looked forward to our next one, which, incidentally, never ended up happening.