One More Cup of Coffee

A fanfic from the slightly disturbed mind of the Californian who hates California.

Oh yes, and this ISN'T slash. Gasp.

She was an outcast, and no one liked her. The teenage girl was even considered too strange to the Goths. Henrietta? She's not Goth. She's just insane. She may very well have been, but who could blame her? It would be a tough environment for anyone whose mother was always making prophecies about the world ending on "a day when the sun would not rise." Then there was her father, who was missing for months at a time, only to return as King of France, Hercules, the ghost of Elvis Presley, or a man simply named Joe Fletcher, who supposedly was a mountain pioneer of some sort. With lunatic parents, came lunatic daughters, but it wasn't their fault. It wasn't Henrietta's fault.

I felt sorry for her. She seemed like such a nice girl, and definitely appeared to be the most sane in the family. She always shined some sensibility on her mother's doom's day ramblings, and if it weren't for the family's infamous reputation, I probably would've believed it all. Henrietta made a lot of sense most of the time. And when she was speaking what appeared to be utter nonsense, it still got me thinking. I wondered if that's all she was ever trying to do… just get people to think. Thinking, wise, and analytical persons. They seemed to be absent in today's world. At times I wondered if it was just the rest of the world that had lost their minds, and Henrietta and her family were, in actuality, the only sensible beings left.

It made sense.

I had my first "Goth phase" when I was nine and heartbroken. I had looked to it as answer to deal with pain. I didn't have to cure the aching in my heart, I had to embrace it and share it. Then I realized that that was all pretty lame and retarded, so I dropped the act.

I eventually fell back into the Goth group in middle school, when my friends and I seemed to have developed completely opposite worldviews. I couldn't stand it. I would argue with my old best friend Kyle constantly over everything just about every day, and so one day I decided to leave. I went back to the only other people I had ever considered friends.

By then, Henrietta was no longer a part of the group. She dropped out of school, for some unknown reason. I had a pretty good idea as to why though. When I first ran into her at Denny's, she sat opposite of the booth where me and the Goths sat and drank coffee.

I saw her and recognized her, though I had completely forgotten her name. "Isn't that…"

"Henrietta? Just ignore her."

"Why?" I asked, "Isn't she-"

"One of us? No. She's such a conformist."

I stared at her. She was just staring out the window, drinking her own cup of coffee. She stared up at the night sky, so absorbed, I almost thought that she was counting stars… and I strangely felt like counting them too. "For a conformist," I said, "She seems to be pretty lonely."

"Hey, she's the one that left."

"Why?"

"Who knows. She's crazy."

I continued to stare at her, while drinking my coffee. That night, when we all left some three hours later, she was still gazing upwards.

I never looked at the stars the same way again.

It was weird. It was like destiny…. I was at the library, checking out some books on astronomy. I was obsessed with stars after witnessing her that night. Just the image of her staring up at the sky was forever imprinted in my brain. I just had this urge to figure it all out. What was she looking at and why couldn't I forget it?

She came out of no where, but it wasn't at all surprising. She curiously peeked at what book I had in my hands at the time and smiled. "That's not going to teach you anything," she said.

I blinked at her, not sure what she meant. "Well… then what will?"

Henrietta taught me everything. Not just about stars, but so much more. When I started to hang out with her, the rest of my friends seemed to just stop talking to me. I didn't care. I was sure that I was falling in love with her. She was all that I needed. I visited her everyday. She greeted me indifferently, whether I brought her roses, or candy, or poems. She never smelled the roses, ate the delicates, or read those poems. She took what I had, tossed them aside, and gave me her thoughts in return.

We sat at her bedroom window and stared at the stars together. She said things, and I listened.

"Butterflies and humming birds. Flowers wilt. The mountains cry. Mother sings. Father calls. Sister dances in the rain…"

I listened to her ramble and wondered what it all meant. I asked her.

She smiled and without answering, she simply and beautifully sang, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky…"

Maybe I did turn crazy. Maybe I really did just lose it. But if crazy was what Henrietta was, then I had no objections with being locked up in some mental house. Nothing made as much sense as being with her.

Sure, there were times when I thought she was indeed crazy. But when she said she could see the future at first, I didn't believe her. When she said she could see the future for the second time, I was skeptical. When she said it for the third time, I knew it was true.

The first time I tried to kiss her, she stopped me and whispered, "Tomorrow is another day."

I stopped and stared at her, "Henrietta, I-"

And she sang before I could finish.

So the next day, I tried again, but once more she said with a smile, "Tomorrow is another day."

She said it the next day, and the next, and the next. I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand what or when tomorrow was.

"Henrietta, when is tomorrow?" I asked her one night, as the two of us sipped coffee in her kitchen, which was lit by a single candle that sat on the table where we sat.

"Isn't it the day after today?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said slightly confused by the question, "That's what I thought it was…"

"Then why did you ask when it was?"

"Because," I answered, "Whenever I try to kiss you, you say tomorrow-"

"…Is another day." She looked up from her drink, "But tomorrow isn't."

"It isn't?"

She shook her head. "Why didn't you kiss me today?"

I shrugged, "I gave up," I answered honestly. I looked down at my cup of coffee and then up at her. "If tomorrow isn't another day, then what is it?"

She leaned forward and kissed me.

After a short time, she pulled away gently. My eyes were locked with her crystal ones, that always reminded me of the stars. "Out, out, brief candle," she said softly and blew out the candle that sat between the two of us.

I walked her back to her bedroom and watched her as she climbed into bed. I turned to leave, "Goodnight," I said.

"Goodnight," she said lying on her back, "I'll see you soon, Stan."

I left thinking, at those last words, that she wanted me to come back tomorrow. I felt so incredibly happy, and spent the night walking around the pitch black darkness of the quiet, sleepy town. I picked every flower I came across, to give to Henrietta as soon as the sun came up. I wasn't certain if she would take them when I did deliver them, but I just felt obliged to go to her with something.

I waited on the doorstep of her house for morning to come. Time seemed to have slowed, and I thought that it must have been because of me being so anxious to be with Henrietta again. I finally could not stand to wait any longer and I went around the side of her house, to her window. I climbed inside and looked immediately to her bed, only to discover that she wasn't there.

And then I noticed a shadow cast on the wall by the full moon outside. I turned and saw my beloved, hanging by rope around her neck.

I wasn't scared and I didn't scream. I was surprised at first, but I then instantaneously understood. I dropped the bouquet of flowers and went to Henrietta and took her from where she dangled. I put her in her bed and then went to her sister and parents' room to confirm that what I thought was true. They all dangled just as Henrietta had been, and I knew it was what Henrietta, her mother, and sister had been talking about.

I went to the kitchen, poured one last cup of coffee for myself, and sat at the place where Henrietta and I had our kiss, gazing through the window at the stars, which still lingered despite it being well passed seven in the morning. There was no sun. Just the stars and the bright, white moon.

When I finished, I went back to Henrietta, and kissed her. I went back to the spot, and picked up the chair she had used to stand on earlier. I stood on the chair, and looped the rope around my neck. I smiled at Henrietta and I knew she was smiling at me.

And we weren't crazy.

The end.