Jonathan put on sunglasses, despite the fact that it was winter and the sun was nowhere in sight. He felt protected, somehow safer with them on. He met Danny at a Starbucks, somewhere between both their apartments. He wanted a place that was faceless with a lot of people that were nobodys to him, a place that would’t remind him of anything, a place without personality. Danny was already there when he arrived. He looked as bad as he did, hungover, pale and at least 5 years older than he really was. „Dude, seriously that was a fucking crazy night last night“, Danny still managed to smile despite the way he felt. It seemed like he didn’t even see the kind of predicament Jonathan was in or maybe he just didn’t care. He had already taken a seat and gotten himself a coffee „Yeah“, Jonathan mumbled as he walked over to the sofas. The place was filling up with students writing papers, chattering groups of women talking about their friday nights and tourists that felt comfortable in a place they knew. „This coffee is so disgusting here, we should have gone to that coffee place next to my place“ Danny said. Jonathan just nodded and motioned him to wait while he was getting something to drink. As he returned with an Arizona Ice Tea Danny was already chatting up a girl sitting on the sofa next to him. He stopped instantly as he saw Jonathan come back to the table and gave the girl a big smile and an apologetic shrug. Jonathan sat down with a sigh and took a big sip out of his ice tea. Pomegranate, Emily’s favorite. „I honestly don’t remember ANYTHING from last night“ Danny said, still smiling. „The last thing I know ist hat we took a taxi to that fucked up club downtown and then it’s a complete blank. Fill me in dude“. „Wish I could, and actually I was hoping you could tell me a bit more about what happened, I don’t even remember that club you just mentioned, plus the chick I woke up next to this morning“. „Hot?“ Danny asked taking a sip of his coffee. „Don’t know, I just left , didn’t really see her face“ „Yeah that’s the way it’s done“, Danny smiled and put up his hand for a high five. „Shut up, seriously, don’t tell anyone about this shit, ok? I don’t want Emily finding out about this“, Jonathan frowned and had to fight a wave of nausea overcoming him. „But you guys are broken up what’s the big deal? So you had fun with a girl a party, who cares . She is the one that moved out“, Danny couldn’t quite understand what Jonathan’s big problem was. Yeah, the all liked Emily, she was a cool girl and in many ways perfect for him but after all they had been on a break for quite a while and Jon had been miserable so he should be allowed to have some fun. But just to make him happy he added „Sure man, won’t say a word, but you might wanna talk to Oliver about this, he was sober all night and probably remembers a lot more that I ever will“.
Jonathan drifted back to the first time he was certain he was falling in love with Emily. They had been on a couple of dates and been going out for 3 weeks when he decided it was time for real date and not the regular dinner and a movie or coffee and a long walk thing. It was late summer and still pretty warm outside so he decided to take up the drive to ... which would take them about 2 hours and go visit this little restaurant that he found a couple of years ago, with a big fireplace and cozy corners for a good and long make out session. The only problem was that the place was a 1 ½ hour hike from the car park so they had to walk quite a while to get there and especially back. He hadn’t really told Emily where they were going except not to dress too fancy but when he picked her up she had on jeans and heels. She didn’t complain once on their walk up, she laughed at herself when she got stuck in the mud a million times and finally took her shoes off and walked the rest of the way barefoot. As it happened often in the past weeks before that it was pouring by the time they had reached the restaurant. They were soaking wet, Emily’s make up was all over the place and their jeans were uncomfortably stuck to their legs. She didn’t seem to care. He had gone out with a lot of women, who when they would have had an experience like that, demanded to go home right away. One had even ordered him drive her home to change when she realized that the belt of her coat had been dragging in the mud for a couple of minutes. Emily was so refreshingly not complicated. She laughed at dirty jokes, even told some herself – they weren’t really good and she sometimes messed up the punch line, she drank beer, loved four cheese pizza but at the same time looked so incredibly sexy when she dressed up to go out with him. He had always been with these high maintenance girls and it seemed to him that that was the way it had to be, that he had to always be on his toes to please them but with Emily it was completely different. When they reached the restaurant, which was also a hotel they were offered bathrobes to change into while their clothes were drying, so they had their romantic dinner in white cotton bathrobes out on the porch with all other guests staring at them like they were from another planet. It was then when he realized this was something special and he was going to make this work.