Jealousy Creative Writing

You plunge a thin, wooden stirring stick into the black sludge the barista dubbed a “Caramel Espresso,” circling your hand back and forth in a desperate attempt at forcing a few flakes of sugar to dissolve. It’s March, possibly the month you detest most, and you’re sitting outside in the biting Chicago breeze. Notes of grease and cigarette smoke dance on the cold spring air, and you wrinkle your nose with disdain. You despise this city—and this café, too; sappy eighties’ tunes play on repeat, and the cookies taste distinctly of cardboard. Still, you find yourself back here nearly every day, gazing out at the teeming masses of city-goers from the same off-kilter plastic chair.
“People watching?” a waitress asks, winking as she slaps your bill down onto the dirty glass. …show more content…
Setting the cup aside, you fix your eyes on a young couple lingering near the crosswalk. They’ve been together for less than three months, you estimate, and their cheeks are flushed, hands are clasped, and stances are soft and at ease. Jealousy is a knife in your back, sharp and sudden and excruciating. You turn away.
Across the street, a group of middle-schoolers gape at a window display, childish features written with admiration. One of them, a boy with a ridiculous purple mohawk, gestures animatedly at the console on the other side of the glass. Chattering with excitement, his friends huddle together to count out their wrinkled bills and clinking coins. You smile, but melancholy wraps itself around your heart—that was you once, ruddy-cheeked and starry-eyed.
Now, your days are spent in the unpleasant company of droning professors and microwavable macaroni. Hours blend into weeks; isolation is your only friend, and you loathe it more than all the cheap coffee in the