Love Birds

Marissa stood in her bathroom, staring into the mirror than hung just above sink. Her eyebrows were tented and her lips curved downward. "How am I supposed to even.. God! I can't do this. Maybe I should just cancel?" She glanced down at the floor and took a deep breath, shaking her head. "No no, I got this." She walked out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, which was rather small just as the rest of the rooms were. The walls were painted a soft yellow. A happy color, is what she told herself when she was nervous or sad.. Yellow is a happy color. Marissa's gaze shifted from one side of the room to the next as she looked for her purse. A few minutes passed of her just rummaging around through her messy room before she decided to look elsewhere. Her white flats pressed against the hard wood floor as she entered her living room, immediately she spotted her black cross body bag that was about the size of her hand. "Perfect! I was worried I lost it." She thought to herself before unlocking her front door. As soon as her hand made contact with the metal lock, all the thoughts and worries came rushing back, all her work to ignore it had been ruined! Marissa took a deep breath and pulled the door open, stepping into the hallway just outside her apartment. It smelled of flowers and freshly brewed coffee. The building was nice, but the main reason she chose this place was because of how kind the staff was. They always greeted her when they ran into each other and kept the lobby nice and tidy. Marissa entered the elevator and quickly pressed the button that led to the lobby, afterwards adjusting her yellow skirt, making sure that it sat at perfect length- just a little below her knees. The shiny, metal doors opened and Marissa hesitantly walked out and headed straight for the entrance. The Uber she called earlier was going to be there any minute and now it was just a waiting game. She waited for a few minutes, the sun beaming down on her. Lucky her, just as she started to become restless the Uber pulled up and a ding sound could be heard coming from her phone. To be safe, Marissa pulled out her phone and checked. On the lock screen a banner with the words, "Your Uber is here!" showed up and so she got into the back seat and shut the door behind her. A man looked up at the mirror, staring at her. "Homey Cafe, the one a few blocks from here, right?" He spoke, his voice was surprisingly quiet, not at all how Marissa had imagined it.  She nodded and gave a polite smile, turning to stare out the window. The car began to move forward, but Marissa had hardly noticed. She was too busy thinking about all the things that could go wrong, and before she knew it, they had arrived at the cafe. "Thank you, sir!" Marissa said and got out. In front of her was a quaint, brick building. A big window at the front let people passing by see inside, and there was a lot to look at. For starters, it had shelves with books and pictures of beautiful places. Marissa could hardly fathom the fact that they even existed, her mouth fell open a little as she stared at the inside. Now, lets take a look at what Marissa's date is up to..

  Gracie, Marissa's date, was still at her house. It was a small, brick house that resided in a neighborhood that was rather quiet and cheap. Currently, Gracie was running around frantically looking for her shoes. "Oh. My. Gosh! Where did I put them? I swear they were by the door yesterday.." Her gaze focused on a white, fluffy cat. "Cat! Where are they? Have you seen them?" She let out an exasperated laugh and took a deep breath. "I need to calm down." Gracie thought. Just then, as if a miracle, she spotted her white converse peaking out from behind a standing lamp. A smile stretched across her face as she hurried to put them on. Cat meowed and stretched before walking off. Gracie grabbed her purse and went on her way to the cafe. Unlike Marissa, Gracie owned a car, a Toyota Camry. It was a late birthday gift from her dear Aunt Louise, who unfortunately passed two years ago. Trees and buildings seemed to blur as Gracie passed, birds passed over head and the sound of people chattering could be heard. After a quick ten minutes, Gracie arrived at the agreed destination, and got out. She swept her hair over her shoulder, although it was a leather brown color, it felt as soft as silk. A timid woman approached Gracie, startling her a little, and spoke, "A-Are you Gracie?" As soon as Gracie saw the woman all her confidence seemed to melt away, "Yes? Are you Marissa?" She asked back. Marissa nodded and glanced back towards the cafe, "S-Should we head in now?" Gracie nodded as a reply, and followed her into the cafe. She figured this would be pretty relaxed and she'd be fine, but there was just something about Marissa that she found so compelling. It could've been her style, or her shoulder-length blonde hair, or maybe even the way her voice seemed so quiet yet it had the most to say. With this, Gracie seemed to be right, Marissa did have a lot to say. The conversation started with their favorite animals, and Marissa went on and on about zebras. Gracie just stared, fascinated how someone can be so passionate and interested in something. She really admired her. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I've just been rambling on and you haven't gotten a single word in." Marissa apologized and sipped on the coffee she got when they first came in. Gracie shook her head and smiled, "No no! It's alright. Well, i'd have to say my favorite animal is a cat? I have one and her name is literally Cat." She giggled at the thought of her grumpy old cat and looked at Marissa. Marissa genuinely smiled and looked around, "Have you been here before or?" Gracie nodded her head, "It's my favorite place to come and just relax after a long day of work." She replied. Marissa tilted her head and asked, "Whats your job?" Gracie thought for a moment, debating on telling her. She often got rejected or ghosted for telling someone that she worked as a self-published author. It was hard work, and she wished people recognized it as such. People would assume shes lazy and that it was easy, but Gracie knew otherwise. It was an emotionally demanding job and it's hard to always stay on track, even with her own schedule. Because it's hard to earn a good amount of money a good amount of the time, she also had a job as a cashier which helped keep her on her feet. "Well, I work as an at home writer and a cashier." It felt like she was holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable confusion and disgust from Marissa. To Gracie's surprise, Marissa just smiled and said "Woah! That's so cool!" Gracie's eyes widened a bit and she said, "Really?" A surge of happiness rushed through her and she couldn't help but laugh. "I was so worried." Gracie finally said, and Marissa shook her head. "No, I'm really serious. As for me, I'm a vet."

Marissa's entire thought process was that she couldn't believe everything was going rather smoothly, and she found that she liked Gracie quite a lot. After that they spoke about their interests, which for Marissa was going on early morning jogs, just as the sun peaked over the horizons and made everything look so peaceful. Finally they talked about a few other things, including their favorite shows, colors, and hobbies. They actually figured out that they have quite a bit in common, and at the end of the date ended up going for ice cream. Both of them ate it in Gracie's car as Gracie drove to drop Marissa off. All she could think about was how much fun she had had, carefully glancing at Gracie every few minutes to see if she seemed to reciprocate it. "I had a lot of fun, Gracie." She said, turning to look at her as they pulled up to her apartment building. Gracie got out of the car and opened Marissa's, helping her out. "I did too, maybe.." Gracie's voice trailed off, she was hesitant to finish her sentence. They made it up to Marissa's door and paused. She stared at Gracie intently, both excited and nervous to hear what she said next. "Maybe.. we could do it again sometime? I know a great restaurant that we could go to for dinner." Gracie finally finished her sentence. Marissa wanted to jump up and down in excitement, but decided that she should wait till Gracie left. "Yes! I mean, haha, sure." She said, trying to be nonchalant. Gracie smiled and waved bye as she walked off, getting into her car and soon after driving off. Marissa quickly went inside the lobby, greeted the few staff she did see, and went into the elevator. As soon as she entered it, she laughed to herself and smiled. The familiar metal doors opened and Marissa exited, walking down the homey, flower-scented hallway. She unlocked her door, and once closed locked it again. Her hands touched the cold, metal locks like before, but this time there were no worries. Marissa looked around her apartment and sighed, taking a deep breath.

Gracie got home shortly after, and entered her house. Cat meowed as soon as she saw her, and walked off grumpily. Gracie didn't mind this time though, all she could think about was the next time she'd get to talk to Marissa.

Today, was a good day.