Coffee Break (Part 5)

              By early December, Que had broken his promise --- often. Ceta had become Que’s default babysitter. The reasons changed, but Que’s assurances of it being “the last time” continued. Two weeks before final exams, Ceta had had enough. She couldn’t afford any more sporadic late nights waiting for Que to get back from wherever he said he’d be. Not if she planned to get any real studying done for her exams. Ceta decided that this time would really be her last time. ​

​     Que barged through the front door which Ceta had unlocked moments earlier and immediately made his way to her galley kitchen, intent on rummaging through her refrigerator. 
 
            “They don’t feed you at culinary school?” Ceta asked from her sofa, laptop resting atop her desk pillow.
 
            “I didn’t have time to eat there and get Mikey,” Que replied. 
 
            “Where is he anyway?” Ceta asked.
 
            Mikey? Mike? Stop actin’ weird. Get in here and act like you know somebody,” Que called out to the entry way. A little boy sheepishly shuffled into the living room of Ceta’s apartment, a Batman backpack larger than him trailed behind. 
 
          “Hey, Mikey! What’s up, man?” Ceta asked, placing her laptop down on the coffee table and walking toward him grinning. 
 
      “How was school, kid?” she asked crouching to his level. Mikey stared clenching a muscle-bound, speedo clad action figure in his right hand. 
 
       “Is that a WWE dude? Cool, what’s his name?” She said still smiling at the silent child. 
 
      “Speak up, Mikey. Don’t be rude,” Que called out between bites, growing irritated with the one-sided conversation. 
 
        “He’s fine, Que,” Ceta said waiving off Que’s admonishment. Ceta joined Que in the kitchen, walking past him towards the cabinet to grab cheese crackers. She returned to the still silent child in her living room, and handed the bag of crackers to the boy. He looked up at her with a partially toothless smile before running off to watch cartoons from the beloved fluffy chair in Ceta’s bedroom. 
 
        “What time do you think you’ll be back this time?” Ceta asked.
 
        “A couple hours. They’re short-staffed, so I’m helping close. Thanks again for watching him. My mom knew I had to work all week, and still made plans on the same day,” Que said shaking his head. 
 
       “As long as you’re back by ten, we’re good. I gotta be in bed on time tonight, I have a day-long, professor led review tomorrow, and it’s for my worst class. It starts at 8:30 a.m.”
 
          “I gotchu,” Que said walking into the living room and leaning over the couch to kiss Ceta, a half-eaten sandwich in hand. Ceta watched Que leave before turning her attention back to her laptop, where the words were beginning to blur.
 
            By 10:44 p.m., Ceta knew that Mikey would be spending the night for the second time that week. By 11:38 p.m., Ceta stopped trying to reach Que altogether, and instead readied her couch to accommodate her for the evening. She forfeited her room to Mikey, hoping it’d give him the assuredness that she couldn’t. The boy had been asking about his brother in what seemed like five-minute intervals. Ceta eventually lied, telling Mikey that Que said he’d be back in the morning before youth football practice. She figured it was better for her to be proven a liar than to let him think the worst had happened. 
 
           When the muffled snores from the other room started, Ceta got up from the sofa, pushing her fleece blanket on top of the stack of books on her left. In the kitchen, she reached into the cabinet under her sink, digging through bundles of plastic bags and cleaning products until she reached the back of the small compartment. At the same time, she wondered about Que, about the exams she was surely on track to fail in a week or so, about the conversation that would ensue between her and her parents about the wasted semester, and what that meant for her summer and maybe even her future. 
 
         Ceta unscrewed the bottle top, wafting the contents under her nose before grabbing a glass from the top cabinets. Standing on her toes to reach her favorite crystal tumblers --- a housewarming gift from her aunt Marietta in Richmond from when Ceta first moved into her one-bedroom. Ceta kept them on the top shelf of her cabinet for special occasions, but she found use for them more frequently than before. 
 
          She took a sip, ignoring the bite preceding the immediate relief following closely behind. The clock on her kitchen microwave showed 12:53 a.m., and Ceta returned the remaining two-thirds of the bottle back to its original spot beneath the sink before returning to her makeshift bedding on the couch. She searched for the T.V. remote, praying that she’d left it on a respectable volume. She wrapped herself back up in her blanket, lying her head on the decorative shaggy pillow next to her while watching reruns of one of her favorite procedurals until she fell asleep. 

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