Coffee By Libby Bahr

[TRIGGER WARNING FOR STORY 0 MILES AHEAD]: MENTION OF SA

Sweet thing. Fourteen.

Her boyfriend first suggested coffee on a dead-of-winter Saturday, a heartbeat after his parents

left for groceries. She’d never been truly alone with a boy before.

No thank you, she said. I’ve never had it.

Neatly posed atop his twin bed, she traced his flannel sheets that itched and smelled but stirred

the thrill of lying together, her head on his chest, his fingers fondling her waist.

Irritation flitted across his face, which she felt as a reflexive pang in her chest. We should try it,

he whispered, squeezing her thigh. Plenty of my friends drink it.

Naive to the mechanics involved, her only knowledge came from overheard snippets about

popped cherries. Coffee was meant for adults married before God, according to her parents and

pastor. She’d only bled three and a half times and shelved her American Girl dolls just two years ago.

She was not ready.

But she liked him. And she was beyond grateful that he liked her; the relationship breathed new

life into her anxious, changing body. He’d confessed his crush at a football game that fall after

whisking her away for nachos served in styrofoam trays. Her ears rang when he called her pretty,

attuning to a frequency accessible only through male validation. Soon, she had a boyfriend. This

was the best evidence of normalcy she could arm herself with.

He was still pleading.

I’ll teach you, he promised. You’ll like it.

Not today, she murmured. I’m not ready.

His unreadable expression shifted to a saturated screen. He thumbed colorful boxes while the

guilty silence ate her alive. You should probably go, he said when the garage door finally

vibrated.

*

Tension brewed like a taut vintage clock ticking toward his desertion. After two months of

giggling side by side at lunch, sharing French fries and syrupy fruit, he cemented his tray at a

faraway table. His friends followed, and the interval of his texts dwindled, but not enough for her

to lose hope. She obsessed over the last time she saw him.

You’re beautiful, he’d said, undoing his belt.

I love you, he’d said.

I’m in pain, he’d said.

A steamy tear leaked each time she repeated I’m not ready.

*

After another week of semi-silent treatment, he charmed her on a proper date. He bought tickets

and popcorn. Apologized for ignoring her. Professed his infatuation. In his 2001 Pontiac, they

scream-sang Dancing Queen with rusty windows low, hair wild. Her anxiety reduced from boil

to simmer for the first time in weeks. She let herself laugh, really laugh. Lost in the moment, she

didn’t notice the shift into park. Couldn’t comprehend his fingers parting her lips, lifting a

scorching mug to her mouth, and tipping it back without warning. She froze, afraid to make a

mess in the dark.

He wasted no time photographing the empty mug. A trophy. You’re amazing, he said. Not so

scary, right? He scooped her into his arms. Now we can drink coffee whenever we want.

ABOUT:

Libby Bahr is an emerging American writer and yoga teacher currently living in St. Paul, Minnesota, and pursuing an MFA in fiction from Randolph College. Her writing interests focus on the impacts of trauma on masking, somatic experiencing, and creativity. You can find her and her work at https://substack.com/@libbybahr, @libbybahr on Instagram, and ‪@libbybahr.bsky.social‬ on Bluesky.

EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: football game --- Sophie Cates