That night, I end up sleeping on the sand. Or I try to. I can't get the vision of Lexi out of my head. She was so...pretty. And nice to me.

    In the morning, I walk the line of shops for a while before walking through the door of a small, cozy coffee shop. Is this like the place where I used to get Gilly Water every morning?

     "Hello!" A man standing behind the counter says and smiles at me. "What can I get you today?" 

     I look up at the large array of options, not sure what is what. "Ummm..." I hum. "Do you have any Gilly Water?"

     The man seems to hide a chuckle. "Like from that whatshisface Potter series?"

     "...Sir?"

     "No. We don't have Gilly Water, I'm sorry. That's not real," he says to me as if I were a guppy.

     I clear my throat passive-aggressively. "Hmm, okay. I guess...can I have a small gingerbread mocha please?"

    "Sure. Coming right up," the barista says, regaining his smile and writing something down. I pick up my mocha a couple minutes later and grab a seat on a tall chair in the window. I stare into the swirly foam pattern, swinging my fairly new legs back and forth. 

     I barely acknowledge the sound of the door opening. 

"Hey, Lexi! The usual?"

      At the sound of her name, my head perks up and my heart leaps. "Yes, please," a voice says, and who do I see but her. She's as radiant as ever. When she picks up her drink and turns away, I'm pretty sure I turn as red as a starfish when she makes eye contact with me.

     She walks over to me, smiles and takes a seat at my table.

Okay. Yeah, butterflyfish, come on back. Sure.

"Hi! Fancy seeing you here," she says, putting her drink down. "Gingerbread mocha? Good choice." I notice that she has the exact same drink as mine. My face is burning. "Yeah," I say.

"I haven't seen you around before yesterday...did you just move here?"

"Sorta..." I say, looking out the window at the ocean.

Reading into this, Lexi says, "Oh, are you from overseas? Oh, that's super cool!"

"Er, yeah. Where do you live?" I ask her, trying to change the subject.

"Hamilton. That's just a couple miles from here, I live right next to the ice cream shop."

"Nice," I say, wondering what I would say if she asked me more about where I came from.

"Would you want to meet for ice cream there someday? It's really good, I go there with my friends all the time."

"Um...sure?" I respond. What's...ice cream?

"Cool! I'll meet you there...tomorrow? Around 6pm?"

"Yeah, that sounds good," I say, not really listening because she's smiling again and her eyes are all I see at the moment.

"Oceana, are you listening?"

"W-what?" I say, snapping back into reality.

"I was just telling you that the ice cream shop is called Bailey's, you can take the bus for free and ask the bus driver to take you there."

"Okay," I say, smiling. "I'm already looking forward to it."

She giggles, setting torpedos off in my heart. "Cool. Well, I should go, I have errands to run," she says, hopping from her seat. "See you tomorrow!"

"See you then," I say, unable to take my eyes off of her.

And I could've sworn she winked at me before turning and leaving the shop.