As Cherry read, she slid lower into her chair, further behind her book, until her grey eyes could no longer be seen. She supposed anyone could have been behind that cover, then.

She sighed heavily, momentarily lowering the thing to take a sip of tea as her eyes fell to the corner, meeting another’s there. A boy. Doing the same thing as herself, she supposed. Peering out from behind a book at the similar soul when the rest of the café seemed to be talking.

To the back of the café it was snug, and the heat seemed to gather, heating her veins. A slushy heat. Like one feels after a large meal sitting by the fire. Where everything seems a little dreamy.

The boy was dressed in a white shirt that was slightly baggy, composed of a thick sort of linen. One of those poet’s shirts, she thought. And a black, open waistcoat sat over the top of it. Black trousers covered his legs down to thick boots. And his cuffs rested pushed up, so Cherry could see his tarnished silver watch, slack around the wrist which lay softly in his lap.

That is where his book rested, momentarily discarded as he smiled to her. And her gaze might have lingered with him a little too long as she watched- as though a deer caught in headlights. Mesmerised; but almost certainly promised to danger.

She blinked, looking away, seeking solitude once more behind her black and white world. Until Cherry heard footsteps, shuffling, reaching nearer as shadows grew- and a boy’s voice washed over her; sweet and ever so gently Scottish.

‘Would you like a fresh pot of tea?’, it said. Cherry furrowed her brows, thinking that peculiar, peering back to reality to see a tall, disinterested waiter staring down upon her.

‘Oh. Sure... Thank you.’, she nodded, watching him walk away; her finger twiring around her empty glass. Pausing a moment before returning to Wuthering Heights and the Yorkshire Moors. But in one curt flick, she couldn’t help but move her eyes back to the boy in the corner, slightly obscured in the shadows, nonetheless evident that his eyes were already on her own. Muddy brown like the most perilous parts of those moors she’d broke down on the night before.

Her eyes fell to his lips as they grew audaciously to a coy smirk. And she noticed that his position was such that he rested tilted upon his chair, two legs firmly off the ground; the kind of thing that would cursorily suggest a rebellious disposition. The most dangerous kind. Because that sort always made you want to fall right there with them. Cherry returned to her book.

And this time she didn’t hear footsteps; see shadows approaching. Still, the question came, strong and clear: ‘You’re reading Wuthering Heights?’

Cherry shifted the book aside, lowering it before closing it on the table, though keeping her finger between the pages. He slipped into the chair opposite and began staring at her intently. ‘Yes.’, she replied curtly, ‘And you’re reading Coleridge …I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a boy reading poetry.’

Cherry narrowed her eyes as he pressed his elbow upon the table, leaning his cheek into his fist. ‘Yes, I suppose then I just might have to have more faith in this world.’

‘God forbid.’, she retorted sarcastically.

‘Right?’ He flicked his gaze to her finger still jammed there within her book. ‘Are you ever going to take out your finger?’

‘I don’t know.’, she raised her eyebrows, ‘I like to be alone to read. That’s why-’

‘Ah.’, he said gently, ‘Then I suppose I should leave you.’

Cherry nodded, and he made a quiet noise that was between a sigh and a grunt before shifting. ‘Wait.’, she said. ‘Why don’t you read me a passage from your book first? I’ll admit I’ve never read anything by Coleridge.’

‘Oh, but that’s a great shame.’, he said, suddenly passionate, leaning forwards, ‘Coleridge is one of the best poets… you like the romantics, no?’

She shrugged one shoulder, ‘Well, of course-’

‘But Coleridge as well as began the movement along with Wordsworth-’  He looked down to his book, always open in his hands, starting as if to speak yet darting his eyes back to her; a slight crinkle appearing around them. ‘What if you slept.’, he began. ‘And in your sleep you dreamed. And what if in your dream you went to Heaven. And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower. And what if when you awoke you had that flower in your hand. Ah, what then?’

Cherry smiled endearingly. ‘What then?’

‘You liked it?’

‘Of course.’ He darted his eyes down, seeing Cherry’s finger slipped from its place within her book. Turning suddenly serious. He looked to his watch, whispering a curse word, reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a pencil. And she watched him as he lay the book upon the table, flipping to the title page, beginning to taint it with his own soft grey writing. ‘Take it.’, he said after he was done, sliding the thing gently over to Cherry.

There was a pause before she shook her head. ‘I can’t-’

‘You must. A girl reading Coleridge is a world I would have to have more faith in.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to have faith in the world.’

‘Ah, but there’s one thing in the world always worth fighting for.’, he said, a smile growing on his lips.

‘What’s that?’, she asked, the same smile growing on her own.

And, ‘Beauty.’, he said.

She pushed the book back; a gorgeous hardcover with leather binding, her smile disappearing. ‘Regardless-’

‘Then you’ll give it back to me.’, he said, placing his hand over hers and pushing back.

‘Whatever.’

‘Promise?’ She nodded as he slid back abruptly from his chair. ‘Now I really have to go- Got someplace to be.’ She watched him slip his jacket onto his shoulders; leather- somehow out of place, she thought, and he stopped, gripping his two hands around the chair back, suddenly still amongst the hustle. ‘Goodbye.’, he said finally, before she watched him abruptly leave.

Once he was gone, Cherry slipped open the book, letting it fall open at a particular page of its own device, slipping something pressed out from between the pages, her eyebrows furrowing as she held it. There upon the palm of her hand, sat a small, delicate flower.