Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding #2)(100)

Lexi could remember nearly all the names of the locations she had regularly visited and as they turned the corner, she could easily recall memories from each locale. Yet only a select few still held the same name. As they turned the corner, Lexi stopped and stared up at her once favorite hot spot, Chamber. It was now called Rage Bar. The girls moved to enter, but Lexi stopped them.

"I'm sure this is still a dance club, and unless you know the bartenders it's not fun until midnight. This should be the last stop," she instructed them.

They all looked at her speculatively. "Did you go here?" Kersey asked her mouth hanging open stupidly.

"Uh...yeah. Four years of my life," she muttered.

"I was told this place was great," Amber told her sticking out her hip.

"It is," Lexi quickly corrected, "just not until late when everyone's drunk. We should get drunk first."

"I second that," Maddie agreed pushing them away from the bar and down the street to a more low key venue to start out with.

Lexi walked farther down the street suddenly realizing where she her feet were carrying her. Her heart was racing as they drew closer. She knew exactly where they were. None of the girls knew the significance of the destination they were approaching. She gulped hard and tucked a lock behind her ear. She could do this. She could face down her past. These next few steps would be easy. It didn't matter that it had been over three years since she had been here. It didn't matter that she had more memories from this stretch of campus then anywhere else. It didn't matter that she had always held them most dear. She could break away from that now.

"What a cute coffee shop," Amber drawled staring into the glass-paned store front.

Lexi's breath caught as she stared through the front window. The same wooden tables were spattered throughout the room. The old comfy chairs and sunken couches had been replaced and booths were erected along the back wall. The fireplace was all closed up patiently awaiting the winter months. Any green reading lamps, which had once adorned tables, were nowhere in sight. Instead, several standing lamps were distributed around the room. Despite these differences, it still looked the same...it looked like home.

"Wow," Lexi breathed.

"Yeah, I think Jack used to work at a coffee shop somewhere downtown during college," Bekah said looking around to see if there were any other cafes nearby.

"How quaint," Kersey responded inching away from the place. She was obviously more of a Starbucks type.

"Jason's Coffee Shop," Amber muttered. "We'll have to see you in the morning."

"Wait Jason's?" Lexi asked nearly falling over herself to look up at the sign.

"Yeah why?" Amber questioned looking at Lexi strangely.

"This isn't Jason's," she murmured.

"It says so right here," Bekah pointed out.

"But it's been Corner Cafe forever," she moaned. "How could it be Jason's?"

"That's just business honey," Amber told her patting her on the arm tentatively.

"Did you used to come here a lot?" Maddie asked interpreting her overreaction.

Lexi stopped and looked at the four girls before her. How could she even begin to explain? It didn't even really make sense to her. A small part of her wanted Corner Cafe to still be there. It had to to still be there. It was the only part of the Jack she had once known that she had left. Without even this was he still out there?

She knew it was irrational to even contemplate him in this manor. After everything he had done to her, she shouldn't care for him with one bone in her body. But she knew him better, no, unlike anyone else in the world. She knew what he had been to begin with. She knew how sweet, kind, and caring he had once been. She knew him before he had hardened to the outside world, and before Bekah had used that hardness to her advantage and turned him cold.

But now even Corner was gone. The place they met. The place they spent hours together. The place it all started.

Without this place, she would have been someone else. She would have never met Jack Howard. She would have never led the life that she had lived. So on one hand, she was terribly sad to see the place go. Jack had meant so much to her for so long and it had all started right here...at that table.

But still she was happy. Perhaps this was just another way to close a chapter. If even their beginning together no longer existed, then as much as she had been pushing away from him...maybe this was good. The Jack that worked at this coffee shop no longer existed. It was only fitting that it also be closed...renamed...changed.

"Lexi?" Maddie asked waving her hands in front of her face.

"Uh yeah?" she asked snapping out of it.

"I asked if you used to come here a lot," Maddie told her.

"Right. Yeah sometimes," she said eyeing her study table through the glass.

"Is this where Jack worked?" Bekah asked pursing her lips. Her expression showed she was judging the establishment.

"No another friend of mine did," she stated wearily. "He moved away though and now is a really different person..."

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