Someone used to say to me, if you love someone or something very deeply, the love you possess transcends even death. 959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7fdSWk7ZYs
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The following story is about such a love - an ethereal and ineffable kind of love surrounding pizza, coffee, Laurent, and a lovable girl named Nicole.
Nicole has a craving for pizza - well, not necessarily pizza in itself, but the feeling of sharing it amongst her closest friends, especially on her birthday. Few remembered Nicole’s birthday - only those who really cared for her did - but the beautiful thing about pizza is it always feels like birthday when the five-letter-word is around. Well, at least Nicole felt it.
Of course, there’s also the cheese.
Laurent, Nicole’s childhood sweetheart, figured it out the very first day they met at the flower garden near the run-down children’s playground down Maple Street. It wasn’t hard for the clumsy little boy to realize, for that day the gingery and brown-eyed little girl was running gracefully to and fro the maple trees caressing a slice of cheese pizza with her two small and feeble hands. Laurent never seemed to forget her face, the picture of the starry-eyed girl smiling brightly under the warm and gentle heat of the sun, with sunlight filtering through the brilliant colour of leaves casting lovely shadows on her pale face, which was then painted with faded spots of tomato sauce fresh from a nearby local farm. If someone had passed by and captured a photo of her small face, one might have mistaken the shy little girl for a surreal painting yet to be finished by a long-forgotten artist of some distant land.
As much as Nicole loved cheese - and Laurent, of course - she had an affectionate and almost romance-like love for coffee too. She loved it so much that the love-filled and innocent little boy, with the already clumsy head of his, bought his adorable sweetheart a house near a small but heavenly pizza-coffee place next to the sea on her 27th birthday.
Perhaps that is why she died early at the age of 35.
Back then the silently lethal harms of cheese and coffee had still remained a mystery to many. But luckily she passed away wrapped up in Laurent’s arms, eyes closing gently before the calm fading light reflecting from the coffee bean pendant which rested on her young husband’s pale neck, the matching half of the one lying on her own feeble neck which, when clasped together, formed a small heart signifying their inseparable love for each other, one which never seemed to fade but continued to grow since the first day the two children met under the silent warmth of each others’ presence at the garden 30 years before.
Such pain was incomparable, especially to the young boy who had a strong but feeble heart. It was so unbearable that he, too, died three weeks later at the coffee place near their peaceful haven. Some said the boy had died choking on his expresso, as he was crying ever so helplessly at the time. But no one knew exactly what happened that cold and lonely August night.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHCg1WFVH3i
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It is a sad story, a very sad one indeed.
But it doesn’t stop here.
It couldn’t. It just couldn’t.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTf8uMsCr3G
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Somehow, the souls of both Laurent and Nicole were passed on to a second life.
Two new faces.
Two parallel lives.
Two wholly different personalities.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡovK3lNn0ix
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But some things are just meant to stay.
Especially when you love them so deeply.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0NLHunkJlJ
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In her new life, Nicole still loved pizza and the deadly alluring cheese.
She still loved coffee and its lethal caffeine.
Surprisingly, she still had the coffee bean pendant which the doctors gave her upon finding the delicate thing tucked neatly inside her baby blanket when she was first conceived and cared for in the Delivery Room.
However, amongst all things, Nicole and Laurent didn’t manage to meet at the beautiful flower garden down Maple Street. They just didn’t, sadly. As if the immortal gods resting high above felt it a sin.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeu4FzlG1JL
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But Laurent remembered Nicole.
He remembered her.
It might have been just a faint memory, but somehow, somehow one freezing Winter’s day, the warm-hearted and bright little boy dreamt of a girl whom he thought he used to know: a little girl with a smile bright as the sun, eyes twinkly as the stars, and a heart so big that her tiny body couldn’t possibly carry.
If those weren’t enough, the faded spots of tomato sauce and the sweet little giggles radiating from her soft, pale contours gave it all away.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoGeKwBsOWm
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It could have been just a dream, it could very well be, but the boy felt connected with what he saw.
There is something about her which he felt he knew.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvgJbWnGnuR
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He didn’t manage to see her face in the dream.
No, little Laurent didn’t.
But there was this feeling,
A feeling of reminiscence,
Which he felt he belonged. 959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFPfjiv0IXZ
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.
He also felt the pain.
A slow and numbing pain which spoke of a girl he once failed to protect. And somehow, much to his surprise, the young boy remembered a five-letter word and its six-letter partner in crime.
Pizza. Coffee.
Tears started to flow down the boy’s soft and pale cheeks which were now devoid of his usual sweet pink blush.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwFh6xr81xX
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And so little Laurent started his journey - a journey to protect the girl he felt he once loved.
With his clumsy little head. And a stubborn little heart.
Once again.
One more chance.
As if Time refused to move forward.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ34N7UOp6S
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In this second life, Laurent didn’t know much about Nicole.
He didn’t know anything.
Where she lived,
What she liked,
Her age,
Not even her name.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzimEGSXRQH
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But he knew they were somehow connected.
By two things.
Two - and a half.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0qLwPFJXCN
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1. Pizza.
2. Coffee.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuNy96Z5uJz
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And the coffee bean pendant which seemed to hold a mystery, a beautiful mystery which the boy yearned so much to know.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8dRlNCkhRs
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Laurent didn’t know where the girl lived, but the bright little boy managed to become a delivery man at foodpanda, a local delivery company around his neighborhood. And eventually, through chance encounter and a little luck, he found out about a young and homely girl who orders pizza and coffee every alternate day of the week.
Alternate days. Pizza and coffee. 959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaqqkb0Ggdw
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Laurent felt a nudge at the back of his head.
It may just have been a feeling - little Laurent knew very well - but feelings often mean something, don’t they?959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3myiLEwTG9
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Pizza.
Coffee.
Pizza.
Coffee.
Pizza.
Coffee.
Have a little faith, little Laurent told himself.
So the boy decided to trust his clumsy little head once more.
One more time.
Just once more.
This time, though, he would make things right.
He would protect her from her death.
At least for a short while.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBaO1SB7YL4
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He found out the girl always ordered extra cheese for her pizza. So Laurent would buy an extra pizza along with hers every time, one which was identical in every way except it had regular cheese.
And he would replace her pizza with his every time.
He did the same for her coffee, too.
He would replace the coffee she ordered with a decaffeinated one. Laurent knew very well the risk involved in what he was doing, but the naive little boy was willing to give it a shot.
This cycle repeated every alternate day that warm and cozy Spring. So Laurent, now a full-grown young man in his 20s, saw Nicole almost every day. The 19-year-old girl had no idea who he was, she just saw him as a clumsy young delivery boy who often seemed a little too kind, and Laurent, too, knew little about the graceful and cheery woman who stood in front of him, down the brownish red brick doorstep every bright and sunny afternoon. Their meeting was sometimes as short as 30 seconds, but if Laurent was lucky and the girl lost her wallet somewhere inside her living room, they would manage to talk for as long as 20 minutes. He once broke the record of 30, which allowed him to indulge in the peaceful quiet of fresh grass near the pavement and the lovely shades of brown of the low fence surrounding the young girl’s small haven, but that was when she dropped her keys amongst the weeds in the pond and almost came back up soaked in water from head to toe.
And so Laurent continued to replace and deliver pizza and coffee to the girl every alternate day the arriving Summer, Autumn, and Winter. He started seeing a pattern of diminishing orders, and in the following months, he sometimes came as little as once a week. Perhaps the girl has started growing bored of non-cheesy pizzas and the cheesy decaffeinated coffee which proved too mild, but Laurent didn’t mind. Well, little Laurent did feel sad about seeing her less and less, but he reminded himself it was for her good. The naive little boy, though unsure of the future and what lies ahead, felt responsible for the health and well-being of the young girl who stood in front of him.
Funny thing was, despite seeing her less and less, little Laurent’s ineffable love for this girl - a girl he barely knew - grew stronger and deeper each passing day.
He seemed to know so little about her, but at the same time, there were times when he felt he knew her more than anyone else.
There was this connection, this ineffable link, which seemed to bind the lives of the two innocent teenagers.
Countless nights passed, and as the cold wind blew towards the month of February, little Laurent decided to take the step and find out the answer to the mystery he yearned so much to know.
The pendant which both of them - he, and the girl whom he once loved and fell in love again - were a part of.
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So on the 14th day of February, Laurent walked up to the girl’s house. This time he didn’t bring any pizza. Or coffee. Or his usual polite pleasantries. This time - oh, this time - little Laurent was about to open his heart to the girl who stole his heart.959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf7Yg5Jf4B5
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‘ hi, I - ’ the clumsy boy started, looking into her eyes and quickly glanced away.
He almost felt like crying.
‘…right, I came to - ’ he started fidgeting with his necklace, and rested the pendant on the palm of his hand.
‘ I came because of this. ’959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7kHU1ohKxF
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The young girl, upon seeing the fragile but delicate adornment, looked deep into his eyes of ocean blue.
Mirroring him previously, she fidgeted with the necklace resting on her white woollen pullover, her small and pale fingers trembling a bit as they did.
‘ My mother…’
She started, looking away as she spoke,
‘ My mother gave it to me when I was five,’ she spoke softly,
‘ …before she passed away.’
The boy looked at her.
‘ I don’t know if…’
She looked up, placing her right palm, still trembling a little.
‘ May I…? ’
The boy nodded.
The girl took a step closer.
With her pendant in her hands, she brought it close to the boy’s heart.
The pendants fit perfectly, forming a heart shaped coffee bean, the answer to the question the boy yearned so much to learn.
She looked up, trembling as she spoke,
‘ Laurent..? ’
Little Laurent smiled, looking into her pale, beautiful brown eyes.
‘ Yes, it’s me - ’ the boy answered, tears flowing down,
‘ …it’s me, dear Nicole.’959Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLaFF0W56ks
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