Happy Valentine's Day everybody our new short story is called cafe love from beyond. A young man falls in love with a girl but they're the problem with this girl she's dead.
In a small New Orleans theme café, I’ve fallen in love with a beautiful blonde ghost girl who isn’t even alive. Inside the café, flames rise. It was hell and chaos. The café was going to be destroyed, and the blond ghost was, too.
Wait. I’m too far ahead of the story. Let me start from the beginning, ten days earlier. Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t told you my name. I’m Drake, and I’m a waiter at the café. It was a regular day at the café, but it was the worst day of my life. My girlfriend just dumped me.
I just felt empty. I feel like there’s nothing to live for but work. So I started working more hours at the café. It’s past midnight, time to close the café.
As I clean up the last of the glasses and plates, I go outside to turn off the café light decorations. Walking toward the door, I see someone still here.
I see a girl. Her head is down on the table, and her hair covers her face. The light shined from the outside, illuminating her lightly colored hair. This is the blonde girl I was talking about.
I go over to her, thinking she was sleeping off her drinks. I walk over to her, my hand sticking out to tap her shoulder. She’s awake. She raised her head. Her blonde hair continues to glow. I said, “Mam, we are closed. Should I call you a taxi or a friend?”
The blonde looked at me reply warily, “I can’t go.”
I said, “I will call you a taxi after. I turn off the lights and lock the door, all right?” I quickly turned off the lights and walked back inside. I looked at her table, and she was gone.
The next day in the café. Drake went to work as usual, and he saw his friend Bobby. A waiter also, he and Drake had been working at the café.
Bobby gives a hi-five to Drake, “Hey Drake, how was your night?” Bobby said.
Drake answered, “I worked here.”
Bobby exclaimed, “Again. You got to let me set you up.”
Drake said, “No, I’m fine, but there was this beautiful hot blonde sitting at the café.”
Bobby questioned, “Was she alone?”
Drake replied, “I think so.”
Bobby uttered, “NO way, a hot blonde? She had to be with someone.”
The cook overheard us talking about the blonde girl, and he came over to us. The cook had worked here before the café reopened with this New Orleans-themed café, and he knew what we were talking about. The cook came over to us and told us the café story. The cook started whispering to us, which was weird.
He whispered, “The blonde guest you saw… was a ghost.”
Bobby and I looked at him uttered, “What?”
The cook continues, saying, “Two years ago, the café was not a New Orleans theme café. It was a Mexican theme, and the blonde girl was our number one customer, a regular at the café. She was a really fun girl, but one day the guy she was dating dumped her.
“Just like me," I thought.
“The guy really hurt her. So, she came one evening and ordered a few drinks. She took a whole bottle of sleeping pills and died without anyone noticing. As the café started closing late at night and found out she was dead. The police officer said it was a suicide, but her ghost would appear every night, sitting in that corner. That’s why the café was closed for a while.”
The manager walked by. The cook stopped talking for a second and put on an innocent face as the manager walked past them. The cook said, “The manager and the owner didn’t want any old staff talking about it. Because it might scare off the customer or you employees.”
The cook went back to work. I didn’t think it was true, but the café began to close later that day. I go lock up the café’s front door. As I start to lock the door, I notice in the corner of my eye. The same blonde girl was there in the corner, wearing a crop top, jean pants, and a long jacket. I didn’t believe the cook’s story. I quietly walked over to her without saying a word. I went to touch her, and my hand went right through her, as she was vapor. She didn’t acknowledge my presence. As scared as I was, I knew how she felt. I asked her if she was all right. The blond ghost girl turns at me.
As I am thinking, she turns and looks at me, and she says, "Another drink of bourbon cocktail, please."
I went to the bar and made her a drink. As I brought her the beverages, I thought, “She’s just going to leave again.” I looked back, but she’s still here. I put the drink on the table. She drank it.
That night, I went to bed later than usual. She had ordered drink after drink, and she had even paid with real money, then vanished.
The next day, inside, my friend, Bobby, noticed the dark circles under my eyes. They were darker than usual, and he asked, “What happened?”
I said, “You know that story the cook told us about? The blond ghost girl? It’s true.”
Bobby laughed. He thought I was joking around the whole day. Again, later the day, as the café began to close, I locked the café’s front door the blond ghost appeared again.
She asked for a drink but before I give her the cocktail, I asked, “Why did you kill yourself?”
The blonde ghost looked at me and said, “Have you ever been betrayed by the one you love, and you do everything possible for them?”
I said, “Yes, my girlfriend just dumped me. It’s been tough for me lately. I even thought about killing myself too.”
The blonde ghost suddenly asked, “Are you?”
I answered, "I don't know." We fell silent for a moment. I got her the drink. Once again, I went to bed later than usual. She ordered drink after drink, and she even paid with real money again. And then she vanished.
For weeks we talked. I made her the same drink, and we had a lot in common we both liked the same old classic action movie and rock music by artists few people still listen to. I didn’t tell anyone about the blonde, but the only one who knew about her was Bobby, who didn’t believe me.
After a long day in the café, it was time to close. I began to close; I locked the door. The blond ghost showed up. But this time was different. She was not sad or frowning. She was smiling, and she looked like she couldn’t wait to see me. Once more, I made her a drink. I knew her drink by heart, but this time she didn’t drink it. We just talked.
As I look into her sparkling light cerulean eyes, I started to feel something that I thought I had lost; I began to feel as if I could love again. The blonde ghost a“What’sWhat’s your”name?”
I “I’m, “I’m ”rake.”
The blonde ghost “aid, ”Drake” Before she could continue, I kissed her. My lips didn’t go through her. I backed away, and I was about to say sorry, but she kissed me too.
I was caught up in the moment. Without my noticing, Bobby came in because he forgot his jacket. Bobby looked, he saw some lights were still on. He opened the kitchen door but not too much, and he saw me kiss the gBobby’sdidn’tobby’s eyes widened in shock; he covered his mouth…and quietly left.
The following day, I smiled more than I had for a long time. Bobby came up to me said, “Hey Drake,” and I went in for a hi-five, and Bobby said, “I saw you.”
I replied, “What?”
He pulled me aside where no one can see or hear us. Bobby whispered, “I saw you kiss that blonde girl. Is that the ghost?”
I said, “So ”hat.”
Bobby exclaimed, “So what? It’s a ghost; she’s dead! If you had to fall in love. Fall in love with someone alive.”
“So, w”at,” I said again, and I walked away from Bobby with him calling my name. Four hours later, the owner gathers all the stuff for an announcement. The owner said that the café would be sold and demolished to build a restaurant.
That scared me; if the café goes, the ghost will too. But the owner had a hard time selling the café due to the rumor of the place being haunted. No one wants to buy a haunted location.
It was time for the café to close and to see her. I went to lock up the café, and I prepared her drink, but the blond ghost girl didn’t show up. An hour later, nothing but the owner, cook, and Bobby showed up altogether. I said, “Bobby, what are of doing here this late?”
The owner said, “Where’s the ghost?”
Bobby said, “Where’s the ghost?”
I looked at Bobby and said, “You told them?”
Bobby answered, "No, but they said if I help them, they give me 15% of the restaurant business."
The cook replied, “I overheard you and Bobby talking and how you have fallen in love with the ghost and the ghost with you. And the idea came,” He waved his hand, pointing at the owner as he said, “I will make the owner’s problem disappear, and I will get 50% of the restaurant." He waved the other hand pointing at Bobby, and said, “Out of my 50%, I will give Bobby 15% of the restaurant.”
The owner said again, “Where’s the ghost?”
I wasn’t talking. The cook grabbed my arm and pinning me against the table, knocking the drink over. Shocked, Bobby said, “Hey, you said you wouldn’t hurt him.”
The drink was knocked over, and glass rose into the air and hit the cook in the back of the head. The cook collapsed into a heap. The blonde ghost appeared at my side and in a concerned tone, “Drake, are you ok?”
I said, “Yes, I’m alright.”
It was the first time the three of them saw the ghost. Bobby panicked and hurried out the back door. Along the way, he accidentally knocked over a bottle of brandy I had left out. The brandy poured out onto the outlet, causing it to blow and start a fire.
Ok, we are right where we left off.
The fire spread like wildfire, and the blond ghost faded away. The owner and Drake both tried to put out the fire. Suddenly the ceiling started crumbling, and a piece of burning chandelier fell on Drake. The owner hustled out of the café and left Drake to die.
Drake struggled to get free, barely able to breathe from smoke and wave of heat. Drake coughed from the smoke. Suddenly the chandelier lifted off him.“Drake, get out! You will die” said the blonde ghost.
“No, if we go, we go together” Drake coughed and said, “After all this, I never asked what your name was.”
Drake passed out cold.
The next day, Drake woke in the hospital; he learned that he and the cook were rescued from the fire and the café was burned to the ground, and he lost the love of his life.
As Drake lay down on the hospital bed, I started to see some things. It was the blonde ghost, “Lizzie! But the café was destroyed.” He remembers her name when she said it in the fire. He looked into her light sparking cerulean eyes.
Lizzie said, “Yes, but I’m with you. But I have to go.”
Drake saw a ray of light, a light so clear, so pure. It was heaven. Both heard harps playing, a choir of men and women singing the most beautiful music they ever heard in their life.
Drake asks, “Am I dying?”
Lizzie shook her head no and answered, “No. You’re not.”
Drake said, “I want to be with you.”
Lizzie replies, “You are. You freed me. Live, Drake, and one day we will be together again, I promise you.”
Drake said, “Yes. I will.”
Drake and Lizzie kiss for the last time. Going to the light, Lizzie smiled and entered heaven.