Written by Zoe Vedova, Peak Associate
My heartbeat was frenetic that morning. It shook the blood in my veins as I gripped my phone. I’d contracted a heinous bout of emotional stability. Now, the hunger for relationship turmoil screamed through my every waking moment. But please don’t worry — I’m a highly evolved creature, adapted to the inhospitable edge of valid coping mechanisms.
Adrenaline was high and blood sugar levels were low, and that could only be rectified by one event: a high fructose, hazelnut caramel syrup-saturated coffee date with my recent ex-boyfriend.
My phone jumped with his incoming text.
I really think it would be easier if we could talk about what happened in person yk?What about coffee tomorrew?
*tomorrow lol
I grinned manically.
It was Closure Time.
There’s great artistry in the emotional gratification of painstakingly chronicling every mundane misdemeanor my ex and I made against each other throughout our torrid, Tinder-based, three-week-long relationship. A coffee shop is the ideal destination: it’s private enough that you can each lie about deleting the other’s nudes out loud, but it’s also public enough that the caffeine catalyst will escalate petty insults about each other’s music tastes into a fight that ends with you stealing their headphones when they depart. Oh, that rush . . . Norepinephrine . . .
Closure of this calibre cannot be desperately gleaned somewhere as simple as the Cornerstone Starbucks. After all, my accusation that you didn’t like the name of my cat (Dromedary) could be interrupted by a crim student accidentally lusting over a serial killer out loud.
No, what I need is the burning filament of an incandescent lightbulb to highlight my glistening eyes, along with a plethora of succulents lined up on an unsanded pinewood shelf to witness our fractured hearts.
I wasn’t the amateur closure-coffee dater I was when I first began orchestrating my breakups to ascertain chaos and caffeine. I let my break-ups ferment now, age like wine. Nothing is worse than a purely amicable send-off from which neither partner can indulge in the added weight to their emotional baggage.
Only once, shamefully, was I outmaneuvered. The boy escaped to a soul-searching backpacking trip of trendy hostels in Japan before I could schedule anything. In my defence, he was a Cancer.
I could already taste the fair trade matcha latte, dripping down the back of a throat tightening with emotion. And if this date tomorrow was bland, well — I glanced down at my phone, relishing in the fresh Tinder notifications — there would be a new break-up just around the corner.
