text: He kept his head down, eyes fixated on his phone, he had no one to text but it gave him something to do. His headphones played the same few songs he had heard a thousand times, it was something familiar to keep his mind from wandering. The entire summer he had not spoken a word , a lump had formed in his throat, he had no one to speak to, he had forgotten what it was like it to speak, convincing himself no one would want to, he never put the effort in to open his mouth. The days went on and on in this cycle, he became increasingly more isolated, despite being in a city of millions, “ I wonder” he thought to himself, he did that a lot, “Does anyone even notice me?”, That’s all he wanted, his family didn’t seem to notice his isolation, but then again that could have been all in his head. On the last day, he woke up before the sun had risen to be on his way to the airport, he hadn’t slept much. On the way, he found himself in a small rustic coffee shop, it was full of personality, and not that manufactured personality he had grown so tired of, it was a place of passion, he noticed the small things like that. It was a happy place and that’s exactly what he needed. “What’ll be buddy?” asked the man on the till with a warm smile, “uh”, shakingly , “just a latte I guess” , eyes glued to the floor, avoiding any kind of eye contact. On his way to the table he noticed all the cups of coffee had little drawings in the foam, leaves, coffeebeans, an overused cliche but he liked the effort. He sat down threw his head into his crossed arms and waited for his drink to arrive. What felt like minutes to him passed, he was getting restless but obviously he didn’t have the gile to complain, so he sat there, scrolling through his messages, not talking to anyone, just scrolling enough to seem like everyone else. “Hey man sorry for the delay I worked extra hard on this one” , the barista placed the cup down on the table. He looked at it and saw a drawing of himself on the foam, his heart dropped and his stomach turned. He was shocked, he was distressed, someone had finally noticed him. He got up. raced to the bathroom. locked himself in a stall and when he made sure he was completely alone, he burst into tears, anyone else would have passed it off as something interesting and nothing more but to him it was an act of kindness he had never felt before, a complete stranger. He sat there in the stall, tears running down his cheeks, and let out a laugh of purest ecstasy. He left the bathroom , didn’t touch his drink and left the store with a smile, he hadn’t had one of those in a while.