A Medium Regular for the End of the World

By Ryan Pozzi

The first time I ordered a Coolatta, I was fourteen and trying to impress a girl who liked
hers blue. I didn’t even know what “blue” meant—raspberry? Ice? Chemicals? It didn’t matter. I
stood behind her in line and said, “I’ll have the same.” It tasted like melted gum and static, but I
drank the whole thing like it might help me understand her. It didn’t.
Later that year I switched to the coffee version because it sounded more grown-up. I told
myself it was about caffeine, but it was the whipped cream I craved—the sugary dome that came
standard if you didn’t say otherwise. I never said otherwise.
I drank it in the backseat of someone’s car, head pressed against the window, pretending
it was enough to keep me awake through Algebra II. It wasn’t. But it gave me something to hold.
By eighteen I’d stopped ordering anything with whipped cream. I didn’t want to explain
it, even to myself. I kept signing up for 8 a.m. classes, convinced it was responsible. Then I’d
spend the whole semester dragging myself out of bed, barely making it, if at all. The coffee
helped. Sometimes.
I started ordering two drinks—one for me, one for whoever I was trying to hold on to.
Part ritual, part habit, part hope.
There was one girl who drank hers black, which I pretended not to mind. She’d take two
sips, maybe three, then forget it on the counter while we talked about books she couldn’t believe
I hadn’t read. I drank mine fast and finished hers later. It tasted like cold bark, but I convinced
myself it meant something about my manliness. I didn’t say that out loud.

Sometimes I’d stand at the pickup counter, holding both cups like I was a good
boyfriend, a regular. My hands would burn a little through the thin cardboard sleeves. It felt like
proof I was trying.
I don’t remember when I stopped ordering two. Just that one day, I didn’t.
The worst cup I ever had came on a day I didn’t order anything.
Someone else handed it to me, hot and pale and exactly the wrong temperature. I nodded
thanks without looking up. The lid was the kind you have to peel all the way off to drink
properly, and I didn’t bother. I sipped through the plastic anyway. It burned my lip.
It was the only thing I tasted that day. I sat in the second row, gripping the cup like it
might warm more than my hands. I didn’t say anything. No one expected me to.
Eventually, the coffee went cold. I kept holding it anyway. It gave me something to do.
For a while after, I ordered everything sweeter than I could stand. Extra cream, extra
sugar, syrup if they had it. I said yes to whipped cream again. I stopped pretending I wanted to
taste the coffee.
Sometimes I got a donut too—glazed, or the one with sprinkles, like I used to. It never
tasted right. But I kept ordering it, like my body remembered something my mouth didn’t.
I told people I had a sweet tooth, but that wasn’t it. I just needed something that stayed
the same.
I started going more often—early mornings, late nights, whenever it felt like the walls
were getting too close. The lights were on. The cup was warm. That was the whole deal.
These days I get a medium regular. Just one. No whipped cream, no syrups, no one to
share it with. It’s not my favorite. It’s just what works.
I say the words. They hand it over. I take a sip.

The air outside bites, even through my coat. The grease is already soaking through the
bag in my lap.
It’s warm. It’s sweet.
And for the next few minutes, I don’t think about anything at all.