This is a short story I wrote a couple of months ago. I let it just sit around a while and reread and did some major revisions to it. Please respond if you like it or don't like it. Basically critique. And by critique, I mean respond about any emotions evoked by the piece or any confusion you have. I'm not looking for people to proofread for me.
-njh
All I could see left of what I wrote was the blinking cursor, only for it to be blurred as I felt tears slide down my cheek. It had just happened. As quickly as it began, it ended. Without any screamed words or possessions being thrown out, it ended.
All that remained were memories and the blinking cursor on an IM chat box. I thought the first night we met in person and spent together. She had managed to pin me down, and straddled my stomach as she looked down on me. She looked beautiful right then, with locks of her hair streaming over her face. She took my right hand and pushed it up against her left breast.
“You know most of this is yours, don’t you?” she had whispered as she looked down on me.
I wiped another tear from my eye and reread the last question that I wrote to her. If I didn’t want to be around anymore, would it even matter?
It had been a couple minutes since she had last written anything. Over the summer she had grown distant; she responded less to my messages, stopped answering my texts and phone calls. At first she would apologize and try and explain, but as more time passed these apologies less and less frequent.
My eyes lingered on the blinking cursor. No answer appeared. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I remembered the first time she had texted me. I had been out a bar with a friend and received a message from a number I didn’t recognize. All it said was I need to talk to you. There was never a question of who it was in my mind. I ran out of the bar and to my car and called the number. Within the first few rings, she picked up. It was the first time I heard her voice. We didn’t stop talking till we both were too exhausted to stay up.
But those days were long gone. It had been over a month since I had last received a phone call from her. My messages over the computer were rarely responded to and her answers were always so deliberately slow, if they came at all.
The familiar chimes of an incoming message shattered my reverie. My eyes quickly returned to the message box. Eventually. It was all she wrote.
She knew my disdain for single word answers. Yet, lately, she chose to solely answer with them. I continued to stare at the screen, hoping something more would come. My patience was answered by silence on her part. I scrolled up to a previous part of our conversation.
Because you want to be. As I read those words for the second time, they seemed to reverberate within my body. I had been in denial for so long. I made excuses for her, when she offered no explanation. I told myself she was busy with school when she had no time to talk. I told myself she was busy with her family, when she had gone home after school had ended and still found no time to talk to me. But her words were right there. I could no longer deny what I saw.
It had only been till five minutes since I had finally found the courage to ask her. Her answer was like a blow to the stomach. I wanted so badly to read that she needed me. Instead, she said the truth. Why was I still around?
Because you want to be.
I knew if I could have seen her eyes at the moment, I wouldn’t have seen the warmth that I saw in them the first time we kissed. I had made a bet with her that she would kiss me first, a bet that I knew I would lose the moment I first saw her. A bet she made sure I lost. And as I leaned to kiss her later that night, she turned her head away slightly, then mischievously whispered in my ear, “you lost.” But when she finally turned her head back and I brushed my lips against hers, I whispered back, “I wanted to lose.”
None of that would be there. None of the smiles or giggles, or jokes we shared. She had already walked away from that. I realized I had nothing to say to her anymore. I waited for a few minutes to see if she would write anything. She didn’t. I logged off my computer and headed to bed.
I tried to sleep. I tried not to dream. I tried not to think about anything. I tried. After tossing in bed for most of night, my phone went off. A text. From her. Her dog had died.
I’m sorry, I wrote back. Do you want me to call?
No, I don’t want to talk right now.
Well, I’m awake and around if you need me.
I received no response after that. I really didn’t expect to. I still waited though, hoping. I fell asleep with my cell phone in my hand. When I woke up, I found my phone had fallen to the floor beneath me. I didn’t need to check to know she hadn’t written me back.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you…” she had said to me the last time I saw her. We were in her car. There was a snow storm around us. Flakes of fluffy white snow threatened my drive home to northern Virginia and hers to Tennessee. I never wanted to leave that car. I just sat there in her passenger seat, leaning over to kiss her. She stopped me and looked into my eyes. For previous couple of days beforehand, she had been questioning our relationship. During the weekend we spent together, we had decided to try and give what we had a chance. She cradled my face with her hands and brushed her fingers against my lips. I kissed the palm of her hand. She then whispered those words.
It was the last time that I saw her. It was the last time I touched her. It was last time I held her. It was the last time I kissed her.
As I climbed into my car to drive to work for the day, I remembered how I felt on that winter morning driving away from her. I carried so much hope of things to come. I opened up my phone to the last text message she sent me and read it again. My mind drifted to last night and the conversation we had.
“Nothing but memories,” I whispered. With trembling fingers, I deleted the text message she sent. My eyes focused on her name in my cell phone directory. My thumb pressed upon the delete button. The next screen appeared and prompted me if I was sure. I pressed down on the yes button. Gingerly, I laid my cell phone down on my passenger seat like it was a volatile bomb ready to explode. I stared at the phone for awhile. “Nothing but memories,” I whispered again as I started my car and shifted to reverse.
Sangria
6 oz. of red wine
1/2 oz. of cranberry, mango, and strawberry infusion
2 oz. of strawberry concentrate
1 oz. of mango concentrate
1 oz. of lime juice
a splash of sprite/7 up
Add everything to a mixer, shake and pour into a iced schooner/fishbowl.
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