Hello everyone,
I know your time is limited, so this post is going to seem very, very long. I was just hoping you could give it a read — it’s a short story I recently finished — and send any thoughts my way.
Again, it’s about 1,900 words, so it will take some time to read, especially because I ask you to read it slowly to fully consider it. If you don’t like it at the end, I completely apologize for wasting your time :)
Thank you!
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Today was the day.
He had made up his mind long ago that one day he would tell her. He would turn to her, holding her hands in his while looking in her eyes, and he would tell her.
There were things in his heart, things he couldn’t put into words or explain to his friends or his family or even a stranger. He had even tried keeping a journal at one time so that he could put the feelings into words, but he quickly realized his vocabulary wasn’t strong enough. Even thesauruses can’t explain this, he thought. Nothing could.
He had always thought of himself as being a relatively average person. His height, five feet eleven inches, wasn’t enough to make him tower over most, nor did many tower over him. His build was slender, with thin wrists he could wrap his hands around without trouble and calf muscles others often considered “chicken legs.”
But his shoulders were broad. He inherited that from his father, a man who had considered a giant when he was a child. His friends always stood in awe of the man. Some even feared him. His father stood four inches taller than him now, still cutting his hair and mustache as if he was on his way to a Hulk Hogan impressionist meeting. Did impressionists meet, he wondered to himself? Did they gather around and practice? He had heard once that an impressionist comedian had based one of his acts around another comedian’s imitations. Perhaps that was how they practiced, among each other, scrutinizing and praising depending on the quality.
He shook his head to put the thought out of his mind and looked around. He was sitting in his car at a gas station, but now he shut off the engine and listened to the song on the radio as the voice sang his favorite lyrics. I’m alone in this, I am as I’ve always been/ right behind what’s happening.
Now he opened the door and locked them, a habit he had picked up after living in a city for the past year. He knew the area he was in now, as it was about fifteen minutes from his former home where he had lived with his parents since he was five years old. He knew no one locked their doors around here but he did it unconsciously, clicking the lock button twice until his headlights flashed and horn beeped once to alert anyone nearby that the alarm was set. He had always wondered whether it paid to have a car alarm or to set one, since it seemed the only time one sounded was when someone absentmindedly forgot to unlock their doors and lifted the handle to hear the embarrassing honks. Or they hit the red button on the keychain and set it off from a distance, their hearts racing as they tried not looking around so as to see the faces glancing to see the fool who had set of his or her own alarm, smiling inside because they knew they had done it before, too.
Walking inside the gas station he immediately made his way past the roller grills and sample lady handing out morsels of food, pitying her because her enthusiasm was fabricated and her smile tiring, knowing the patrons were all too happy to try a sample but regardless of whether they liked it they would never splurge the $1.99 to have a full piece.
A shame.
He moved to the refrigerator section, eying the various drinks. It seemed odd to him he never knew exactly which one he wanted. He liked so many and every time he had the decision to pick one he always felt a little guilty about picking a soda over a bottle of green tea or water. Those were healthy, he assumed, though he knew the green teas had as many additives and as much sugar as the white soda he tended to drink.
Today, however, he grasped at the energy drink and pulled it as the cans behind it slid forward to take its place, waiting for the next customer to pick one so the process could begin again. The energy drink brought back memories of driving at night while he smoked a menthol cigarette and listened to emo music in his car. The taste of the energy drink perfectly complemented the cigarette, as if the two were made to be enjoyed together.
But he had quit smoking and now he hated the emo music. In truth he loved it, loved the way the lyrics about unrequited love always spoke to him and made him feel a little less alone. It was bittersweet, the way the memories flooded back to him. He had listened to he music when and thought of her, always her.
Again he shook himself from the memory as his chest ached. He couldn’t describe the feeling, only that he felt empty inside at times. A week ago he had spoken to a friend who was feeling the same way, but he had trouble talking about serious things like this. He always laughed nervously and uncomfortably so the other person couldn’t tell whether he actually felt the feelings he described or whether he was simply trying to empathize with something he could never understand. Besides, his friend’s situation was different. He had been in love with a girl he had dated off and on for three years. His friend was selfish, he thought as he stood on line before the checkout counter, in it for the sex. His friend was addicted to it, having bragged to have done it hundreds of times over the years.
Mindless f***ing, he thought. There was a tinge of jealousy in these thoughts, and he quickly recognized and put it out of his mind for the time being. He looked the checkout person behind the counter in the eyes as she asked him whether he had any gas outside.
“Not today,” he mumbled.
“Just this then?”
“Yup,” he said while exhaling so the sound came out as a whisper but was still recognizable. He looked at the packs of cigarettes behind her, thinking about the times he had smoked with friends and the feeling he had when he slowly exhaled the blue-tinted smoke.
Again he thought of her.
She had been at the party when he tried smoking the first time. They were friends then, but not close friends like they were now. She was there with her boyfriend, a man he envied above all else, but also a man he couldn’t hate. He was a pretty nice guy towards him, even offering him his beer when he was at a party once.
She had broken up with him the winter before and he remembered telling her just hours after she had given him the news that he thought he had feelings for her. Thought. F***ing coward. He knew he had feelings for her at the time, knew they weren’t just “feelings”, too. What the hell were feelings anyways? Feelings was such an ambiguous word, such a stupid way to phrase something as important as what he felt. He knew he had picked the easy way out, the way that he knew things wouldn’t be screwed up if she didn’t feel the same way. And she didn’t. Or so he assumed at the time. She had fed him lines that she didn’t want a long distance relationship and, to be fair, they lived three hours apart. Did he buy it? He didn’t want to, just so he could push her from his mind. But he couldn’t do that. He could never do that. The fear of pushing her away, pushing her out of his mind was too painful a thought. He decided he would rather suffer the consequences of loving someone he assumed he could never have, only so he could know in his heart he held love for someone.
He left the counter after paying and returned to his car, turning the ignition key before cracking open his twenty four ounce energy drink. Taking a deep breath he put the car in reverse, leaving his parking space before pulling the stick back two more spots, noting both times it locked into place, so it was in “drive.” His car returned to the streets to complete his trip, and when he thought about it later it was nothing more than a blur. He didn’t remember his thoughts, what was on the radio, or how much of the energy drink he poured down his throat. He only remembered what happened after the drive, after he pulled into another parking space and left the car, walking up the pavement and through the door to the room where she was alone. She wasn’t expecting him and the surprise on her face caused him to forget his entire plan. God, she was beautiful. Certainly she wasn’t perfect and he had at times noticed her flaws, but it didn’t bother him. He decided she was perfect for him, and besides, what he loved most about her was beneath her exterior. He loved the sound of her laughter, and so he had always tried so hard to make her do it, even if it meant making her laugh at him. He loved her determination and her drive to work hard, harder than anyone he had ever known. He loved that she volunteered, loved that she worked with children battling cancer, loved that she wanted a career helping others in medicine.
And so he stared for a second, though it felt to him like an eternity. He didn’t know whether he was smiling or whether his jaw was dropped. He didn’t know what to say, forgetting everything he had gone over in his mind. He tried making the scenarios he had practiced over and over during the previous months and, oh God, years. Everything he had thought flooded through his head in an instant, but one scenario stuck.
Imperceptibly he took a deep breath and walked towards her as she looked at him puzzled. Had she said something to him? What was she thinking? But he continued to walk until he stood just a few inches from her. What he did next was neither planned nor considered as a real possibility, but he was committed to it now. Bending his left arm at the elbow he gently grasped her slender bicep while his right hand moved to the left side of her face, his thumb deftly pushing some of her hair behind her ear while his mouth touched hers, his lips kissing her softly.
He slowly pulled away, still looking in her slowly reopened eyes and noting her stunned expression.
“Even if I never get the opportunity to do this again,” he said delicately and succinctly, “I needed to do it this once.”
And so they continued to look at each other. How long, neither knew. But it was this moment he remembered months and years and decades later, forgetting many of the details in the ensuing conversation. He only remembered her and what was flooding his mind: no longer a coward, he thought, no more regret.
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