I let the wind toss my short, reddish hair all over the place and ruin my part. I’m chilled with my long legs covered by nothing than a pair of nylons that are a size too big for me, and my black and green-grey skirt, which is barely long enough to be modest while the air is still, does nothing to retain any warmth. But I couldn’t care. I might look like a mess, like nothing special with my black, worn over coat clutched closed and dirty, pink back pack full of school books slung over one shoulder, but I know you wouldn’t have me any other way.
At least, that’s what you said. You told me that you liked me because I wasn’t like most other girls, that I was more human. You said it was my ability and willingness to stand out and be my own person. Well, my own person would rather catch the bus to see a sweet guy that happens to like me a little in return than put in a pair of earrings and trace her eyes with eyeliner to look like she’d put herself together that morning. So now as I stand, lonely and exhausted on the train platform waiting to go home in the sputtering rain and gusty wind, I wish you were here. Because I know if you were to walk up to me right now you would hug me tight and tell me that I’m beautiful.
You do that a lot. You call me sexy, tell me I’m beautiful, say I’m cute. You flatter me, and you pay for my food quite frequently. But I won’t let you buy me curlers for my hair again. I can’t stop you if you buy me stars, but you really spend too much money on me. Yes, I love it, but I don’t want you to give me more than I can give back. You really need to stop paying for my sandwiches. At least most of the time I can pay for my own ice cream. It’s not even a date. Don’t get me wrong, I love the way you always make me feel like a princess, but I’m pretty sure that I do a fairly terrible job of making you feel like a prince. Or a rock star. Or whatever. But I’m pretty sure I do a terrible job of making you see and know how much I appreciate you.
I’d write you a letter telling you as many of the things I love you for if I could, but it could never begin to say what I want you to know. When we’re together, tickling you, running my hands through your hair, caressing your stubble… They’re just little things, but I hope these little things say what my feeble words can’t. What these pathetic syllables will never be able to convey. Can you understand it, simply comprehend my emotions and draw them into yourself like osmosis?
I miss you.
I miss being able to talk to you about everything. Now I can barely bring myself to wish you “happy birthday” or “good morning”. I’m nervous to invite you to social functions. We used to be just about inseperable. Granted we went to different high schools, and you had work, so it was pretty hard to get together, but that one week of testing when all the seniors didn’t have to go to school for a couple hours was one of the best weeks of my life- seeing you every morning, playing at the play ground, shivering, exploring, the thrill of having you walk after me, chasing me back down when I walked away under that bridge…
I wish you would come after me now. I know that if I walked away tonight, you would never know it. You wouldn’t care. You would be clueless. I get it, you need your space, but sometimes I wonder what it is that you’re not telling me. I would just count if off as nothing, whatever, but I know it’s not. I only have one thing that tells me you’re not telling me something- it’s because I’m going through pretty much the exact same thing with another guy. He won’t give me space, he won’t leave me alone, he doesn’t get that I don’t want to be friends. I just don’t want to be enemies with him. I’m not telling him these things. I don’t want this to be the case with you. If I’m doing something wrong, please tell me. If you really just don’t want to deal with me, please, tell me. This whole “I just need to get my head on straight” really isn’t working. I’ve had my hopes high strung for so long that they’re starting to hurt, but I can’t bring them down. You keep me in suspense, telling the world these things on your mind, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t know anything about your world. You don’t talk to me.
I don’t expect you to ever ask me to be your girlfriend again. I really don’t. I don’t even know if I would want you to. Having seen how quickly you asked her to be your girlfriend after you gave up on me and my stupid emotional break downs makes me a little worried about our relationship, even after seeing how incredibly dedicated to her you were. I don’t want us to be another bad memory, for either of us.
Please, just talk to me. Tell me about this new job you’ve been looking into. Tell me about band practice, or how much you hate working at walmart, or what you do for lunch. Talk to me about stupid things that we won’t remember, talk to me about the big things that you don’t want to remember. Tell me about her and him, and how her new boyfriend is being a jerk. Tell me about your frustrations in getting your mind off her, or you’re trying to meet more people, or how your family’s doing. The big things, the little things, us, other people, you, me, I don’t care. Just please talk with me. Text me, call me, walk across the street and knock on my door, but please just at least say “Hello.”
I can’t shake these doubts. I see you standing there, facing the setting sun, the wind tousling your hair, fluttering your jacket, caressing your face. Things that I cannot do any more. What we had has been lost. I failed you in a critical moment, and then I was physically gone, unable to reach you even to simply greet you. You gave up on me in that moment, and I will never have you back.
I don’t know if I want you back.
Do you think everything we were and everything we weren’t was a lie? Is that all I am to you now? A girl that could never treat you right, that doesn’t even know how to sit and listen to you when you’ve had a bad day, who can’t be there for you when you need nothing more than a voice to talk to, a body to hug?
Guilt tripping has never been a tactic I’ve favored. It’s hitting them when they’re down, and I would shoot myself before I let myself sink that low.
But I’m begging you to come back, to just be a soul that I can look at on occasion, a friend that I can trust. You used to be so much more to me, but I hardly dare ask even this small favor. You, who would listen to my troubles, offer advice when possible, and hugs all the time, who could soothe me without effort, who called me your “precious cargo”, your precious charge.
Don’t feel obliged to come back to this state. That is not what I would wish. Instead I would ask you to simply be someone that I can ask their opinion of a line from my essay. Someone that I wouldn’t mind asking for a piece of gum. Someone that I know mutually respects me.
You’re not that man anymore.
Whatever you’ve become, it worries and bothers me. I have a hard time letting go.
Tom likes to have company all the time. Girls, boys, gays, straights, old people, kids, loud, quiet, he doesn’t much care, so long as there are people around. When he’s on his own, he’s a graphic designer. Rather brilliant if you ask me, but I don’t know what it takes to be any sort of designer, so I wouldn’t know. But whenever I’m with Tom, he makes me feel so confident, like a prize that’s worth having, a prize that you want for yourself, not for gloating purposes. Maybe that’s just because he’s always hanging out with people, so the simple fact that he texts me to hang out is pretty fenominal in my book. I’m flattered, and I can’t help but to seize the chance every time it’s offered to me, and I’ve taken to inviting him to anything I put together too. Sometimes I put things together just for him.
Because he’s the one that gave me Lily.
Lily really is his creation. He always plays with me, little games of the minds or tickle fights, not giving me the chance to be quiet. He’s too spontaneous, and my thoughts are usually left reeling while my heart takes the lead, all too willing to affectionately mess with him in return. That’s when I discovered Lily, and ironically I feel more “lily pure” with out her than I do with her. Lily doesn’t care what others think of her, her language, her composure, or her tenancies. I’m almost surprised that no one thinks I’m lesbian or anything. But she keeps life interesting, and honestly, she’s probably the reason I have more than two friends. I lost most every one when I graduated high school, and since then most of them have just been drifting away. I don’t blame them either. I’m pretty boring most of the time. Lily’s the one that has introduced me to Rob, Macy, Brendan, Shay and Sam. There’s others that I’ve been getting to know, but those are the ones I’ve been talking to the most. They’re great, brilliant people that I would have never had the courage to talk to.
So here I am, living a world that is by degrees becoming everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Making friends, becoming well known, getting paid at a job I don’t mind, learning all sorts of stuff at the full fledged university, and I’m not some shy dweeb all the time. It’s a beautiful experiance.
But I’m loosing Amy, I’m loosing me, and it scares me. I’m a respectable girl, I don’t have problems with boys or with the law or with money or with my parents, or anything else at all. Lily isn’t that girl. She’s a rebellious young woman that does what she wants, and worries about the consequences later. It makes me nervous, especially when she’s a part of me. I’m afraid to look at my heart because of her. I’m afraid to love because of her. I don’t know what might happen.
I said that Tom created Lily. That’s not strictly true. Tom showed me Lily, and in a way trained me to let Lily out and not smother her. Lily is something I created without even realizing she was there inside me all this time. I don’t know how to get rid of her, or if I even want to get rid of her, or what I would do if I lost her. I hate her for making me afraid of everything in my life, especially the thought of having to face it on my own.
Call me crazy, but I’ve created an alter ego for myself. She’s confident, dark, a little mysterious, popular, well received, beautiful, and very much what I wish I were. But I know I won’t be her. I named her Lilly.
Lily stepped into my life just a few months ago. I was lonely, and a silly boy from my high school happened to sit down on the train across the table from me. Awefully close for such silent corridors, but he was sweet enough, and I kinda needed the company. “Hey Lily, long time no see!” he exclaimed happily, shoving his bag off his shoulder on the empty seat next to him.
I smile at him, just grateful to have someone I knew distracting me from my world. “It’s Amy. How’ve you been Tom?”
He laughed at me. “Sure, sure, anything you want Lily. I’ve been okay. But enough about me, what about you cupcake. What have you been up to all my life?”
And that was where it started. Around Tom, I felt like a champion, like a prize worth having. I don’t get that feeling a lot on my own, or with most others. Most of the time I wonder if people even care that I exist. There’s one or two here or there, but really… and it does make me wonder about other people, if they’re having as bad a day I am, but I’m just too shy to ever say anything to them. I try to get over it, but I’m not doing a very good job of it.
And then there’s Mitch. I happen to know that pretty much every day for him is as bad, if not worse, than my days. He doesn’t get along with his dad well, and his mom just mostly keeps to herself, is what I understand from the occasional things he drops in our conversations, so things at home are tight, but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I heard also that his dad just got laid off, which is making things even worse for him. But I’m not entirely sure. We haven’t been talking much lately. Which kinda bothers me, because he was fine with Amy. He liked Amy. He and Amy were best friends. He didn’t need a Lily to be attracted to.
Most of the time that’s the way I feel. I can get the guys I like with Lily. Lily has the guts to even just say hi to them. I don’t. I just sit on the other end of the bus, staring out the window and knowing they’ll never notice me. Maybe we’ll never get far, but at least Lily can make friends, and that’s what I need right now.
Just some friends to take me in in when I’m lost and lonely. Because that’s what I feel like every time I can’t find Lily.
I’m disappearing, and it scares me terribly.
They say when you let something go, it’s a good thing. That which loves you will return for you to keep, and that which doesn’t didn’t belong to you in the first place.
I have to admit that I agree with that for the most part.
But just because it came back doesn’t mean it’s yours to keep. Sometimes it’s only yours to admire.
People are like that. Most of the time if they return because they love you, it’s only because they don’t want to cause you more pain, but they don’t want to be hurt themselves.
Because love is like a butterfly. It’s almost impossible to get your hands on, but if you’re not trying to track it down, it usually just falls on you, soft as a feather. But if you then try to get a grip on it, instead of just enjoying it, generally you’ll kill it or it will fly away, and you’re back to square one.
Sometimes what comes back to you is not yours to keep.
I couldn’t help but to grin as his lips left mine. The sweet flavor of my lip gloss haunted my tounge, and as he pulled away I opened my eyes. “I love you,” I whispered as he grinned, squeezed my sholders and took off.
“I’ll see you at lunch,” he called over his sholder.
I bit my lip as I grinned, a habit I’d picked up somewhere when I was particularly content, and walked back to my computer.
So I was thinking to myself, “Where can I go with no pants on?”
(Quoted from Red Vs Blue)
And then I realized, “I can’t really go anywhere with no pants on…” Disappointment filled me, and I pulled on some pants.
The fire roared, its heat overpowering those that struggled to extinguish it. “Come back! Come back!” one of the men cried. Suddenly the fire billowed outward, engulfing…
anyone close enough in an instant. The fire chief watched in horror as the old building collapsed, several of his men still inside. Tears stung at the corners of his eyes. He shook his head, clearing his mind to regain his composure.
“Stop fighting it,” he called. “Just contain it! Let it burn itself out!” It was a hard decision; his own brother was in there, but more lives were likely to be lost if they got in much closer. Now the most important thing to do was keep it from spreading further.
In the back of Grampa’s closet lay the old gun case. It was covered in dust so thick the black case looked grey. “What’s inside?” MaryAnne asked as Dennis pulled it out of the closet.
“I dunno. Grampa yelled at me when I tried to ask him about it, and I’ve been too afraid to even look at it since. Grampa wasn’t the sort to have guns.” Dennis laid the case out on the ground and pulled out his pocket knife. He flipped out the blade and started picking at the lock.
“Do you think we should tell Dad?”
“Nah. He’ll probably take it away or something. Then again, I don’t know if even he would know what was inside.”
“So we should definately talk to him about it!” MaryAnne insisted.
The lock finally popped open…
——————-
The old pick-up truck rolled slowly up the long gravel driveway, and an elderly man leaned out the window, peering up at the mansion with dispair. “I should have told them, I should have told them,” he kept murmuring to himself. He parked the truck and slowly climbed out, and with the help of a cane he hobbled up the long walk to the front door. Slowly he slid a key into the lock and the door opened under his aged touch like an old friend.
In the parlor a woman in her early thirties lay sprawled on the couch. He stood in the door way, studying her a moment, then walked past. Down the hall he peered into the kitchen where her husband had colapsed on the floor, the preperations of a salad spilling across the room on top of him. He shook his head and continued on, making his slow, careful way to the stairs.
Each step creaked as he hauled himself up to it, then moaned in relaxation as he left it. It took him some time to climb the stairs, but he reached the top, pausing a minute to catch his breath.
To his right the master bedroom’s door was the only door open on the floor. He sighed and shook his head, and made his way over. “I should have told them,” he whispered to himself again. Inside the room a young teenage boy and an even younger girl slumped over on the carpet. In front of the boy proped open was an old gun case, but the foam matting held no impressions whatsoever. A strange scent lingered in the air. “Oh, Dennis, why couldn’t you have just left it alone? Why did you have to die?”
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I’m really having a lot of fun with these, I think. The prompts were fun just to write, but actually making a story out of them is just delightful. I don’t know how many of these that I finish will be short shorts, or how many are going to be mysteries or whatever, but I’ve got enough back stories for all three that I’ve writen thus far to expand quite a ways… It’s quite interesting.
