ABOUT: This story is pretty much entirely factual. The event never happened, but the thoughts are all completely real. It was written and given to the person whom it is about. It's one of my favorite stories, I just can't think of a name for it. Click here for more stories.
Untitled
“I thought you were quitting.”
“I am,” you say, as the smoke curls out from between your lips.
“Those are gonna kill you someday,” I warn.
You shrug. “I’ve only got a few years left anyway.”
I hate when you say things like that. And as much as I hate to imagine what your lungs look like by now, I’d miss seeing you smoke - it’s my only excuse to stare at your lips. Do you know that you have beautiful lips?
So I sit down on the rock beside you and stare out at the water. I remember the first time we came here. You still had your car then (if you only knew what you looked like driving that car). We came here after work one night and spent some time together. I won’t tell you how many times I’ve been here alone since then. It’s not like we ever had much chance to be together otherwise. We aren’t even supposed to be together now.
“You do anything fun or exciting today?” you ask, forcing a smile.
“No,” I reply, wrapping my arms around myself. It’s colder than I’d expected.
“No?” you ask, stunned, as though you’d expected something other than the usual response.
My eyes shift from the water down to my feet. My toes look too square in my flip-flops, so I look over to your feet. You’re wearing the boots we got at Wal-Mart, and those faded jeans with the frayed bottoms. For some reason, I love those jeans on you. I guess I love anything on you, really.
I can tell you’re staring right at me, but I don’t dare look up. Something about your eyes makes me almost uncomfortable, despite the fact that they’re beautiful. If I look at them too long, I feel like you can read everything on my mind. I’m not sure I like that. I’m not sure I could look away if I did look up.
“So what’s up?” you ask, finally breaking the silence. “Why’d ya wanna see me?”
Your voice has too much energy to it - it makes me feel even worse than I already did. It’s bad enough that I drag you all the way out here just because I’m in a mood, but now I’ll have to bring you down with me. I always bring you down and I can’t stand it.
“I don’t know,” I finally whisper, bringing my knees up to my chin. “I just missed you.”
That’s an understatement. I missed you months ago when we got in trouble again. I missed you last month when I barely saw you once a week. No, I don’t miss you now. I feel like I’m dying. I feel like the last eight months have been eight years. I feel like the next two months are going to feel like March did: forever and a day. It’s not that I can’t wait, or that I won’t wait. I’d wait until the sky fell to be with you. I just don’t want to wait anymore. It doesn’t seem fair. How can they tell me that wanting to be with the only person who really makes me happy, is wrong?
I wrap my arms around my knees and sigh. You feel so far away but I know that if you touch me, I’ll probably lose it. You probably know that too, and that’s probably why you put your arm around me anyway and pull me into you, just after flicking your cigarette out towards the water. It bounces off a few rocks before landing in a crevice, dying embers trailing behind it. Even without it, your heavy flannel coat smells of smoke. And fish. But mostly smoke.
“So why don’t you tell me the truth?” you say quietly, as I reluctantly sink into your shoulder.
Why don’t I? Because if I did, I’d sound like a nut. What, exactly, would I say? “Well, I see me as a dull little butterfly, and you a colorful little caterpillar. And if you said, ‘I need your wings so I can fly’ I’d rip them off and give them to you”? For some reason, I doubt that would sound sensible. Would I tell you that every moment without you makes me miserable, and those nights when I can’t sleep and I don’t have you make me feel so painfully empty? No, not if I don’t want to sound like a bigger idiot than I already look.
“I dunno,” I mumble into your chest, half lying. “I’m just miserable lately…it’s getting so hard.”
“Well if you wanna just wait-”
“No.” Why do you say stuff like this?
“-until July to see each other-”
“No.” I hate when you say that!
“-I understand.”
“No!” And I hate when you keep suggesting, even when I say no. “God, why do you say stuff like that? Are you that sick of me?”
I try to pull away from you, but you won’t let me. It’s useless to fight you, you’re much stronger.
“I just want you to be happy,” you whisper into my hair, kissing the top of my head.
“I am.”
“You just said you were miserable!”
“I just miss you,” I sigh. “I hate not being able to just see you when I want to without sneaking around.”
I won’t tell you everything else I think about, everything else I hate. How I’m still afraid of losing you, because I know I’m a terrible girlfriend and you deserve better. I imagine that same butterfly again, bleeding from where it’s wings once were, the caterpillar using them to fly away and leave the lost little butterfly behind to flail and die. It’s okay, you deserve the wings anyway. I won’t tell you that, whenever you’re not staring at me at work, I’m usually staring at you because I can’t keep my eyes off you. I won’t tell you about all the times when we were driving that I’ve thought about a horrible car accident where we both die, just so we can be together.
I close my eyes while your free hand plays with my hair - the hair that isn’t quite as long as you’d like it. You’re hands are perfect, do you know that? My mom used to play with my hair when I was a little kid. It calmed me down when I was sick or upset or couldn’t sleep. It was the only thing that ever made me feel better. Now that I’m grown up…who am I kidding? I’m still a little kid. I’m still immature and needy as hell, even though I try and pretend not to be.
And you? You’re eleven years older than me. You’ve been with more girls than I have friends, how can I compare to that? I can’t compete. Every random story you tell amazes me. You’ve experienced so much more than I ever will, and I can’t imagine why you’d even find me slightly interesting. I don’t even know why you’d want to be with me - I have zero confidence, close to zero experience, and am basically nothing you deserve.
Besides, that’s the only reason we’re here now. Not because the view is particularly lovely, not because we’re friends of Ned’s and like to hang out at his Point. It’s because I’m a pathetic, needy little kid who guilts you into doing things like this then feels bad for it.
“Whatcha thinking about?” you ask.
I sigh your name, fumbling for speech. I get so frustrated not being able to transfer thoughts to words. “I just…why do you bother with me? What makes me so special? I’m a stupid little kid who can’t do anything right and has nothing to offer. I’m not as great as you seem to think. Not to mention the fact that you could easily get a girl your own age that wouldn’t put you through so much crap. I don’t understand…”
I stop talking before my voice chokes up. My eyes burn and brim with tears, but I refuse to cry. Not in front of you. Not when I know you’ll just think I’m even more of a little kid.
You respond with the same things you’ve told me before. How happy I make you, how you’re a different person now, how much I mean to you. I love to hear it, but at the same time it kills me. If it’s all true, then why is this so easy for you? Why am I the one crying and hating the world, doing stupid things to myself and practically counting the seconds to July? How can you just go through the day as if our situation is perfectly satisfactory? I know it’s almost over, but doesn’t it bother you at all?
Or is it just me being immature again? I do have a tendency to feel things worse than they really are. Am I just that obsessed that I kill myself over something minor? Am I that needy that I’m not even capable of waiting just a little longer? Most likely, I am, and now I feel terrible for ever doubting you.
After speechlessly staring at the ocean a little longer, I take you home. I wanted to tell you all the other things I’d thought of, but I wasted your time and only said what you already knew. I wanted you to just tell me what I wanted to hear, without being prompted, but you can’t ever know what to say to me because nothing ever helps. I wanted you to tell me it’s destroying you too, but you didn’t and it’s not. I wanted to hear about your other girlfriends - how awesome they were, how much they sucked, anything so I could know where I stand. But I didn’t even ask, and even if I did you wouldn’t want to talk about it.
I watch you walk up the cement steps into your building, and push open the door. A hundred different thoughts rush to the front of my mind, all of them struggling for some way to be transferred from thought to speech. One of them finally escapes, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such a waste of space and time. You’re just everything I have, and I need you.” But you’ve already disappeared behind the closed door.