Six Word Story
“Wait, he wore a condom, right?”
My words dropped to the floor faster than my plummeting heart. She rolled her carefully lined eyes at me through the bathroom mirror, crouching over the toilet, her dress hiked over her shoulders. I washed the glitter off my hands, watching it chase itself into the drain, swirls of color running away from me, scared.
Our childhood, escaping. Running from our music, from our friends. From our broken hymens. I couldn’t blame it. I’d run too, if I could.
Not thinking of anything else to do, I dipped my head into the cold rush of water. Water barraged my nostrils, sending me reeling, sending me sputtering. She was talking, but I couldn’t hear her. I didn’t want to hear her. Finally, in as passionate a physical torment as a mental one. Panties around her ankles, she stared at me. Telling me things I refused to comprehend. I loved her; I hated him.
It’s not as though I didn’t know it wasn’t going to happen. Her, vivacious and wild, chopping and dyeing and coloring and dancing, smiling, laughing, having sex with good looking guys in their vans. It followed, in the way “sorry” follows “let’s just be friends”, in the way I followed her through innumerable awkward moments and social dodge ball. But I couldn’t follow her to the back of his van, behind the bumper stickers, below the rusting roof. I had once, face pressed against the cold glass as we reeled off into the stars and pavement, cigarettes singeing our fingertips, laughing at everything. My spinning head thinking this blissful innocence would last forever.
Or maybe I was just too in love with her.
I pressed my hot hands into the cold tile, digging my fingernails into the grime and mold, forever dying them disgusting colors. She was silent and standing now, looking at me with her confusion apparent on her face. Curling her upper lip, she spoke to me in sounds I could finally comprehend.
“I don’t see why you’re being such a spaz, come on, please - you’re overreacting.”
I knew I was. But just to hear her say it - in that voice she uses when she’s frustrated but trying to sound sympathetic - made her seem monstrous to me, a roaring Godzilla over Tokyo. My inner Japanese wanted to run, screaming, eyes wild, back into the party, back into the droves of girls in pajamas singing NSYNC into their hairbrushes and loudly abusing the springs on my bed.
My inner terrified observer won. I ran. Of course she didn’t love me like that. My inner publicist, denying, denying, denying, had ruled my head and heart for all these years. Thinking maybe, after she kissed that last boy in the movies, she would see. But it wasn’t her who wasn’t seeing; it was me.
It was a horrible sight. I couldn’t stand any more. I would rather see the pillows of the couch than this right now.
Doors are hard to slam when you feel so weak.
Decades later, when the party died down, when the last of the guests had snuggled up to her teddy bear desperately wishing for it to turn into a prince, her cold fingers found my waiting shoulders, her voice finding its natural home in the curves of my ear. Complacent and three inches tall, I curl into her arms at last. Forgiveness in its highest form needs no words.
“It was quick,” she said finally. “Said he had to go home and help his brother with his math homework.”
My throat birthed the smallest of giggles. Looking fondly up at her, I smirked.
“Well,” she conceded, “at least that was his excuse.”
Of course she didn’t love me the way I wanted her to.
But at least she didn’t love him like that either.
My words dropped to the floor faster than my plummeting heart. She rolled her carefully lined eyes at me through the bathroom mirror, crouching over the toilet, her dress hiked over her shoulders. I washed the glitter off my hands, watching it chase itself into the drain, swirls of color running away from me, scared.
Our childhood, escaping. Running from our music, from our friends. From our broken hymens. I couldn’t blame it. I’d run too, if I could.
Not thinking of anything else to do, I dipped my head into the cold rush of water. Water barraged my nostrils, sending me reeling, sending me sputtering. She was talking, but I couldn’t hear her. I didn’t want to hear her. Finally, in as passionate a physical torment as a mental one. Panties around her ankles, she stared at me. Telling me things I refused to comprehend. I loved her; I hated him.
It’s not as though I didn’t know it wasn’t going to happen. Her, vivacious and wild, chopping and dyeing and coloring and dancing, smiling, laughing, having sex with good looking guys in their vans. It followed, in the way “sorry” follows “let’s just be friends”, in the way I followed her through innumerable awkward moments and social dodge ball. But I couldn’t follow her to the back of his van, behind the bumper stickers, below the rusting roof. I had once, face pressed against the cold glass as we reeled off into the stars and pavement, cigarettes singeing our fingertips, laughing at everything. My spinning head thinking this blissful innocence would last forever.
Or maybe I was just too in love with her.
I pressed my hot hands into the cold tile, digging my fingernails into the grime and mold, forever dying them disgusting colors. She was silent and standing now, looking at me with her confusion apparent on her face. Curling her upper lip, she spoke to me in sounds I could finally comprehend.
“I don’t see why you’re being such a spaz, come on, please - you’re overreacting.”
I knew I was. But just to hear her say it - in that voice she uses when she’s frustrated but trying to sound sympathetic - made her seem monstrous to me, a roaring Godzilla over Tokyo. My inner Japanese wanted to run, screaming, eyes wild, back into the party, back into the droves of girls in pajamas singing NSYNC into their hairbrushes and loudly abusing the springs on my bed.
My inner terrified observer won. I ran. Of course she didn’t love me like that. My inner publicist, denying, denying, denying, had ruled my head and heart for all these years. Thinking maybe, after she kissed that last boy in the movies, she would see. But it wasn’t her who wasn’t seeing; it was me.
It was a horrible sight. I couldn’t stand any more. I would rather see the pillows of the couch than this right now.
Doors are hard to slam when you feel so weak.
Decades later, when the party died down, when the last of the guests had snuggled up to her teddy bear desperately wishing for it to turn into a prince, her cold fingers found my waiting shoulders, her voice finding its natural home in the curves of my ear. Complacent and three inches tall, I curl into her arms at last. Forgiveness in its highest form needs no words.
“It was quick,” she said finally. “Said he had to go home and help his brother with his math homework.”
My throat birthed the smallest of giggles. Looking fondly up at her, I smirked.
“Well,” she conceded, “at least that was his excuse.”
Of course she didn’t love me the way I wanted her to.
But at least she didn’t love him like that either.