LJ Idol Week 24: "I'm the Usain Bolt of Running From My Problems"
This week's therealljidol is an intersection, where we work with a partner to create something for two different prompts. I worked with the lovely xlovebecomesher, who wrote for the prompt "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn". Find her entry here! You can read ours in whichever order you would like!
She watched the little girl rummage through the old chest with a smile. “Ooohs” and “awwwwws” were heard at every item she held up - old dresses, scarves, a necklace long forgotten, baby shoes, dolls. The little girl would pick up an item, look at it for a moment and toss it aside in excitement to see what else was in the chest.
“Grandma!” The little girl looked up at the old woman, her face full of curiosity. “Who is this?” She held out a photo. It was clearly old - the colors were faded, the edges bent. But in the photo was a young man, dressed in a uniform, standing solemnly but for the twinkle of humor in his eyes.
The old woman smiled fondly as she looked down at it, memories rushing back as she studied the picture. “That,” she told the little girl, “is a story from long ago.”
The little girl scooted into the old woman's lap. "I want a story!"
--
They were five years old when they met. She was the shy, new kid, and he was the skinny boy with the glasses who lived next door. They spent the first few weeks building sandcastles in his sandbox and having tea parties with her dolls.
On the first day of kindergarten, their mothers walked them both to their new school together. They held hands the entire way and talked about how scary her big sister, Ashley, said their year would be.
She cried when her mom made her say goodbye to him and they had to go into their different classrooms. But they found each other at recess and walked home hand in hand.
Kindergarten wasn’t so bad after all, but the best part for her was him. They still played together every day, at recess and after school. They still walked to school and home hand in hand. They talked about their teachers and the other kids and what they wanted to learn. He was her best friend, even more so than Lizzie, the friend she had left behind when her parents made her move.
--
They were eight years old when he kissed her. It was on the playground at school and the other boys dared him. He closed his eyes and puckered his lips and she screamed but let him do it. Then they both wipes their mouths with the sleeves of their shirts and shrieked “Ewwwwww!” in unison.
They decided as they walked home together - not hand in hand, because only kindergarteners and first-graders needed that - that they were never going to be kissing anyone again in their lives ever because that was yuuuuuuuucky.
--
“Grandma, you kiss grandpa all the time!” the little girl interrupted. “I see you!”
“I do kiss grandpa,” the old woman told her.
“You don’t think it’s yucky.”
“Not anymore.” The old woman smiled as the little girl nodded at that.
“Okay,” she said, seemingly satisfied. “What happened next?”
“Well,” the old woman told her. “They got older.”
--
They were fifteen years old when they had their first date, but it was never anything they had planned. She had wanted to go to a dance ever since she had gone dress shopping with Ashley three years earlier. She had seen her sister put on makeup and a pretty dress and take photos with her boyfriend and her friends, and she had wanted that.
“It’s so romantic!” Ashley had told her the day after her own first Homecoming dance. “You’d love it, Hannah.”
And then when Brandon, the cutest and most popular guy in their tenth grade class, asked her of all people, she was ecstatic. She spent hours looking at hairstyles and dresses in her beauty magazines, and Ashley even took her dress shopping one of her weekends home from college.
But some things were never meant to be, and Brandon dropped her hours before he was supposed to pick her up, all because he thought he had a better chance of winning Homecoming king with his former ex, Julie.
She was on her front porch, sobbing into her arms, her dress getting covered with snot when he sat down beside her.
“He’s a bastard,” he said, when she told him what happened. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“Maybe it’s me who doesn’t deserve him,” she said miserably, and he shook his head.
“No, it’s him.” He wrapped an arm around her. “We could go,” he said. “Show him you can still have fun without him.”
She wrinkled her nose. Her hair was messed up and her makeup was smudged and her dress was wrinkled, and everyone would know Brandon had dumped her for Julie.
But Ashley said dances were fun, and she always had fun with him, and maybe …
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”
They danced that night and took pictures and drank a lot of punch. She even smiled a bit and laughed and had fun, and her heart only broke a little more when Brandon and Julie were announced Homecoming king and queen.
But during the last song, when they were maybe dancing a little too close together, she looked into his eyes and wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
As soon as the thought entered her mind, she pushed it away. Instead, she told him she wanted more punch and hurried across the room to get it. She didn’t look back to see if he was disappointed or relieved by her exit.
--
The little girl looked up at the old woman. “Oh noooo,” she said. “Is this a sad story, Grandma?”
The old woman smiled gently. “You’ll see, sweetheart.”
--
Everything changed the week after the Homecoming dance. He had been her best friend for more than ten years. He was her confidante, her whole world. He was the one she told when good things happened. He was the one she broke down to when bad things happened.
But dancing in his arms, pressed up against him, feeling his hands on her body …
Fear poured through her every time she thought about it. Her heart beat erratically in her chest. Her breathing became shallow.
What was wrong with her?
He was her friend. Her friend. Her friend. And she was not going to ruin it by saying something to him and having him laugh in her face.
So she did what any reasonable person would do when they suspect they are maybe starting to have feelings for their very much platonic best friend in the entire world. She started making up excuses. Why she had to eat lunch with Tara instead. Why she couldn’t come over after school to do her homework with him. Why she needed to spend this weekend at her own house and, sorry, her parents wanted some family time.
Every day, she saw him try to talk to her like nothing had changed, and every day she ran as far away from him as she could get - physically, mentally, emotionally - until she was too far away to see the crushed and confused look in his eyes anymore.
--
“That’s very mean,” the little girl said sadly. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It was very mean,” the grandmother agreed. “But the girl didn’t understand back then that you can’t run from every problem.”
--
She knew he had enlisted in the army. He knew she was going away to college. But the days and the nights they would have spent talking about those things and planning for them were lost in the past. So many times she wanted to pick up the phone and call him. Or run over to his house and ring the doorbell. So many times she wanted to find him and hug him and tell him she missed him and that he had been and still was her best friend.
But she couldn’t get that moment at the dance out of her head, even though it had been almost three years by then. She couldn’t get the feeling that she might want something more out of her mind either. And she couldn’t get past the fear that he was only ever going to see her as the girl next door.
“You’re being ridiculous, Hannah,” her mother told her one day. “He’s going away, and there’s a chance you might never see him again. At least go say goodbye.”
It took her two more days, but she finally found herself on his front porch. He opened the door with a wide smile and welcomed her in like nothing had ever changed.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “For pushing you away.”
“You’re allowed to have a life,” he told her.
She wanted to tell him all she had wanted was a life with him, but she didn’t. “I should have been a better friend.”
“You still can be,” he said. “Write me when I’m gone?”
“All the time,” she said. “That’s what best friends do, right?”
He left two days later. She went to see him off, dressed in his uniform, looking like he had aged ten years overnight.
She tried not to think of what this moment could have been like if she hadn’t been so afraid. Instead she snapped a photo while he posed for her.
“Gotta have something to remember you by,” she teased.
--
“He left?!?!” the little girl stared at her grandmother, worry in her eyes. “Did he come back?”
The old woman smiled. “Yes,” she said. “He came back.”
--
She kept her promise this time. She wrote to him. Weekly for a while, and then monthly, and then a little less so, but she never stopped. She told him about college and her new friends. Sometimes, when she would stare at the blank piece of paper in front of her, the pen gripped tightly in her hand, she’d think about telling him the truth, that he was the one she had always wanted, but she never did.
Instead she dated. A lot. Boyfriend after boyfriend. She drank and she partied and she did a lot of things she wasn’t proud of.
And then somewhere along the line, she grew up.
He didn’t come back to their hometown for good for six years. She went to his welcome home party on the arm of her very serious boyfriend. They stole away for a few minutes just the two of them, sitting outside in his backyard, very near to the spot where they used to build sandcastles as a kid.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you too.”
He looked up at the stars and took a breath. “Did I ever tell you,” he said slowly, “how I thought about kissing you at that Homecoming dance?”
She felt all the breath leave her body. “No,” she finally managed.
“I used to wonder if you knew,” he said, “and that’s why you changed.”
“I didn’t know,” she said. “That’s not why I changed.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
He smiled. “Ashley told me.”
She wanted to be mad. But in truth she was more relieved. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was so stupid.”
“You were,” he said. “But you’re here now.”
“I am. And I always will be.”
“Yeah,” he said, and he put his arm around her. “I know.”
--
The old woman stopped talking. The little girl stared at her, obviously waiting for something.
“Grandma!” she finally said. “You didn’t tell me who’s this in the photo!”
“What?” said another voice, a low deep one. “You don’t recognize your Great Uncle Ryan?”
The little girl’s eyes grew wide as she threw herself at her great uncle. She then turned back to grin at the old woman.
“So there was a happy ending!” she exclaimed.
“Of course there was,” the old woman said. “I got your grandpa and your dad and you. And Uncle Ryan got Aunt Ashley and all your many, many cousins.”
Ryan smiled over at her. “It worked out for everyone,” he said.
“Yes,” Hannah said, as she put the photo back in the box. “It did.”
Fiction. To see another way Hannah's life could have gone, go read xlovebecomesher's entry here!
This was written for Week 24 of therealljidol. I hope you enjoyed it! If you would like to read more entries from some amazing writers, you can head over here. If there's voting, it should come Monday night.
She watched the little girl rummage through the old chest with a smile. “Ooohs” and “awwwwws” were heard at every item she held up - old dresses, scarves, a necklace long forgotten, baby shoes, dolls. The little girl would pick up an item, look at it for a moment and toss it aside in excitement to see what else was in the chest.
“Grandma!” The little girl looked up at the old woman, her face full of curiosity. “Who is this?” She held out a photo. It was clearly old - the colors were faded, the edges bent. But in the photo was a young man, dressed in a uniform, standing solemnly but for the twinkle of humor in his eyes.
The old woman smiled fondly as she looked down at it, memories rushing back as she studied the picture. “That,” she told the little girl, “is a story from long ago.”
The little girl scooted into the old woman's lap. "I want a story!"
--
They were five years old when they met. She was the shy, new kid, and he was the skinny boy with the glasses who lived next door. They spent the first few weeks building sandcastles in his sandbox and having tea parties with her dolls.
On the first day of kindergarten, their mothers walked them both to their new school together. They held hands the entire way and talked about how scary her big sister, Ashley, said their year would be.
She cried when her mom made her say goodbye to him and they had to go into their different classrooms. But they found each other at recess and walked home hand in hand.
Kindergarten wasn’t so bad after all, but the best part for her was him. They still played together every day, at recess and after school. They still walked to school and home hand in hand. They talked about their teachers and the other kids and what they wanted to learn. He was her best friend, even more so than Lizzie, the friend she had left behind when her parents made her move.
--
They were eight years old when he kissed her. It was on the playground at school and the other boys dared him. He closed his eyes and puckered his lips and she screamed but let him do it. Then they both wipes their mouths with the sleeves of their shirts and shrieked “Ewwwwww!” in unison.
They decided as they walked home together - not hand in hand, because only kindergarteners and first-graders needed that - that they were never going to be kissing anyone again in their lives ever because that was yuuuuuuuucky.
--
“Grandma, you kiss grandpa all the time!” the little girl interrupted. “I see you!”
“I do kiss grandpa,” the old woman told her.
“You don’t think it’s yucky.”
“Not anymore.” The old woman smiled as the little girl nodded at that.
“Okay,” she said, seemingly satisfied. “What happened next?”
“Well,” the old woman told her. “They got older.”
--
They were fifteen years old when they had their first date, but it was never anything they had planned. She had wanted to go to a dance ever since she had gone dress shopping with Ashley three years earlier. She had seen her sister put on makeup and a pretty dress and take photos with her boyfriend and her friends, and she had wanted that.
“It’s so romantic!” Ashley had told her the day after her own first Homecoming dance. “You’d love it, Hannah.”
And then when Brandon, the cutest and most popular guy in their tenth grade class, asked her of all people, she was ecstatic. She spent hours looking at hairstyles and dresses in her beauty magazines, and Ashley even took her dress shopping one of her weekends home from college.
But some things were never meant to be, and Brandon dropped her hours before he was supposed to pick her up, all because he thought he had a better chance of winning Homecoming king with his former ex, Julie.
She was on her front porch, sobbing into her arms, her dress getting covered with snot when he sat down beside her.
“He’s a bastard,” he said, when she told him what happened. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“Maybe it’s me who doesn’t deserve him,” she said miserably, and he shook his head.
“No, it’s him.” He wrapped an arm around her. “We could go,” he said. “Show him you can still have fun without him.”
She wrinkled her nose. Her hair was messed up and her makeup was smudged and her dress was wrinkled, and everyone would know Brandon had dumped her for Julie.
But Ashley said dances were fun, and she always had fun with him, and maybe …
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”
They danced that night and took pictures and drank a lot of punch. She even smiled a bit and laughed and had fun, and her heart only broke a little more when Brandon and Julie were announced Homecoming king and queen.
But during the last song, when they were maybe dancing a little too close together, she looked into his eyes and wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
As soon as the thought entered her mind, she pushed it away. Instead, she told him she wanted more punch and hurried across the room to get it. She didn’t look back to see if he was disappointed or relieved by her exit.
--
The little girl looked up at the old woman. “Oh noooo,” she said. “Is this a sad story, Grandma?”
The old woman smiled gently. “You’ll see, sweetheart.”
--
Everything changed the week after the Homecoming dance. He had been her best friend for more than ten years. He was her confidante, her whole world. He was the one she told when good things happened. He was the one she broke down to when bad things happened.
But dancing in his arms, pressed up against him, feeling his hands on her body …
Fear poured through her every time she thought about it. Her heart beat erratically in her chest. Her breathing became shallow.
What was wrong with her?
He was her friend. Her friend. Her friend. And she was not going to ruin it by saying something to him and having him laugh in her face.
So she did what any reasonable person would do when they suspect they are maybe starting to have feelings for their very much platonic best friend in the entire world. She started making up excuses. Why she had to eat lunch with Tara instead. Why she couldn’t come over after school to do her homework with him. Why she needed to spend this weekend at her own house and, sorry, her parents wanted some family time.
Every day, she saw him try to talk to her like nothing had changed, and every day she ran as far away from him as she could get - physically, mentally, emotionally - until she was too far away to see the crushed and confused look in his eyes anymore.
--
“That’s very mean,” the little girl said sadly. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It was very mean,” the grandmother agreed. “But the girl didn’t understand back then that you can’t run from every problem.”
--
She knew he had enlisted in the army. He knew she was going away to college. But the days and the nights they would have spent talking about those things and planning for them were lost in the past. So many times she wanted to pick up the phone and call him. Or run over to his house and ring the doorbell. So many times she wanted to find him and hug him and tell him she missed him and that he had been and still was her best friend.
But she couldn’t get that moment at the dance out of her head, even though it had been almost three years by then. She couldn’t get the feeling that she might want something more out of her mind either. And she couldn’t get past the fear that he was only ever going to see her as the girl next door.
“You’re being ridiculous, Hannah,” her mother told her one day. “He’s going away, and there’s a chance you might never see him again. At least go say goodbye.”
It took her two more days, but she finally found herself on his front porch. He opened the door with a wide smile and welcomed her in like nothing had ever changed.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “For pushing you away.”
“You’re allowed to have a life,” he told her.
She wanted to tell him all she had wanted was a life with him, but she didn’t. “I should have been a better friend.”
“You still can be,” he said. “Write me when I’m gone?”
“All the time,” she said. “That’s what best friends do, right?”
He left two days later. She went to see him off, dressed in his uniform, looking like he had aged ten years overnight.
She tried not to think of what this moment could have been like if she hadn’t been so afraid. Instead she snapped a photo while he posed for her.
“Gotta have something to remember you by,” she teased.
--
“He left?!?!” the little girl stared at her grandmother, worry in her eyes. “Did he come back?”
The old woman smiled. “Yes,” she said. “He came back.”
--
She kept her promise this time. She wrote to him. Weekly for a while, and then monthly, and then a little less so, but she never stopped. She told him about college and her new friends. Sometimes, when she would stare at the blank piece of paper in front of her, the pen gripped tightly in her hand, she’d think about telling him the truth, that he was the one she had always wanted, but she never did.
Instead she dated. A lot. Boyfriend after boyfriend. She drank and she partied and she did a lot of things she wasn’t proud of.
And then somewhere along the line, she grew up.
He didn’t come back to their hometown for good for six years. She went to his welcome home party on the arm of her very serious boyfriend. They stole away for a few minutes just the two of them, sitting outside in his backyard, very near to the spot where they used to build sandcastles as a kid.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you too.”
He looked up at the stars and took a breath. “Did I ever tell you,” he said slowly, “how I thought about kissing you at that Homecoming dance?”
She felt all the breath leave her body. “No,” she finally managed.
“I used to wonder if you knew,” he said, “and that’s why you changed.”
“I didn’t know,” she said. “That’s not why I changed.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
He smiled. “Ashley told me.”
She wanted to be mad. But in truth she was more relieved. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was so stupid.”
“You were,” he said. “But you’re here now.”
“I am. And I always will be.”
“Yeah,” he said, and he put his arm around her. “I know.”
--
The old woman stopped talking. The little girl stared at her, obviously waiting for something.
“Grandma!” she finally said. “You didn’t tell me who’s this in the photo!”
“What?” said another voice, a low deep one. “You don’t recognize your Great Uncle Ryan?”
The little girl’s eyes grew wide as she threw herself at her great uncle. She then turned back to grin at the old woman.
“So there was a happy ending!” she exclaimed.
“Of course there was,” the old woman said. “I got your grandpa and your dad and you. And Uncle Ryan got Aunt Ashley and all your many, many cousins.”
Ryan smiled over at her. “It worked out for everyone,” he said.
“Yes,” Hannah said, as she put the photo back in the box. “It did.”
Fiction. To see another way Hannah's life could have gone, go read xlovebecomesher's entry here!
This was written for Week 24 of therealljidol. I hope you enjoyed it! If you would like to read more entries from some amazing writers, you can head over here. If there's voting, it should come Monday night.