Original - Disruption (1/1)
Title: Disruption
Rating: PG
Prompt: Romance/a medical prescription
Summary: Andrew has a routine. Too bad Tara isn't part of it.
Note: Written for the NYC Midnight 3rd annual short story challenge. An original(!) piece that had to a) be written in one week b) be 2,500 words or less and c) use the prompt above. A good experience and we're allowed to post stories for feedback as soon as we get confirmation from the site. And this is a fic journal, so why not, yeah?
And of course I receive the 'romance' genre after spending two hours ranting about it in a phone call to sarcasticval. Um, hooray for karma? Though all things considered, I don't think it turned out too badly.
DISRUPTION
Tara.
That's what her name tag said. “Tara.” Tilted to the left on her jacket. Her black hair fell out of her bun and surrounded her face with stray wisps. She grinned when Andrew walked up, like he was a long-lost friend she hadn't seen for some time.
“Hi. What can I get for you?”
Andrew stared at her for a moment. Maybe if he concentrated, she would simply disappear. But when the silence had stretched on long enough and Tara's smile had faded into puzzlement, he realized that was unlikely to happen.
“Where's Jeremy?” he said.
Tara shrugged. “Left town.”
“What?” No. Impossible. He hadn't heard her correctly or she was lying or - or something. Because this was Jeremy. Jeremy was always here.
“What?” he said again, just in case.
“Florida, I think. Or California, maybe. Someplace warm.” Tara shrugged. “Not that I blame him.”
“But - but - no. See, he's supposed to be here. Third Tuesday of every month at 3:33. I pick up my prescription and he gives me a 12 oz. black in this coffee cup.” He held up his stainless steel mug, to prove that what he said was true. She leaned forward to get a better look at it and nodded in approval.
“I like your mug. Very industrial-chic.”
“Thank you.”
“But Jeremy still left.”
“Two years,” Andrew said. “Two years, four months and-and sixteen days and Jeremy was always here.”
“And now I am,” Tara said. “You want me to pour you some coffee?”
“No. No, you can't because it was always Jeremy who did it and now he can't because he isn't here and it's just not going to work out, okay?”
Tara frowned, eyes narrowed. She shifted ever so slightly backward. “What sort of prescription did you say you had to pick up again?”
Andrew turned around and left.
***
“And she just kept saying he was gone! Like people just one day up and decide to move away for no reason whatsoever!”
Dr. Lyons watched with a neutral expression as Andrew paced her office. He would take three quick strides one way, turn, then walk three the other. At this point, he never even counted them anymore, it had become so ingrained in his psyche.
“From your perspective, I'm sure it may seem that way,” Dr. Lyons said.
Andrew shook his head. “No. No seem. Is. That's how it is.”
Dr. Lyons stayed silent a moment, then spoke cautiously. “Andrew, did you ever discuss this with Jeremy?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well, had he ever told you he was planning on moving?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“I -” Andrew came to a stop, a frown pulling his face down. “No, I didn't.”
“How much exactly did you know about him?”
“Well, I - you know, that's something I - and, um.” He sat back in her armchair, a piece that coordinated nicely with the rest of the bland, unoffensive furniture in the room.
“He made coffee exactly the way I liked it,” he mumbled, looking down at the floor.
Dr. Lyons shifted, uncrossing then re-crossing her legs. “So, do you think you're upset because he moved without telling you or because this interrupts your routine?”
“Maybe. Sort of. I don't know.” He never really liked how she did that, spoke calmly and rationally and made all of his complaints seem so small.
“Maybe you should look at this as an opportunity, then. Speak to this girl, ah -”
“Tara. From her name tag.”
“Okay, so talk to Tara. Alter your routine.”
He finally looked up, horrified. “I can't do that! It would throw off my whole schedule!”
She held up her hand. “It doesn't have to be big or even important. But you need to start getting used to absorbing change again. It's why you're here, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He frowned. “But I don't have to buy anything from her, right?”
Lyons almost, but didn't quite sigh. “No, Andrew. Just talk.”
***
3:33. Third Tuesday. Three minutes. That's all he'd give. Even if Dr. Lyons said he didn't have to stick absolutely to three minutes, it made him feel better.
Tara raised an eyebrow when he walked up. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“You're the third Tuesday guy, right?”
“Right.”
“I've got a thing for faces.”
“Right.” They stood staring at each other until Tara gestured at his mug.
“So, can I get you something?”
“What? Oh, no.” He almost stuck the mug in his pocket until he realized there was no possible way for it to fit. “I'm not buying anything.”
“Um, okay.”
“It's not you, though. It's just Jeremy knew precisely how long to brew it for me and while I'm sure you're fine, I really, really need this done my way and that's how Jeremy did it, so I can't buy any coffee from you.”
She blinked. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“Oh. Right.” His watch beeped. Three minutes. “I, uh, have to -” He waved at his watch and pointed at the pharmacy.
“Okay.”
He turned on his heel and walked away. But he felt her brown eyes following him as he went.
***
“Hey, there, third Tuesday guy,” she said when he walked up. “You want to buy anything now?”
“No, just talk. I'm just supposed to talk.”
She crossed her arms. “If this is a come-on, it's the weirdest one I've ever seen.”
“What? No! I mean, it's not - no!” He had never even thought of that and now that she'd brought it up, he seriously contemplated running away and never returning. “It's a - a -”
“Yeah?”
“... social experiment?” It sounded weak even to his ears and her eyebrows shot up higher.
“Excuse me?”
“I'm just, ah, trying to know more people around here, you know. Because I don't and I think I should.”
It sounded like something Dr. Lyons would say, something she would encourage in him. But that didn't make it any less true and it was strange to suddenly make that connection.
Her mouth twitched. “And you're going to do that on the third Tuesday of every month?”
“Sure. People can do that.” He frowned. “Can't they?”
She threw her head back and laughed. High and smooth, like perfect waves. “What the hell, why not? Get to know me.”
He smiled. It felt odd, all crooked and out of sync, something gone too long without practice. “Okay, yes. I can do that.” His watch beeped and the smile vanished. “Except not right now.”
“'Cause you have to go.”
“Right.” He hesitated a moment, hovering in indecision before simply nodding and walking away.
“Hey, Tuesday guy!” Her yell turned him back momentarily. “What's your name?”
He blinked. “Oh. Um, Andrew.”
“Okay.” And there was that grin again, wide and beautiful and joyous. “See you around, Andrew.”
***
The third Tuesday again and their conversation sputtered to a start.
“So.”
“So.”
He stood aside as she mixed a latte for a woman in business casual. “Do you like - what do you like?”
“Um.” She exchanged coffee for cash and frowned at the woman's failure to put anything in the tip jar. “Kind of an open-ended question there.”
“Oh. Right. Never m-”
“Peanut brittle.” She nodded to herself, satisfied with the answer. “I like peanut brittle.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Get it whenever I can. You?”
“I'm allergic to peanuts.” Her face fell and he scrambled to come with something that didn't leave her out on a limb all by herself. “I like Twizzlers.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That's all I'd ever used to get at movie theaters, even. No popcorn or anything, just Twizzlers.”
“What do you get now?”
“Hmm?”
“You said 'used to.'”
“Oh.” He looked down at his feet, noting a scuff mark on his left shoe. “I don't go to movies anymore.”
“Why not?”
He swallowed, unsure how to answer, knowing that he really didn't want to, not if he could possibly avoid it.
His watch beeped. Saved by the bell.
“No time,” he said and let that stand as both an excuse and an answer. He left before she could say anything else.
***
“I'm an accountant.”
Tara's eyes slid to the side, giving him that 'are you serious' look. “For real?”
“Yes. Why?”
She shrugged, sticking her hands in her pockets. “I don't know. Sounds kind of dry.”
“Oh, no. No, it's perfect. Numbers always are.” He looked at the street, at the people passing by. “No matter what, they always make sense.”
She followed his gaze and nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”
***
“You a real blond?”
“What?” He ran his hands self-consciously through his hair. “Of course I am.”
She grinned. “Just checking.”
***
She told him she'd lived in the city for five years, that she'd grown up in the mid-west and had no interest in ever returning. One day she wanted to learn to surf and if she could go anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.
He said he'd always lived in the city and couldn't imagine moving anywhere else. He preferred his glasses to contacts and when he was a kid, he wanted to be a firefighter. He still didn't tell her why he had to go to the pharmacy.
The days lengthened, then warmed. Schools released for the summer and now they spent just as much time passed by children as they did adults. Sometimes they spoke in stilted, awkward spurts, unable to navigate each other. Others, they spoke as if they had been doing it their whole lives, one subject sliding without effort into another.
Most of the time, he stuck to his watch but every once in a while he ignored the beeping and allowed their conversation to continue until it died a natural death. He would have trouble at home those evenings, fretting over this disruption and re-writing his schedule one, two, three times (or six or nine or twelve sometimes, just in case).
But try as he might, he couldn't regret any of it.
***
And then one day, she wasn't there.
The big man at the hot dog cart didn't have a name tag and looked irritated when Andrew asked him where Tara was.
“Don't know any Tara.”
“She had a coffee cart right here. Every day, this is where she was.” Or at least every third Tuesday, but Andrew didn't bother to clarify because she had told him every day and what reason did she have to lie? “Where'd she go?”
“Listen, man, I have no idea. Never met the girl, wouldn't know where she went.” His fingers drummed against the side of the stand. “You gonna order or what?”
Andrew took a step back as something in him curled up and hid its head. “No, not now. Thank you.”
***
“I haven't heard you talk about Tara in a while,” Dr. Lyons said. “Has something happened?”
Andrew looked away. “Nothing at all.”
***
Fall found its feet and brought whispers of the winter ahead with it. Andrew made sure his schedule was absolute because he had really let it slide recently and the last thing he needed was to find himself back where he started. Keeping time was important. Knowing where he should be and where he had to go, that's what mattered.
“Hey, there, Tuesday guy.”
She sat on the sidewalk right next to the pharmacy door, looking smaller than he remembered her.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
Tara nodded and rose. She tucked a strand behind her ear, though it was too short to stay there for long. “Yeah. It seemed time. I'm sorry about last month. I lost track of my Tuesdays.”
“Oh.” He leaned against the window next to her, ignoring the stares of customers as they walked in and out of the door. “I didn't know where you went.”
“Yeah, um, about that.” Her smile wasn't the one he was used to. It was small and hesitant and seemed on the verge of running away if he spooked it. “So, when I got the cart from Jerry - Jeremy - I didn't exactly get a permit, too. And when the city found out...”
“You lost the cart.”
“I lost the cart.” She blinked rapidly and her voice trembled a little when she said, “Pretty dumb, huh?”
“No, it's - it's-” He stumbled, looked for his footing and when there was none to be found, blurted, “I didn't leave my house once for nearly two years.”
When she only stared in response, he rushed forward, filling in the space as fast as he could. “I was so bad off, I couldn't get out of the house and when I finally did, I had to see a psychiatrist regularly - well, I still do and I need to be on medication, so - so, here I am.”
“Every third Tuesday,” she said slowly.
“Yeah.” All the energy fled from him and he sagged. “Yeah,” he said again. “So, I - I know from dumb, okay? Don't worry about it.”
“It's not dumb,” she murmured and slipped her hand into his. “It's not dumb at all.”
His first instinct was to shake free, but as he stayed there and let the warmth of her skin seep into his own, he marveled at how well their fingers fit together. Three was a good number, but maybe two wasn't so bad.
“Do you want to go get something to eat?” he said.
She looked to the pharmacy door. “Don't you have to get your medication?”
He thought for a moment, then smiled.
“I've got enough through this evening. I can pick it up tomorrow.”
END
Rating: PG
Prompt: Romance/a medical prescription
Summary: Andrew has a routine. Too bad Tara isn't part of it.
Note: Written for the NYC Midnight 3rd annual short story challenge. An original(!) piece that had to a) be written in one week b) be 2,500 words or less and c) use the prompt above. A good experience and we're allowed to post stories for feedback as soon as we get confirmation from the site. And this is a fic journal, so why not, yeah?
And of course I receive the 'romance' genre after spending two hours ranting about it in a phone call to sarcasticval. Um, hooray for karma? Though all things considered, I don't think it turned out too badly.
DISRUPTION
Tara.
That's what her name tag said. “Tara.” Tilted to the left on her jacket. Her black hair fell out of her bun and surrounded her face with stray wisps. She grinned when Andrew walked up, like he was a long-lost friend she hadn't seen for some time.
“Hi. What can I get for you?”
Andrew stared at her for a moment. Maybe if he concentrated, she would simply disappear. But when the silence had stretched on long enough and Tara's smile had faded into puzzlement, he realized that was unlikely to happen.
“Where's Jeremy?” he said.
Tara shrugged. “Left town.”
“What?” No. Impossible. He hadn't heard her correctly or she was lying or - or something. Because this was Jeremy. Jeremy was always here.
“What?” he said again, just in case.
“Florida, I think. Or California, maybe. Someplace warm.” Tara shrugged. “Not that I blame him.”
“But - but - no. See, he's supposed to be here. Third Tuesday of every month at 3:33. I pick up my prescription and he gives me a 12 oz. black in this coffee cup.” He held up his stainless steel mug, to prove that what he said was true. She leaned forward to get a better look at it and nodded in approval.
“I like your mug. Very industrial-chic.”
“Thank you.”
“But Jeremy still left.”
“Two years,” Andrew said. “Two years, four months and-and sixteen days and Jeremy was always here.”
“And now I am,” Tara said. “You want me to pour you some coffee?”
“No. No, you can't because it was always Jeremy who did it and now he can't because he isn't here and it's just not going to work out, okay?”
Tara frowned, eyes narrowed. She shifted ever so slightly backward. “What sort of prescription did you say you had to pick up again?”
Andrew turned around and left.
***
“And she just kept saying he was gone! Like people just one day up and decide to move away for no reason whatsoever!”
Dr. Lyons watched with a neutral expression as Andrew paced her office. He would take three quick strides one way, turn, then walk three the other. At this point, he never even counted them anymore, it had become so ingrained in his psyche.
“From your perspective, I'm sure it may seem that way,” Dr. Lyons said.
Andrew shook his head. “No. No seem. Is. That's how it is.”
Dr. Lyons stayed silent a moment, then spoke cautiously. “Andrew, did you ever discuss this with Jeremy?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well, had he ever told you he was planning on moving?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“I -” Andrew came to a stop, a frown pulling his face down. “No, I didn't.”
“How much exactly did you know about him?”
“Well, I - you know, that's something I - and, um.” He sat back in her armchair, a piece that coordinated nicely with the rest of the bland, unoffensive furniture in the room.
“He made coffee exactly the way I liked it,” he mumbled, looking down at the floor.
Dr. Lyons shifted, uncrossing then re-crossing her legs. “So, do you think you're upset because he moved without telling you or because this interrupts your routine?”
“Maybe. Sort of. I don't know.” He never really liked how she did that, spoke calmly and rationally and made all of his complaints seem so small.
“Maybe you should look at this as an opportunity, then. Speak to this girl, ah -”
“Tara. From her name tag.”
“Okay, so talk to Tara. Alter your routine.”
He finally looked up, horrified. “I can't do that! It would throw off my whole schedule!”
She held up her hand. “It doesn't have to be big or even important. But you need to start getting used to absorbing change again. It's why you're here, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He frowned. “But I don't have to buy anything from her, right?”
Lyons almost, but didn't quite sigh. “No, Andrew. Just talk.”
***
3:33. Third Tuesday. Three minutes. That's all he'd give. Even if Dr. Lyons said he didn't have to stick absolutely to three minutes, it made him feel better.
Tara raised an eyebrow when he walked up. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“You're the third Tuesday guy, right?”
“Right.”
“I've got a thing for faces.”
“Right.” They stood staring at each other until Tara gestured at his mug.
“So, can I get you something?”
“What? Oh, no.” He almost stuck the mug in his pocket until he realized there was no possible way for it to fit. “I'm not buying anything.”
“Um, okay.”
“It's not you, though. It's just Jeremy knew precisely how long to brew it for me and while I'm sure you're fine, I really, really need this done my way and that's how Jeremy did it, so I can't buy any coffee from you.”
She blinked. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“Oh. Right.” His watch beeped. Three minutes. “I, uh, have to -” He waved at his watch and pointed at the pharmacy.
“Okay.”
He turned on his heel and walked away. But he felt her brown eyes following him as he went.
***
“Hey, there, third Tuesday guy,” she said when he walked up. “You want to buy anything now?”
“No, just talk. I'm just supposed to talk.”
She crossed her arms. “If this is a come-on, it's the weirdest one I've ever seen.”
“What? No! I mean, it's not - no!” He had never even thought of that and now that she'd brought it up, he seriously contemplated running away and never returning. “It's a - a -”
“Yeah?”
“... social experiment?” It sounded weak even to his ears and her eyebrows shot up higher.
“Excuse me?”
“I'm just, ah, trying to know more people around here, you know. Because I don't and I think I should.”
It sounded like something Dr. Lyons would say, something she would encourage in him. But that didn't make it any less true and it was strange to suddenly make that connection.
Her mouth twitched. “And you're going to do that on the third Tuesday of every month?”
“Sure. People can do that.” He frowned. “Can't they?”
She threw her head back and laughed. High and smooth, like perfect waves. “What the hell, why not? Get to know me.”
He smiled. It felt odd, all crooked and out of sync, something gone too long without practice. “Okay, yes. I can do that.” His watch beeped and the smile vanished. “Except not right now.”
“'Cause you have to go.”
“Right.” He hesitated a moment, hovering in indecision before simply nodding and walking away.
“Hey, Tuesday guy!” Her yell turned him back momentarily. “What's your name?”
He blinked. “Oh. Um, Andrew.”
“Okay.” And there was that grin again, wide and beautiful and joyous. “See you around, Andrew.”
***
The third Tuesday again and their conversation sputtered to a start.
“So.”
“So.”
He stood aside as she mixed a latte for a woman in business casual. “Do you like - what do you like?”
“Um.” She exchanged coffee for cash and frowned at the woman's failure to put anything in the tip jar. “Kind of an open-ended question there.”
“Oh. Right. Never m-”
“Peanut brittle.” She nodded to herself, satisfied with the answer. “I like peanut brittle.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Get it whenever I can. You?”
“I'm allergic to peanuts.” Her face fell and he scrambled to come with something that didn't leave her out on a limb all by herself. “I like Twizzlers.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That's all I'd ever used to get at movie theaters, even. No popcorn or anything, just Twizzlers.”
“What do you get now?”
“Hmm?”
“You said 'used to.'”
“Oh.” He looked down at his feet, noting a scuff mark on his left shoe. “I don't go to movies anymore.”
“Why not?”
He swallowed, unsure how to answer, knowing that he really didn't want to, not if he could possibly avoid it.
His watch beeped. Saved by the bell.
“No time,” he said and let that stand as both an excuse and an answer. He left before she could say anything else.
***
“I'm an accountant.”
Tara's eyes slid to the side, giving him that 'are you serious' look. “For real?”
“Yes. Why?”
She shrugged, sticking her hands in her pockets. “I don't know. Sounds kind of dry.”
“Oh, no. No, it's perfect. Numbers always are.” He looked at the street, at the people passing by. “No matter what, they always make sense.”
She followed his gaze and nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”
***
“You a real blond?”
“What?” He ran his hands self-consciously through his hair. “Of course I am.”
She grinned. “Just checking.”
***
She told him she'd lived in the city for five years, that she'd grown up in the mid-west and had no interest in ever returning. One day she wanted to learn to surf and if she could go anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.
He said he'd always lived in the city and couldn't imagine moving anywhere else. He preferred his glasses to contacts and when he was a kid, he wanted to be a firefighter. He still didn't tell her why he had to go to the pharmacy.
The days lengthened, then warmed. Schools released for the summer and now they spent just as much time passed by children as they did adults. Sometimes they spoke in stilted, awkward spurts, unable to navigate each other. Others, they spoke as if they had been doing it their whole lives, one subject sliding without effort into another.
Most of the time, he stuck to his watch but every once in a while he ignored the beeping and allowed their conversation to continue until it died a natural death. He would have trouble at home those evenings, fretting over this disruption and re-writing his schedule one, two, three times (or six or nine or twelve sometimes, just in case).
But try as he might, he couldn't regret any of it.
***
And then one day, she wasn't there.
The big man at the hot dog cart didn't have a name tag and looked irritated when Andrew asked him where Tara was.
“Don't know any Tara.”
“She had a coffee cart right here. Every day, this is where she was.” Or at least every third Tuesday, but Andrew didn't bother to clarify because she had told him every day and what reason did she have to lie? “Where'd she go?”
“Listen, man, I have no idea. Never met the girl, wouldn't know where she went.” His fingers drummed against the side of the stand. “You gonna order or what?”
Andrew took a step back as something in him curled up and hid its head. “No, not now. Thank you.”
***
“I haven't heard you talk about Tara in a while,” Dr. Lyons said. “Has something happened?”
Andrew looked away. “Nothing at all.”
***
Fall found its feet and brought whispers of the winter ahead with it. Andrew made sure his schedule was absolute because he had really let it slide recently and the last thing he needed was to find himself back where he started. Keeping time was important. Knowing where he should be and where he had to go, that's what mattered.
“Hey, there, Tuesday guy.”
She sat on the sidewalk right next to the pharmacy door, looking smaller than he remembered her.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
Tara nodded and rose. She tucked a strand behind her ear, though it was too short to stay there for long. “Yeah. It seemed time. I'm sorry about last month. I lost track of my Tuesdays.”
“Oh.” He leaned against the window next to her, ignoring the stares of customers as they walked in and out of the door. “I didn't know where you went.”
“Yeah, um, about that.” Her smile wasn't the one he was used to. It was small and hesitant and seemed on the verge of running away if he spooked it. “So, when I got the cart from Jerry - Jeremy - I didn't exactly get a permit, too. And when the city found out...”
“You lost the cart.”
“I lost the cart.” She blinked rapidly and her voice trembled a little when she said, “Pretty dumb, huh?”
“No, it's - it's-” He stumbled, looked for his footing and when there was none to be found, blurted, “I didn't leave my house once for nearly two years.”
When she only stared in response, he rushed forward, filling in the space as fast as he could. “I was so bad off, I couldn't get out of the house and when I finally did, I had to see a psychiatrist regularly - well, I still do and I need to be on medication, so - so, here I am.”
“Every third Tuesday,” she said slowly.
“Yeah.” All the energy fled from him and he sagged. “Yeah,” he said again. “So, I - I know from dumb, okay? Don't worry about it.”
“It's not dumb,” she murmured and slipped her hand into his. “It's not dumb at all.”
His first instinct was to shake free, but as he stayed there and let the warmth of her skin seep into his own, he marveled at how well their fingers fit together. Three was a good number, but maybe two wasn't so bad.
“Do you want to go get something to eat?” he said.
She looked to the pharmacy door. “Don't you have to get your medication?”
He thought for a moment, then smiled.
“I've got enough through this evening. I can pick it up tomorrow.”
END