Popcorn
You know how sometimes, a few words or a random line will occur to you, and you'll think, "Huh. That would make a pretty good quote for a story or something,"? And so you go to write the line down to use it later and then, y'know, since the file's already open, you put a paragraph around to give it context, and then another sentence or two, and then an hour later, you look up and notice there's a full page of text in front of you?
It began like... like popcorn bursting in its little microwavable baggie. There was nothing at first, not for the longest time, long enough to make me start wondering if there was anything there at all, and then, suddenly, when I least expected it - pop! A smile. Just the one. An isolated incident. An incidental, isolated event. But then, not too long after that... pop, pop! A gesture and a word. After that, there was no stopping it. And there wasn't any consistency to it... no measurable pattern, no identifiable regularity, only popopop and pop and pop-pop, one right after the other, sometimes with the oddest gaps in between, sometimes all at once in a chaotic cacophany of crackling, and before I really knew it, we were taking long walks on the beach and he was reading his journal to me and we were making out in the treehouse in the backyard where I used to sit and shoot rubberbands over the fence at him when we were kids.
But that's the thing with popcorn, if I may belabor the metaphor. It only pops for a few minutes before there's nothing left to explode. And then there's only, what? Another ten minutes left to enjoy it? Longer if you take your time, but still, it goes fast, and it's so light that you don't even realize how quickly you're taking handful after handful until you're left with nothing but an empty bowl and a few unpopped kernels at the bottom, and you find yourself wondering why they never had their chance to pop with the rest, and you're wishing that they did, somehow, because then you'd be able to cling to those last few bites, but you know that there's no point now because all that's left of them are bitter, hard, dried-up bits of corn that would only hurt you if you tried to finish them.
I don't know if it was something I said or did - I certainly don't remember anything of the sort, and I know he never said anything... But then, he never would say anything, even if I offended him in the worst possible way. All I know is that when our junior year began that fall, it was like summer had never happened. He never even looked at me, even though I sat just two rows over from him in homeroom. We were strangers again - the same strangers who had known each other since he moved next door when we were eight, all small and serious behind his big round glasses.
I tried, a little bit. I tried. I waved to him a few times, in the hall, in homeroom, only to be met with stony, apparently-oblivious silence, even though I knew by then he never missed anything. Once or twice I called him, experimentally, but he never picked up - not that he had ever answered his phone in the first place, even when we were together. Once, I was reading in the treehouse, and I saw him sitting in his yard, writing away in that journal of his. I still had my epic rubber band ball up there, so I shot one at him, for old time's sake. He waved it off like a gnat, without ever looking up.
After those few feeble attempts, I stopped trying. Maybe I should have pushed it more. Maybe I should have confronted him. But deep down, I knew it was over, for whatever mysterious reason. Fighting with him wouldn't change that - it probably wouldn't even bring any kind of closure. So I let it go, slowly and quietly, and when Jake Miller, from French 103, asked me to the Halloween dance and we started going out that November, I snuck a few glances back at him every homeroom. I didn't flaunt the new boyfriend in front of him - I'm not that kind of catty ex - but like I said, he never missed much, and I knew he knew Jake and I were dating. But he never looked up from his stupid book. Never gave me the least clue what he was thinking.
Life and love go on. I heard he got accepted to somewhere fancy and ivy league after we graduated. I heard he dropped out the next year and drove to Santa Fe or somewhere. Neither surprised me. Jake and I had broken up long before then, of course. Other boys had come and gone, you know, like they do. I'm engaged now. He's a few years older than me, but we're both about to graduate - me with my Bachelor's, him with his PhD. I love him. I have no doubt of that. And I'm sure we'll be very happy together.
But a part of me will always miss my stupid popcorn.
It began like... like popcorn bursting in its little microwavable baggie. There was nothing at first, not for the longest time, long enough to make me start wondering if there was anything there at all, and then, suddenly, when I least expected it - pop! A smile. Just the one. An isolated incident. An incidental, isolated event. But then, not too long after that... pop, pop! A gesture and a word. After that, there was no stopping it. And there wasn't any consistency to it... no measurable pattern, no identifiable regularity, only popopop and pop and pop-pop, one right after the other, sometimes with the oddest gaps in between, sometimes all at once in a chaotic cacophany of crackling, and before I really knew it, we were taking long walks on the beach and he was reading his journal to me and we were making out in the treehouse in the backyard where I used to sit and shoot rubberbands over the fence at him when we were kids.
But that's the thing with popcorn, if I may belabor the metaphor. It only pops for a few minutes before there's nothing left to explode. And then there's only, what? Another ten minutes left to enjoy it? Longer if you take your time, but still, it goes fast, and it's so light that you don't even realize how quickly you're taking handful after handful until you're left with nothing but an empty bowl and a few unpopped kernels at the bottom, and you find yourself wondering why they never had their chance to pop with the rest, and you're wishing that they did, somehow, because then you'd be able to cling to those last few bites, but you know that there's no point now because all that's left of them are bitter, hard, dried-up bits of corn that would only hurt you if you tried to finish them.
I don't know if it was something I said or did - I certainly don't remember anything of the sort, and I know he never said anything... But then, he never would say anything, even if I offended him in the worst possible way. All I know is that when our junior year began that fall, it was like summer had never happened. He never even looked at me, even though I sat just two rows over from him in homeroom. We were strangers again - the same strangers who had known each other since he moved next door when we were eight, all small and serious behind his big round glasses.
I tried, a little bit. I tried. I waved to him a few times, in the hall, in homeroom, only to be met with stony, apparently-oblivious silence, even though I knew by then he never missed anything. Once or twice I called him, experimentally, but he never picked up - not that he had ever answered his phone in the first place, even when we were together. Once, I was reading in the treehouse, and I saw him sitting in his yard, writing away in that journal of his. I still had my epic rubber band ball up there, so I shot one at him, for old time's sake. He waved it off like a gnat, without ever looking up.
After those few feeble attempts, I stopped trying. Maybe I should have pushed it more. Maybe I should have confronted him. But deep down, I knew it was over, for whatever mysterious reason. Fighting with him wouldn't change that - it probably wouldn't even bring any kind of closure. So I let it go, slowly and quietly, and when Jake Miller, from French 103, asked me to the Halloween dance and we started going out that November, I snuck a few glances back at him every homeroom. I didn't flaunt the new boyfriend in front of him - I'm not that kind of catty ex - but like I said, he never missed much, and I knew he knew Jake and I were dating. But he never looked up from his stupid book. Never gave me the least clue what he was thinking.
Life and love go on. I heard he got accepted to somewhere fancy and ivy league after we graduated. I heard he dropped out the next year and drove to Santa Fe or somewhere. Neither surprised me. Jake and I had broken up long before then, of course. Other boys had come and gone, you know, like they do. I'm engaged now. He's a few years older than me, but we're both about to graduate - me with my Bachelor's, him with his PhD. I love him. I have no doubt of that. And I'm sure we'll be very happy together.
But a part of me will always miss my stupid popcorn.