Original Fiction: we loved last
we loved last
“I’m Jack,” she laughs. And she’s just a girl. We tell love stories for soda cans, pencils and pens, motor oil, and just a piece of mind. original. 1080 words, r. all notes at the end.
The bus stop is empty.
They’re standing at the edge of the neighborhood when they meet, shoulder to shoulder, with him watching her and her watching the wall. He can’t remember exactly how he sort of stumbled this way - he lives three blocks over, behind the 711 and the house where the madame lives. Allegedly.
“Mom’s a romantic,” she says dryly, over the first day they meet, “I kinda went through every one of her suffer all and i’m the artist phases.”
The wall is off to the side though, in between barks and peeling grass. There are bottles and cans, left over papers and gun wraps in a disastrous home. He snorts when he sees it, blue paint splatter in loops in a bizarre homage to Jack Kerouac. But Jean-Luis it sighs and he remembers the paper that he’s just failed because he doesn’t get it, run-ons and punctuation and all.
And the bus is late. And he doesn’t ask her for a name. She doesn’t volunteer one either. It’s just how it goes for those thin, tired six minutes, her at the wall and him staring at her.
He blinks. “I don’t understand.”
She grins up at him and it makes her jaw jut out awkwardly, stringing the thin pieces of her hair along her cheeks. Still though, he’s curious and she’s here and he doesn’t really understand what that quite means.
She nods to the wall and then points to herself, her fingers spreading over her chest. There’s a little laugh and he feels stupid, but overcome by the insignificance of the moment.
“I’m Jack,” she laughs. And she’s just a girl.
“I’m allergic, Mark,” she shakes her head.
He’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, smelling like smoke and the club, which club she doesn’t care - it’s long since mattered and they’re roommates, not together, even though the flowers aren’t so bad.
He’s quiet though. “I didn’t mean to.”
What is it that they say about forgiveness? There was a lecture once, in college, but she missed those days. Seven to nine. She was writing film papers instead.
“Just remember the milk next time,” is how she swallows. Disappointed over the rent again, she shoves the mall away and over the heater. It doesn’t work. It’s going to be a long winter.
Her mother’s told her. There are no roses.
She’s nothing like Abby.
She laughs louder, it annoys him, and she sighs all through fucking, her hands in curls over her tits like it’s the way she really gets off. But his cock’s limp anyway and against her thigh, sticky, as she presses over to cuddle. Fucking cuddle.
“Listen,” he says and he’s going to mean it too, “you should go. I need to take a piss and I can’t piss properly if you’re still here. So thanks, really, for a good time. It was great.”
But he’s a damn coward and there’s another sigh over his skin, her lips pressing lightly. She’s almost shy and he’s almost finding her endearing.
“She’s lucky,” and he can’t remember her name, Audrey or Hannah or Josie like the pussycat, “she’s real lucky.”
He grins through it all. Like a dick.
She can’t see him.
It’s creepy, the way the farm spreads out - too far and too wide, her mother warned her, it’s not the place to get lost in. But this was her idea and she’s sort of starting to hate her for this.
See, the thing is the last time she saw dad it was 1982 and she was six and the world was more than just big, it was under the bed and really, really scary. She used to hear them fighting too, mom and dad and saying things like you can’t do this to me and i’m tired. That was back when she thought it was about being a good little girl, parched braids and smiling wider just so they could see.
It’s the modern times, bay-bee, and she knows now it’s because dad never left Beaver behind and had some other family in Vermont. Okay, it’s an exaggeration - maybe - but it’s the best she’s got.
“Dad!”
There’s too much green around her and wood too. But there’s no animals, not one sheep or cow or fucking chicken like the places they saw on the way up here. She’s passing the fence again, on the other side, and completely in disarray at how posts are stumps and nothing’s really put together.
But, “over here,” drops behind her and she whirls around in half a panic, clutching her heart with wide eyes. She’s got his back instead, the tweed slumping over his shoulders as he settles on a loose post. He was the one that wanted to take a drive, she remembers.
“Dad?”
He shakes his head and turns a little, a small smile splitting his face. Her lips purse and she stays where she is, pressing her boots into the grass.
“I’m sorry, you know,” he tells her. “I wanted to do better.”
“You should be in this house,” she says. “I told you.”
The television is on and he’s watching her stare back into the living room, to the kids that haven’t seen him yet. He’s disappeared already, of course, and that’s what he’s wanted.
“I want to say goodbye.” He’s serious. Charged. His hands are over his pockets, neatly mended with pens and receipts, bottle caps and a key chain. He feels the weight of unnecessary, but they’ve fallen in love yet again, at eighteen and now at forty-three.
She smiles at him sadly without the gold.
“You can’t have everything.”
She stands. Her fingers are bleeding. The car smells like shit and ashes.
“I’m home,” comes the car song, “I’m home, I’m home, I’m home, oh, I’m home finally.”
She hates country music. But they told her she could.
In the elevator, he marries her.
He’s wearing black. She’s wearing suede and laughing about her something blue. They’ll have three kids because two is simply a stupid number and she’ll complain that he’s only married her for her breasts all with a smile. They’ll die young and they’ll be a song about them, a good song, with the right amount of bass and a bridge to envy.
“Good morning,” floor sixteen says instead and wears her work suit with awkwardness instead of elegance.
He’s just practicing, you know.
“We’ll get better at it.”
“I know.”
f.
I guess I just felt like writing love story blurbs today. With the stuff that can inspire them.
credit - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+6, 7, 8.