Original Fiction: we’ll name ships
we’ll name ships
she wants so badly for this to work out, for this to be that start that everybody keeps talking about - the one that she’s supposed to have. the thing about getting older and starting to write your own moves is that it gets scarier even if you blink. original. unbeta’d. 1759 words, pg.
note: second draft, different story, and a little more personal than i’d like it to be. but then again, i like the story. i guess i'm trying to get to the habit of messing around with things and trying others. anyhow. enjoy!
-
“You’re going to be okay,” it’s the fourth time today that Katie’s gone and tried to be her mother, shy over the boxes of her clothes as they unpack the rest of her stuff in her apartment.
New city, new start, and the song and dance isn’t really ready for her - vice versa, she corrects herself, but all the same, she’s here and there’s really nothing she can do about that. It’s exciting though, Anna thinks, the sudden turn of a risk as something that she decided to do over the pressing of things like family and friends. She’s here for a job though, hoping to make rent and sacrifice herself over nutter butters and cheap cola while furnishing some sort of play at creativity. Most people in the city are here for modeling and acting, hoping to plaster their faces across billboards and alley walls. She, however, keeps herself at pragmatic and hopes to survive.
“I know.” She finally answers Katie, shrugging.
But her friend remains unconvinced, shorting through clothes and peeking at her as if she were ready to steal something. She’s absent though, starting on her again.
“Really.”
Anna shakes her head. “Fuck off.”
She’s pretty sure they’re going to talk about reasons, mourning the loss of last night’s cheap beer. At least, then, she had some sort of excuse to say stupid things and the rest of the stuff that she’d rather keep to herself. She’s uncomfortable talking, never listening, but there’s something about the moment when someone else is watching you and you have no idea what they’re thinking.
So Anna counts to ten in her head, picking off her books and pictures. They scatter across her bed, sheet-less and covered with an assortment of old notebooks and a few train tickets. The train tickets are the only small town memory that she took, the framed pictures of family and friends only spanning over vacations and graduations, places that were never quite home.
“I mean,” Katie doesn’t disappoint, “he’ll come around and realize that he’s a big fucking idiot that’s still sprouting poetry with his dick.”
And there it is.
Her mouth tenses. “Image.”
“Great, isn’t it?”
Her friend stumbles over her response, looking away as Anna starts lining the small shelf with her books. She has too many of them, copies of threes and fours and things she’d rather keep than get rid of. It’s funny how must of her money goes to things that are her, rather than things that could make her. It’s not to say that she wouldn’t sell her soul for a pair of Christian Louboutins because really, come on. The point is she’d rather hide behind the things that she knows and that know her back, unchanging and full of routines.
“Where does this go?”
She ignores Katie for the moment, eyeing the shelf. It’s too small and she’s suddenly annoyed, trying to fit another textbook in the corner. It does fit though and she curses breathlessly.
“Annie?”
“By the closet,” she’s absent, peeling her fingers against the pages of a book as she turns to see laundry basket. She wants so badly for this to work out, for this to be that start that everybody keeps talking about - the one that she’s supposed to have.
It’s scary to think, really, that she’s never really been there quite yet and she’s not sure if she’s there either. She’s been playing this along for weeks, in boxes and phone calls, and her uncertainty comes and goes as it pleases. There are still things like new jobs and the intimidation of new people, factoring over the promise that home is only a couple hours away.
But then there’s Ben.
Katie throws a sock at her head. “Just promise me you’re not going to be Carrie Bradshaw or anything.”
“For the shoes, maybe.”
“Tramp.”
Katie grins at her and Anna has to smile back, shrugging as she drops over the bed and foregoing her shelf. There are too many fucking books, her nose wrinkles, and not enough space to face the walls with them. It’s still some sort of weird ideology she follows, the firm quest to make a living by dialogue. She swears too that she can do it better than half the people that make money for it and if Jimmy Buffett can get a million dollar book deal to look like an ass, then what is she doing wrong?
“I kinda don’t want him here,” stumbles out and Ben’s name is flipping through her head again, too fast and soon.
Katie blinks. “What?”
But she says nothing. The story begins with Anna and Ben and Katie and George, four friends who pushed each other in the sandbox when they were kids with fat legs - at least, this is how Katie tells it. The truth is that Ben and Anna were well into being Ben and Anna before they even realized it.
She can do no justice to the love story, sheltering herself between the okay memories and the really, really good ones that every once in awhile will make her sad, not okay, but just really sad. She thinks a lot about all the things that she could’ve said to him the day that they decided it would be good for them to split; he was too ready to be just Ben for awhile and left her, really left her, scared and confused and trying to understand herself.
So then came New York.
“I guess I’ll be okay,” she shrugs, looking up at her friend. She shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s unnecessary. “I mean shouldn’t I get to have the time too? He made his decision - I know I’m a little late to the party, but I kind of -”
“Kind of?”
Anna sighs. “I don’t know. I’m used to it?”
Katie softens, moving to the bed. Her friend shifts over a couple books, pushing them aside. One falls between them, rolling over the bed and hitting the floor with a soft pat.
“You’re going to be okay, Annie,” she says quietly. “I know you hate it when people tell you - but really. This is going to be good for you.”
Her throat starts to burn and she looks down, brushing her hands against her knees. She can feel Katie watching her, waiting for her to say something back; but what’s going to happen when there’s nothing to say or something to say when it’s too late - she’s terrified, really, of having the walls of her place to herself, of getting up and having no one there next to her or even outside her door. The streets are different. The noise is different - loud, fast, and harder. Her mother made the joke before she left that she’s too nice for the city, too quiet even.
But really, can she do this?
“I guess.” And the idea of Ben is in her head with things like when we get there and I promise you just like old times. It’s strange fit of nostalgia as she looks down, trying to push it back away from herself.
“Annie.”
“No,” she murmurs. “You’re right. It’s going to be good. I’ll be all right - I’ll just move the television in here or something for a little while.”
It’s never easy to explain how things came and went, struggling to leave to when he was the first to go. For now, she’s going to say that she was ready first for the rest, to take it and make her own. It was a quick promise of trusting him and in it, in it she sort of gave bits of herself up in the promise.
They were excited though and for that, she thinks she’ll never completely understand the methodology behind it’s me not you under generation after generation of love stories that keep getting rewritten. Maybe, it’s the romantic in her that’s destined for some clandestine sense of these steps. But she remembers, still remembers, how they plastered themselves over yearbook photos and friends -
You make me better, he told her.
But she lost him. She lost him in between odd habits and small things, the things that she said and meant. It’s funny how the semantics work, never in her favor but always willing to surprise her.
Her lips purse. “Do you think he still thinks about it?”
“Ben?”
She says nothing and Katie shrugs. “I know he feels bad.”
It’s not what she wants to hear though and she picks up one of the books again, dropping it to her lap and playing with the pages. The day comes and goes in her head, the way Ben was supposed to be there and then suddenly wasn’t. Thinking about it, she’s the same as she was then. She wonders if he misses her, if it’s okay to miss him back, and if they could talk, if she was ready to talk to him, would he be willing again?
But it’s like talking about cowards without the real psychology at hand and Anna shakes her thoughts away from him, tossing the book back into the box. She’s tired, she excuses herself, and it’s going to pass anyway.
She finds herself looking around the apartment though, small in sighs and open, for the first time, for her to cramp and clutter the way she wants to. It’s odd to say that this is a selfish chance, a really chance, but she’s hesitant - the weariness that comes with trying to understand her own decisions is still there.
So she drops the books and leaves Katie to the bed, moving to the windows. Outside, there are cars and steps and the occasional person passing under the dogwood tree by her window. She smiles a little and thinks of home again, the same static draw to things that are good memories.
“I’m hungry.”
She turns and looks at her friend, smiling a little. It’s a lot, for now, and she wants to say things like I’m really scared and will I do this? so that it can mean something to someone else too.
“No unpacking?”
She snorts. “Look who you’re talking to,” she grins a little, “I’m the one that lives out of my suitcase on vacation because I hate the damn thing.”
Katie laughs, dropping everything without blinking. She’s still the same, grinning widely as she steps to the door to unearth her keys. New keys, Anna corrects herself.
“Ice cream?”
She finds herself smiling a little more. “Yeah.”
she wants so badly for this to work out, for this to be that start that everybody keeps talking about - the one that she’s supposed to have. the thing about getting older and starting to write your own moves is that it gets scarier even if you blink. original. unbeta’d. 1759 words, pg.
note: second draft, different story, and a little more personal than i’d like it to be. but then again, i like the story. i guess i'm trying to get to the habit of messing around with things and trying others. anyhow. enjoy!
-
“You’re going to be okay,” it’s the fourth time today that Katie’s gone and tried to be her mother, shy over the boxes of her clothes as they unpack the rest of her stuff in her apartment.
New city, new start, and the song and dance isn’t really ready for her - vice versa, she corrects herself, but all the same, she’s here and there’s really nothing she can do about that. It’s exciting though, Anna thinks, the sudden turn of a risk as something that she decided to do over the pressing of things like family and friends. She’s here for a job though, hoping to make rent and sacrifice herself over nutter butters and cheap cola while furnishing some sort of play at creativity. Most people in the city are here for modeling and acting, hoping to plaster their faces across billboards and alley walls. She, however, keeps herself at pragmatic and hopes to survive.
“I know.” She finally answers Katie, shrugging.
But her friend remains unconvinced, shorting through clothes and peeking at her as if she were ready to steal something. She’s absent though, starting on her again.
“Really.”
Anna shakes her head. “Fuck off.”
She’s pretty sure they’re going to talk about reasons, mourning the loss of last night’s cheap beer. At least, then, she had some sort of excuse to say stupid things and the rest of the stuff that she’d rather keep to herself. She’s uncomfortable talking, never listening, but there’s something about the moment when someone else is watching you and you have no idea what they’re thinking.
So Anna counts to ten in her head, picking off her books and pictures. They scatter across her bed, sheet-less and covered with an assortment of old notebooks and a few train tickets. The train tickets are the only small town memory that she took, the framed pictures of family and friends only spanning over vacations and graduations, places that were never quite home.
“I mean,” Katie doesn’t disappoint, “he’ll come around and realize that he’s a big fucking idiot that’s still sprouting poetry with his dick.”
And there it is.
Her mouth tenses. “Image.”
“Great, isn’t it?”
Her friend stumbles over her response, looking away as Anna starts lining the small shelf with her books. She has too many of them, copies of threes and fours and things she’d rather keep than get rid of. It’s funny how must of her money goes to things that are her, rather than things that could make her. It’s not to say that she wouldn’t sell her soul for a pair of Christian Louboutins because really, come on. The point is she’d rather hide behind the things that she knows and that know her back, unchanging and full of routines.
“Where does this go?”
She ignores Katie for the moment, eyeing the shelf. It’s too small and she’s suddenly annoyed, trying to fit another textbook in the corner. It does fit though and she curses breathlessly.
“Annie?”
“By the closet,” she’s absent, peeling her fingers against the pages of a book as she turns to see laundry basket. She wants so badly for this to work out, for this to be that start that everybody keeps talking about - the one that she’s supposed to have.
It’s scary to think, really, that she’s never really been there quite yet and she’s not sure if she’s there either. She’s been playing this along for weeks, in boxes and phone calls, and her uncertainty comes and goes as it pleases. There are still things like new jobs and the intimidation of new people, factoring over the promise that home is only a couple hours away.
But then there’s Ben.
Katie throws a sock at her head. “Just promise me you’re not going to be Carrie Bradshaw or anything.”
“For the shoes, maybe.”
“Tramp.”
Katie grins at her and Anna has to smile back, shrugging as she drops over the bed and foregoing her shelf. There are too many fucking books, her nose wrinkles, and not enough space to face the walls with them. It’s still some sort of weird ideology she follows, the firm quest to make a living by dialogue. She swears too that she can do it better than half the people that make money for it and if Jimmy Buffett can get a million dollar book deal to look like an ass, then what is she doing wrong?
“I kinda don’t want him here,” stumbles out and Ben’s name is flipping through her head again, too fast and soon.
Katie blinks. “What?”
But she says nothing. The story begins with Anna and Ben and Katie and George, four friends who pushed each other in the sandbox when they were kids with fat legs - at least, this is how Katie tells it. The truth is that Ben and Anna were well into being Ben and Anna before they even realized it.
She can do no justice to the love story, sheltering herself between the okay memories and the really, really good ones that every once in awhile will make her sad, not okay, but just really sad. She thinks a lot about all the things that she could’ve said to him the day that they decided it would be good for them to split; he was too ready to be just Ben for awhile and left her, really left her, scared and confused and trying to understand herself.
So then came New York.
“I guess I’ll be okay,” she shrugs, looking up at her friend. She shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s unnecessary. “I mean shouldn’t I get to have the time too? He made his decision - I know I’m a little late to the party, but I kind of -”
“Kind of?”
Anna sighs. “I don’t know. I’m used to it?”
Katie softens, moving to the bed. Her friend shifts over a couple books, pushing them aside. One falls between them, rolling over the bed and hitting the floor with a soft pat.
“You’re going to be okay, Annie,” she says quietly. “I know you hate it when people tell you - but really. This is going to be good for you.”
Her throat starts to burn and she looks down, brushing her hands against her knees. She can feel Katie watching her, waiting for her to say something back; but what’s going to happen when there’s nothing to say or something to say when it’s too late - she’s terrified, really, of having the walls of her place to herself, of getting up and having no one there next to her or even outside her door. The streets are different. The noise is different - loud, fast, and harder. Her mother made the joke before she left that she’s too nice for the city, too quiet even.
But really, can she do this?
“I guess.” And the idea of Ben is in her head with things like when we get there and I promise you just like old times. It’s strange fit of nostalgia as she looks down, trying to push it back away from herself.
“Annie.”
“No,” she murmurs. “You’re right. It’s going to be good. I’ll be all right - I’ll just move the television in here or something for a little while.”
It’s never easy to explain how things came and went, struggling to leave to when he was the first to go. For now, she’s going to say that she was ready first for the rest, to take it and make her own. It was a quick promise of trusting him and in it, in it she sort of gave bits of herself up in the promise.
They were excited though and for that, she thinks she’ll never completely understand the methodology behind it’s me not you under generation after generation of love stories that keep getting rewritten. Maybe, it’s the romantic in her that’s destined for some clandestine sense of these steps. But she remembers, still remembers, how they plastered themselves over yearbook photos and friends -
You make me better, he told her.
But she lost him. She lost him in between odd habits and small things, the things that she said and meant. It’s funny how the semantics work, never in her favor but always willing to surprise her.
Her lips purse. “Do you think he still thinks about it?”
“Ben?”
She says nothing and Katie shrugs. “I know he feels bad.”
It’s not what she wants to hear though and she picks up one of the books again, dropping it to her lap and playing with the pages. The day comes and goes in her head, the way Ben was supposed to be there and then suddenly wasn’t. Thinking about it, she’s the same as she was then. She wonders if he misses her, if it’s okay to miss him back, and if they could talk, if she was ready to talk to him, would he be willing again?
But it’s like talking about cowards without the real psychology at hand and Anna shakes her thoughts away from him, tossing the book back into the box. She’s tired, she excuses herself, and it’s going to pass anyway.
She finds herself looking around the apartment though, small in sighs and open, for the first time, for her to cramp and clutter the way she wants to. It’s odd to say that this is a selfish chance, a really chance, but she’s hesitant - the weariness that comes with trying to understand her own decisions is still there.
So she drops the books and leaves Katie to the bed, moving to the windows. Outside, there are cars and steps and the occasional person passing under the dogwood tree by her window. She smiles a little and thinks of home again, the same static draw to things that are good memories.
“I’m hungry.”
She turns and looks at her friend, smiling a little. It’s a lot, for now, and she wants to say things like I’m really scared and will I do this? so that it can mean something to someone else too.
“No unpacking?”
She snorts. “Look who you’re talking to,” she grins a little, “I’m the one that lives out of my suitcase on vacation because I hate the damn thing.”
Katie laughs, dropping everything without blinking. She’s still the same, grinning widely as she steps to the door to unearth her keys. New keys, Anna corrects herself.
“Ice cream?”
She finds herself smiling a little more. “Yeah.”