19 and beautiful.
“flash Fiction”
December 3rd, 2015 4:38am (Burn on December 3rd, 2016)
Dear Eva,
There are always moments of bursting inspiration that drive me to write. It never matters whether its by key or pen stroke, just as long as something tumbles out of me. I’m recovering from one of those moments now. I can breathe.
It was subtle. I had just looked up through the dark of my apartment to see a slit of outside. It hid itself like a delicate privacy. When I looked I saw a silhouette glide past and then a voice. What if it had been you? Never. I darted up and ripped the curtains apart but the snow was the only thing I could see. It zig-zagged, wisped, floated in updrafts. I was transfixed. And then you texted me.
Everything felt fated. Moments of beauty always gave way to people like you. So I took my time settling back into the couch’s warmth. The cool of the window nipped at the back of my neck as I brought my phone closer. My thumb grazed the center button and your words flashed across the screen: ‘Are you awake?’
Of course. My heart lodged itself in my throat. My reply: ‘Yes.’ Everything I did with you had to be drenched in melodrama. Without that, what was there? I felt submerged.
> What are you up to?
Pleasantries.
< Watching the snowfall. You?
> Watching some dumb movie with the girls.
> Really boring, haha.
< Lol well, that sounds pretty shit.
> I would much rather be watching the snow.
I softened with strain.
< I mean I’ve got this warm spot on the couch right next to me, soooo
> Bet it’s only warm because you’re really sweaty.
< I do have that effect on couches..
> I hate you so much right now.
< You love me. Lie to me again.
But you didn’t reply. It was usually those sorts of challenges that you shied away from. I reasoned that it was because you couldn’t handle the truth. My friends rattled off something similar, saying that you were a coward. Maybe.
The moment didn’t end there. I was still wrapped up in lust, staring at the ceiling with a passion that could have fractured concrete. I tuned into the stomping above my head and then to the murmur next door. I rose and pressed my ear against the plaster until the cartilage ached. The mumbling rose and fell with the rhythm of my breathing. I strained, wanting to capture at least the fragment of a sentence. And then: “- to never fucking do that. So why did you?” I switched ears, hugging the wall.
It was a girl with a thick City accent. Almost all of the City kids lived on South. “Okay but why, Dell? Why the fuck would you-” her words fell, seeming to cloak themselves intentionally. I groped for more, begging in silence. Something.
“I told you she was gonna do this shit. I told you, Dell. You never fucking listen to me, regardless of what I say….No! I’m done with this shit.” And then she cried. They were muffled sobs, but their intensity pierced the silence around her. Everyone was falling victim to someone. I wanted to comfort her. Kiss her. Tell her that things were still beautiful.
I climbed back onto the couch and leaned out of the curtains. That was the symphony of these moments: I blended in and out of scenes without a second thought. There were sheets of snow charging across the lot now. My car was coated, gleaming in the parking lot’s yellowed light. The world seemed to age right before me. I remembered the conversations we had had on several drunken occasions. I remembered the first time we came close to kissing. The moment swelled in my chest as I slid.
We were inches from each other’s lips that night, fatigued by alcohol and dancing. Your eyes glowed in the lamplight fixed behind me. We were smiling, high on the euphoria emanating between us. I remember the pinch of fear that gripped my throat when I realized we had stolen glances of one another’s lips. I had never done that before, not with you. Though by your claims, you probably had. It was fresh for me, burning at the ends of my fingertips. You shifted in your seat and I took that as encouragement to subdue the tension. So we did.
The sting of tears emerged at the corners of my eyes before radiating into my face. I bent forward, feeling the memory disintegrate. The harmony carrying my enthrallment followed suit and I knew that something needed to come out. I wrenched my laptop open and stared blankly at the screen before drawing in enough air to to feel tangible again. You burned in the back of my throat and then your name lit up my phone’s screen. I threw it across the room.
The thud echoed through my mind as my fingertips blazed across the keyboard. To anyone it would have sounded like incessant mashing, but to me it was a storm of need spelling itself out through a jungle of petaled language. I typed your name and then deleted it. No. You only get to be “You” or “Lover” or “Observer.” You are a subject, not a person.
The center of my affections only in between words.
The lines came chaotically and yet they melted into one another with rhythm. Something boiled beneath my skin until I felt my heart raking for release. I paused, inhaling ice. I was trembling with a knot tight in my throat. I needed to finish. Time only flexed things. Space bar, L-o-v-e-r.
And then, all at once, I was finished. The words ceased their swirling, fizzling into incoherence. Here I am now, in the aftermath. A relief is comforting the back of my head. And I am not thinking of you.
Yours,
Nathaniel
