Somewhere Between The Lines-Short Story

I think I’m the only person who really believes in second chances. I’m that kind of hopeless romantic who would stand out in the rain for someone, waiting while I get so drenched that pneumonia would nestle down deep in my lungs. I’d run after someone until my legs gave out and I’d have to crawl forward to latch onto the person’s ankle just to stop them from leaving. I am the kind of girl who has so much faith that I’d write a love letter, give it to the guy, have him reject me, and then still hold out for him because I believe there’s still a chance with him.

It was a Friday night, my parents were out at a get-together across town, and although I had been invited to go with them, I stuck with my plan of watching a horror movie marathon. However, I discovered I was out of anything to eat. I was going to settle for nothing, except then I realized that the kid next door were having a house party, and I’d heard about it earlier that week that there were kids from all over town… especially from up the block.

I tried to swallow the curiosity that rose. I knew damn well who lived up the block. An image popped into my head of myself leaning casually against the wall of a hazy living room. He would come over to me.

“Wow, Lucy, I didn’t expect to see you here,” he’d say.

“Well,” I’d flip my hair over my shoulder in a totally attractive way, “It’s only my first social event of the night.”

Okay, ew, maybe I wouldn’t say something as stupid as that. But the fantasy was the push I needed. I threw on a hoodie over my clothes, laced up my sneakers, and hopped over the wooden fence into the next yard. If anybody asked, I was there for chips.

For a house party, they didn’t have much food, so my lame excuse backfired. They also barely had any music playing. It seemed like the only thing anyone wanted to do there was get wasted and have their buddy take a picture of the vomit. I thought this was kind of pointless, because you could do that by yourself. I guess spending your Friday night upchucking bits of your semi-destroyed liver beat being chipless during a movie marathon. As soon as I got in there, some guy staggered past and spilled his drink all over me, prompting the thought that maybe I should have just stayed in my house.

So there I was, standing alone in the middle of a dimly lit kitchen, surrounded by idiots getting wasted on watery booze, holding my damp sweatshirt in my hands, thinking my night probably couldn’t get any worse, when I looked through the doorway into the living room and caught sight of him.

Harvey Mitchells was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest like he was cool or something, nodding at some girl and her stupid tube top that barely covered her chest. She had a red solo cup in her manicured grasp, and I could hear how her words tilted and slid together as she talked, batting her eyelashes so hard I thought she was going to pass out. I watched as she placed her hand on Harvey’s chest. He slid his hands around her waist.

All of a sudden I felt as woozy as the kid next to me. Even though I told myself I was over Harvey. Even though I lied to myself enough times that I didn’t care about what he did. Even though I’d been preparing myself to see him with another girl, I wasn’t ready. Of all the horror movies I had planned to see, I never thought it would be this.

And I could have made it to the front door unseen, if Harvey hadn’t looked over that girl’s head and made eye contact with me. When I remembered how to breathe, I practically sprinted out the front door.

I didn’t expect him to follow me.

“Lucy! Wait up!”

I skidded to a stop halfway across the driveway, cursing my stupid feet, cursing him, cursing everyone in the existence of the universe who ever thought it was a good idea to write someone a love letter. Turning over my shoulder, I saw him standing there, the porch light stretching out our shadows. The November evening had a chill that tasted like winter, dead leaves skittered past my Converse. I shivered in my tee shirt and thin sweatpants.

Harvey walked forward and stopped in front of me. I could see now he was wearing faded jeans and a long sleeve gray shirt.

I said the first thing that crossed my mind, hell, the only thing that was on my mind. “You and her?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yeah.”

I nodded, but in my head my conscience was screaming its little imaginary lungs out for me to get out of there before I embarrassed myself. Like I hadn’t done enough of that already.

A funny little smile pulled at his lips, “How am I supposed to give you space when you’re everywhere I turn?” He said it like a joke, trying to ease the tension, but it really just made things suck even more.

Because that’s what he had said after he read my letter. He would give me space. Things would return back to normal between us. We would go back to being friends, or whatever that meant.

“Maybe you should start by not going to parties next door to me,” I managed to say.

He tilted his head at me, “Why were you in there, anyway? It’s not really like you to go to these things.”

“Chips,” I blurted, and then immediately wanted to kick myself.

Harvey squinted in confusion.

I stammered onward, “I mean— not chips—I mean I didn’t have any chips at my house… and… “ I couldn’t hide the truth any longer from him, “I just… I wanted to see if you… I heard you were going to be there and I wanted to see you.”

“Oh,” Harvey said. The syllable hung in the air between us.

“Even though I already wrote you a love letter,” I explained, and he stiffened at the mention of it, “Even though I’ve already admitted that I like you… I still have feelings for you. I guess I just thought you’d be here and that maybe… “

Harvey rocked on his heels and dipped his head at the ground. “What do you want me to say, Lucy?”

In my head I had it all planned out: Harvey Mitchells would tell me after two months that he loved me, he had just been afraid to say it. He would say he doesn’t deserve me, but he cares about me enough to try. He would kiss me. We would go watch that movie marathon.

But that wasn’t it.

All this time I’d been waiting for him to take that chance, and the realization struck me in the chest that it wasn’t him that wanted it, it was me.  I’d just been trying to find some kind of second meaning between all of his rejections, when in reality there was nothing between his words but the truth. He didn’t like me. He wasn’t going to turn around and pronounce his love for me. And if I didn’t stop lying to myself, I was just going to keep on being miserable.

“I don’t know,” I whimpered.

We stood there as the crinkled leaves rushed past our feet, and someone started to blast Billy Joel and down the street a dog barked; and I understood that somewhere between the lines of that letter, our friendship had ended. It was nobody’s fault, but I knew, as Harvey shrugged, that if someone asked me to make a list of things I wanted in my life, he would not be the first. And whatever happened between him and that other girl didn’t matter, because I didn’t want to be with him anymore.

Sometimes the choices we make really suck, and the way the universe rotates is out of control, and there’s nowhere else to go but forward.

I took a deep breath,  “I’ll see you Monday, Harvey.”

I left him there, walked the short distance to my house and sat on my front steps. Leaned my elbows on my knees and rested my chin there.

It was a nice night, there were gauzey clouds drifting against the first stars in the sky.  I sat out there until my parents came home.

Seashells-Poem

Cold sand,

sprinkled with memories,

a wave crashes over it

Dark blue and close to gray

White sea foam bubbling,

I’ve never seen any green in my ocean

Dip my hand in the water

and fish around

Pull out the first seashell,

Indigo blue that flecks into a red,

Raised, rigid stripes,

Run my fingers over it

I toss it back,

Unsatisfied

Another wave pulls the shell back,

into the deep

An ache in my chest,

I miss it

And it wasn’t even

what I wanted

Out of My Reach-Free verse

He is slipping out from my fingers,

Falling through the gaps

And I am reaching for all of the things that

I cannot grasp

I see the quivering green of spring,

But I think too much of me got tangled in the gray of winter

Because I am caught somewhere

between the first snowfall and the soft crash of melting icicles

Unaware of where I stand

The halls are tilting and he is sliding

away from me,

Out of my reach

And I am pulling myself back

I watch as he disappears into a sea of backpacks

Soon I won’t know his face from the next

I Pledge Allegiance

Thirteen stripes,

Fifty stars,

A red, white, and blue piece of cloth

Stuck or hung or jammed in every classroom

Monday through Friday,

signaled by the crackle of the loudspeaker

we stand before it’s glory

Right hand over our heart

The recitation is mostly slurred,

faster than the principal does,

We stand half up,

one foot curled around the leg of our chair,

impatiently tensing back back into sitting positions

If it’s not slurred,

it’s mumbled

or whispered

or mouthed with great care

I’m sure Francis Bellamy never would have written it

if he had known

it was going to be butchered

by high school students

How to Save A Broken Ship-Short Story

“Denise!” my mother cries, “There you are!”

Today I’m Denise. I set my purse down by her bed and force a smile. I figure that at least this is better than last week, when I was Erma, our old housekeeper who spoke with a rolling accent and always forgot to wipe the counters down.

“What do you think?” my mother asks, she tugs at one of her loose curls, “I want to get it colored. Should I go lighter or darker?”

I sit by her feet. At least her room is nice. Printed floral wallpaper, a cheerful change from the somber November sky outside the curtained window, perks up my mood just a bit. The bed she lays in is small but comfortable, and a wooden table stands next to her, topped a vase of fake daisies. A door next to me connects to a tiny bathroom. There’s even a closet for her favorite dresses. She wears a collared blue dress dotted with tiny white birds. The nurse told me she just woke up from a nap.

“I like it the way it is,” I say.

She sighs, “But that’s the thing, everyone always likes to keep things the way they are. Nobody wants to change, Denise.”

Having a conversation with her is like watching the seasons move backwards; summer leaves fall into the earth and snow sprouts up amongst the grass. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t so frustrating.

“I mean,” she continues, “maybe I want to change. I don’t want to end like one of those boring receptionists that work downtown, with their plain bobs and cat eye glasses. Maybe I’ll go blond. Hell, Denise, maybe I’ll go red.”

“I think whatever you do, you’ll look great.”

She beams at me, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

I struggle to return her enthusiasm.

With slightly trembling hands, I reach into my purse and take out a piece of cloth, stitched with pink and blue sheep. I place it in her warm hands. “Here, I brought this for you.”

I know it’s worthless; it’s not like there’s anything I can do to make her remember.  But a deep need contracts in my chest to try and fix her; I wave memories over her head as false hope for myself.

“It’s cute, Denise,” she says, “but I think it’s too small for me.”

In my head, I’m reaching over and grasping her thin shoulders and shaking them so hard that her dying brain cells rejuvenate. Say my name, I’m crying, I am your only daughter, say my fucking goddamn name.

“Denise?”

I focus back on my reality. “What?”

She returns my baby blanket. “You keep it.”

She starts to talk about her hair color again and I want to curl up beside her the way I used to as a child, to lean my head against her breast and listen to the rhythm of her heartbeat. To drift off into sleep then was like laying in a boat in the middle of a vast ocean, her hand holding mine was the anchor, and we would be safe forever.

I check my phone, “I have to get going now.”

“Okay,” she chirps, “I’ll let you know how my hair turns out.”

“I can’t wait.”

I stand, placing the blanket in my purse, and then look back at her.

“I love you.”

Last week when I blurted this out as Erma, she laughed awkwardly and told me she’d leave the check on the table for me. Today though, her eyes light up. “I love you too, Denise. You’re my best friend.”

“I’ll always be your best friend,” I choke.

She doesn’t need to know that Denise has been dead for six months now.

I tell her goodbye and leave her room, walk down the hall past wheelchair patients and sign myself out at the front desk. There is a bitterness in the air outside that signals winter approaching. I sit in my car alone, watching damp, sodden leaves land flat on my windshield.

I press the blanket to my face and breathe; there’s a trace of her lavender perfume mingling with the scent of dust and mildew. All I wanted was to protect her the way she had always protected me. Wasn’t that enough to ask for?  

A silent scream rises in my throat.

Because I see the truth; she wanders across empty waters dismasted, waves of crashing names and faces rolling beneath her, and as hard as I try to reach my mother, she is lost at sea.

The Willow-Free Verse

Whisper soft the swaying branches

of a tearful willow

As she drags her delicate fingers

across the rippling surface of the silver pond

Oh, how Spring blossoms around her

like the comfort of a friend

The dandelions shake their manes,

And a robin whistles a tune he picked

up south

But listen close to the willow’s mourning,

her breath of sorrow

fluttering the tips of green grass

As to who would have ever thought

such a tree could have been in love