FICTION – SERIES

He looked at the pack of cigarettes on his desk, half of it gone, and no relief for his sorrow. Still, he lights another, hoping that somewhere between an exhale and a drag, He can find a moment of serenity. On that same desk is a bottle of supposed sanity. They were supposed to be taken with water and swallowed. However, they have become chewable. As he stared at his name neatly printed on the bottle, he felt like each pill plunged him into the place where he was trying to escape. Each pill added the guilt that seems to have no bounds. His saving grace was now supposed to exist within manufactured powder pressed into a nice, neat, and convenient package.

Sitting there in the darkness of his soul, fully aware that nothing in a bottle could help him deal with the aftermath of his actions. It had been 24 days since his world became tangled in the web, his words weaved. He did not truly realize how a single phrase can rapidly change things. Once something is said, there is no taking it back. There are no rewinds or do-overs. He was just another person caught in the middle of dealing with the reaction to what they said. Sometimes, he wondered why he ever allowed the words to spill from his lips.

He had bumped into her at the library during finals week; she immediately thought he was a jerk who needed to pay attention to where he was going. She dated some jock-type and had the looks to go with it. He spent the next three weeks trying to get her to forgive him. Some days, he wondered, after fifteen years of marriage, if she ever did. Bearing two children with him should remove the doubt. It was at some frat party the universe aligned in his favor. Her boyfriend was drunker than Cooter Brown and the merry band of jugheads. She stood in the corner, looking so beautiful, just simply amazing.

He had already done the friend check to see if he looked okay. Of course, like any group of friends, they needed to know who he had his eye on.
He pointed her out; if the music weren’t deafening, their groans of disapproval would have filled the room. He didn’t let them sway his newfound courage. He made the classic roundabout approach, settled in about 20 feet from her, and said absolutely nothing. He just stood there, hoping that she would notice him. He was praying for a bit of eye contact and a smile. He waited for the slightest opening for some dialogue.

He lost hope after about an hour; he had gotten some eye contact, but it certainly wasn’t inviting. Then, the final planet moved into its proper alignment. His boyfriend oddly started acting like a jerk more than usual. He was the typical asshole who thought the world and everything in it belonged to him. She stormed out of the house in a huff to the backyard. He gave her a few minutes and then followed. One could say he was a borderline stalker, but he just had to talk to her. Damn, all the cool points, rules, and guidelines he was going in. She was sitting on a tire swing, just barely back and forth.

He stepped off the porch, walked toward it, and planted his face into the freshly cut lawn. She roared laughter and asked if he was alright. He shook his head while spitting out a few blades of grass that had gotten in his mouth. She just sat on the swing, smiling. He walked behind her and gave her a push. Each time she returned to his reach, he pushed her a little more. Her laughter filled the night sky. As she swung on the swing and laughed, his fear slowly melted away. The moment arrived he had been waiting for. He started talking to her, and she replied. He couldn’t believe that just moments earlier, she seemed to be out of reach.

She seems to be that girl who would never look twice at a guy like him.
Now, they are just people enjoying the stillness of the night on a swing. They talked for the rest of the night until she excused herself to check on her drunken suitor. He never thought she would even speak to him again. He had prepared himself to cherish that moment forever; It was magic and simplistic. He went to sleep that night smiling from the depths of his soul. The following day, he cleaned up his rat-trap of a room. Then, he ran downstairs to meet the world with newfound confidence.

At the bottom of the stairs, fate plays cruel tricks on people sometimes. He ran right into her again, spilling coffee on her sweatshirt. As she wiped away the remnants of the coffee from the sweatshirt, she explained she had asked around to bring coffee and donuts to thank him for a lovely evening. He stood shocked about his dumb luck. Then his senses returned to him, and he grabbed the bag of donuts and helped clean the mess.

This time, she didn’t seem upset but glad to see him. They went off and had the thank you breakfast. They spent as much time as they could together. The following year, after they graduated college, they got married. He was an engineer, and she was an aspiring artist. Sometimes, it seems like a clash of the titans. Practical reasoning vs. artistic expression: things always seem like a powder keg. There was one thing that neither one of them lacked; that was passion. Things smoothed out over time, making them happier than most and not as comfortable as some.