words pt 4.
this piece was another short story I wrote for my CRW3111 class. it was actually based on true events, I just added a few white lies here and there to make it into a fiction piece.
It’s not a matter of will-he or won’t-he. The boy practically glows. Or maybe that’s just her eyes playing tricks on her again. He’s a god in purple. She keeps her back against the rickety CD shelf and please, Lord, she doesn’t want him to notice her. Her name or what she’s wearing isn’t all that important except that she’s not looking too inconspicuous. For Christ’s sake, her shirt has his name on it. The sort of name that you don’t find on every page of the phonebook. The kind of name you don’t grow up hearing on every grade school attendance roll list. It’s not like he isn’t going to know. She did this for him, anyway, but now her hands won’t stop shaking and she’s all but diving under the nearest DVD display to keep out of his sight.
It’s five minutes after four and her pulse has been racing since two. They’re a little late showing up. Just waking up, stumbling down bus steps and into a mall that may as well have been in the middle of nowhere. This is not Buffalo, or Chicago. This is March and sunny weather-- take a guess where. This guy she’s got her blood pressure up over is twenty-one, five-foot-barely-anything and he could have combed his hair a little more. He’s got a tattoo on his left forearm-- a Japanese print under a set of broken piano keys inked into his thin wrist. She knows it’s there because she’s seen it before, hidden under hoodie sleeves, sliding out into view between embraces and quiet hellos. All of this is important because while she’s standing there running out of air in a room full of no one, this boy is ten feet away, sending her into cardiac arrest.
She first saw the sign for his arrival four days ago, complaining about cold toes under her blankets and breath stopping hard in her chest when her roommate turned the laptop screen in her direction. Time, date, place of where he would be and when. Time, date, place of her breakdown. She marked her calendar in six different colored pens and toyed with the keys on her cell phone until his face was erased from every photo on there. Every dark club, every touch of lips to jaw lines in an attempt hear each other over the music. For four days, she could feel the bass pounding in her memory. Sound check, front mic, center stage. His fingers calloused and pressed into guitar strings and her skin in the backs of buses. They were months of separation, weeks of too much of one another. He was never the popular one, but she knows now they’re all eating their words.
Right now, she’s a wreck. Overhead, the store’s got their goddamn CD playing like they’re some kind of spectacle, some kind of big deal. She knows differently. The whole six people that actually showed up are all watching them like they’re animals at the zoo. Cue the tour guide talking about natural habitats, and mating rituals. The tall, awkward one with the killer voice has four video games in his hand, like this is just a pit stop. Like this isn’t the most important moment of her life.
Like she isn’t about to self destruct.
Her palms sweat, and she’s wiping them on her jeans. Her friend, the one with the dark skin and the dark hair and the great legs, she’s making her feel inferior again. Like always. Like next to her, she’s just another face in the crowd of six. Her friend is so perfect, it’s disgusting. Even the way she laughs like she’s just swallowed a gallon of helium. Even the way her make up on her left eyelid is smeared just enough to be noticeable. Even the way she looks in the ridiculous shirt she made her wear so they would all go through this together. Our heroine, she’s watching her friend now like an enemy soldier, gun poised, ready to shoot.
This isn’t about her, anyway.
By the time he’s meandered up to the table, a handful of middle school girls have taken their place in line, twelve-year-old hands wringing out shirts with his band’s name on them, twelve-year-old hearts beating behind twelve-year-old training bras. She notices all of their flaws-- silver eyeliner, forgotten sections of hair falling out of their messy ponytails-- and she cringes at the way they’re looking at him.
He’s fucking oblivious, on the other hand. His mind is somewhere back on the bus with the bong they just passed around, wondering if maybe he left his phone somewhere shoved under a pile of clothes. He’s plucking lint off of his purple shirt and thinking maybe there’s a rock in his shoe, or maybe that’s a piece of popcorn from four a.m. last night. Either way, his mind is not on her. The brunette at the back of the line. His band’s CDs clutched to her chest, pressed against the shirt with his name on it. Like he won’t notice. Like he isn’t going to find out soon enough.
It’s her turn, and the tall awkward one is in full blown conversation with the store manager about his camera phone, musing about mega-pixels and memory chips, like this moment doesn’t matter at all. The middle school girls are lingering by the store window, like they’re magically going to turn eighteen and get invited onto the tour bus, have their first taste of liquor and lose their virginity. She doesn’t even notice them, anymore, though. Her Perfect Friend is standing on the sidelines, bottom lip between her teeth. She steps forward, heart in the middle of what feels like a full blown heart attack.
He notices her, now.
It takes a split second or two but in half that time she’s about six inches away from throwing up all over him. When he finally looks at her, she’s crying but it’s that kind of crying that doesn’t make any noise, just tears and a stuffed up nose and a throat too tight for her to speak through.
Three years pass through his memory and she’s handing him her CDs, teeth almost chattering with the effort it’s taking to keep her jaw shut and hold the sobs in.
She’s shaking. He’s staring. The middle school girls, they’re all watching like this is an episode of Laguna fucking Beach. Cue the upset soundtrack. Cue the tight camera angles, the dramatic lighting, the dialogue that’s so canon, it can’t not be scripted.
“I didn’t think you’d be here.” He spit out, voice unsteady, words coming out of left fucking field. Like they just ran into each other in goddamn Egypt. She shakes her head, and the middle school girls are so enraptured they’re all about to bust.
“I didn’t think you’d leave.” She answered through her teeth. The tall, awkward one is watching them now, losing interest in mega-pixels and memory cards. The whole place is silent. Her Perfect Friend is even just an extra in the Hollywood blockbuster unfolding in the middle of a mall in the middle of nowhere. His guitar solo is coming through the speakers in the store now and before she can lift her hands to either wipe her cheeks or cover her ears to block it out, he’s got his fingers between hers and he’s tugging her out of there.
This isn’t what she had been expecting, out of him. The god in purple has his arm around her waist, hoisting her through the bus door and up the steps before she even knows her feet have hit pavement in the parking lot. Her Perfect Friend is back inside, watching the middle school girls scatter for a better look, jealousy in their eyes.
His lips, they’re warm in a way she doesn’t remember them being. Spine even against the hard wall of bunks behind her, he’s steadying her with his hands on her hips and promising her with teeth and tongues that this isn’t over.
Three years pass through her veins. Indie labels and broken guitar strings, no cell phone service and the way he never stopped loving her. The ketchup packets he would steal from the restaurants they stopped in, like souvenirs, that first tour.
Backstage, pants down, mom-catching-you-with-porn sort of moments when the roadies would stumble into the back rooms and yell, “Five minutes, bro.”
When playing to a crowd of ten became playing to a crowd of two thousand. When MTV first aired their video and the Top 40 kids all looked puzzled, lost as to why they weren’t just listening to mainstream rap, one liners pumped out over catchy beats.
When he pressed his mouth against her throat and his palms into her hips and promised he loved her in the middle of Texas with their bare torsos pressed up against sheets that hadn’t been washed in weeks.
She’s his again before she knows it. Her god in purple with his rough hands and tattoos.
It’s not a matter of will-he or won’t-he. The boy practically glows. Or maybe that’s just her eyes playing tricks on her again. He’s a god in purple. She keeps her back against the rickety CD shelf and please, Lord, she doesn’t want him to notice her. Her name or what she’s wearing isn’t all that important except that she’s not looking too inconspicuous. For Christ’s sake, her shirt has his name on it. The sort of name that you don’t find on every page of the phonebook. The kind of name you don’t grow up hearing on every grade school attendance roll list. It’s not like he isn’t going to know. She did this for him, anyway, but now her hands won’t stop shaking and she’s all but diving under the nearest DVD display to keep out of his sight.
It’s five minutes after four and her pulse has been racing since two. They’re a little late showing up. Just waking up, stumbling down bus steps and into a mall that may as well have been in the middle of nowhere. This is not Buffalo, or Chicago. This is March and sunny weather-- take a guess where. This guy she’s got her blood pressure up over is twenty-one, five-foot-barely-anything and he could have combed his hair a little more. He’s got a tattoo on his left forearm-- a Japanese print under a set of broken piano keys inked into his thin wrist. She knows it’s there because she’s seen it before, hidden under hoodie sleeves, sliding out into view between embraces and quiet hellos. All of this is important because while she’s standing there running out of air in a room full of no one, this boy is ten feet away, sending her into cardiac arrest.
She first saw the sign for his arrival four days ago, complaining about cold toes under her blankets and breath stopping hard in her chest when her roommate turned the laptop screen in her direction. Time, date, place of where he would be and when. Time, date, place of her breakdown. She marked her calendar in six different colored pens and toyed with the keys on her cell phone until his face was erased from every photo on there. Every dark club, every touch of lips to jaw lines in an attempt hear each other over the music. For four days, she could feel the bass pounding in her memory. Sound check, front mic, center stage. His fingers calloused and pressed into guitar strings and her skin in the backs of buses. They were months of separation, weeks of too much of one another. He was never the popular one, but she knows now they’re all eating their words.
Right now, she’s a wreck. Overhead, the store’s got their goddamn CD playing like they’re some kind of spectacle, some kind of big deal. She knows differently. The whole six people that actually showed up are all watching them like they’re animals at the zoo. Cue the tour guide talking about natural habitats, and mating rituals. The tall, awkward one with the killer voice has four video games in his hand, like this is just a pit stop. Like this isn’t the most important moment of her life.
Like she isn’t about to self destruct.
Her palms sweat, and she’s wiping them on her jeans. Her friend, the one with the dark skin and the dark hair and the great legs, she’s making her feel inferior again. Like always. Like next to her, she’s just another face in the crowd of six. Her friend is so perfect, it’s disgusting. Even the way she laughs like she’s just swallowed a gallon of helium. Even the way her make up on her left eyelid is smeared just enough to be noticeable. Even the way she looks in the ridiculous shirt she made her wear so they would all go through this together. Our heroine, she’s watching her friend now like an enemy soldier, gun poised, ready to shoot.
This isn’t about her, anyway.
By the time he’s meandered up to the table, a handful of middle school girls have taken their place in line, twelve-year-old hands wringing out shirts with his band’s name on them, twelve-year-old hearts beating behind twelve-year-old training bras. She notices all of their flaws-- silver eyeliner, forgotten sections of hair falling out of their messy ponytails-- and she cringes at the way they’re looking at him.
He’s fucking oblivious, on the other hand. His mind is somewhere back on the bus with the bong they just passed around, wondering if maybe he left his phone somewhere shoved under a pile of clothes. He’s plucking lint off of his purple shirt and thinking maybe there’s a rock in his shoe, or maybe that’s a piece of popcorn from four a.m. last night. Either way, his mind is not on her. The brunette at the back of the line. His band’s CDs clutched to her chest, pressed against the shirt with his name on it. Like he won’t notice. Like he isn’t going to find out soon enough.
It’s her turn, and the tall awkward one is in full blown conversation with the store manager about his camera phone, musing about mega-pixels and memory chips, like this moment doesn’t matter at all. The middle school girls are lingering by the store window, like they’re magically going to turn eighteen and get invited onto the tour bus, have their first taste of liquor and lose their virginity. She doesn’t even notice them, anymore, though. Her Perfect Friend is standing on the sidelines, bottom lip between her teeth. She steps forward, heart in the middle of what feels like a full blown heart attack.
He notices her, now.
It takes a split second or two but in half that time she’s about six inches away from throwing up all over him. When he finally looks at her, she’s crying but it’s that kind of crying that doesn’t make any noise, just tears and a stuffed up nose and a throat too tight for her to speak through.
Three years pass through his memory and she’s handing him her CDs, teeth almost chattering with the effort it’s taking to keep her jaw shut and hold the sobs in.
She’s shaking. He’s staring. The middle school girls, they’re all watching like this is an episode of Laguna fucking Beach. Cue the upset soundtrack. Cue the tight camera angles, the dramatic lighting, the dialogue that’s so canon, it can’t not be scripted.
“I didn’t think you’d be here.” He spit out, voice unsteady, words coming out of left fucking field. Like they just ran into each other in goddamn Egypt. She shakes her head, and the middle school girls are so enraptured they’re all about to bust.
“I didn’t think you’d leave.” She answered through her teeth. The tall, awkward one is watching them now, losing interest in mega-pixels and memory cards. The whole place is silent. Her Perfect Friend is even just an extra in the Hollywood blockbuster unfolding in the middle of a mall in the middle of nowhere. His guitar solo is coming through the speakers in the store now and before she can lift her hands to either wipe her cheeks or cover her ears to block it out, he’s got his fingers between hers and he’s tugging her out of there.
This isn’t what she had been expecting, out of him. The god in purple has his arm around her waist, hoisting her through the bus door and up the steps before she even knows her feet have hit pavement in the parking lot. Her Perfect Friend is back inside, watching the middle school girls scatter for a better look, jealousy in their eyes.
His lips, they’re warm in a way she doesn’t remember them being. Spine even against the hard wall of bunks behind her, he’s steadying her with his hands on her hips and promising her with teeth and tongues that this isn’t over.
Three years pass through her veins. Indie labels and broken guitar strings, no cell phone service and the way he never stopped loving her. The ketchup packets he would steal from the restaurants they stopped in, like souvenirs, that first tour.
Backstage, pants down, mom-catching-you-with-porn sort of moments when the roadies would stumble into the back rooms and yell, “Five minutes, bro.”
When playing to a crowd of ten became playing to a crowd of two thousand. When MTV first aired their video and the Top 40 kids all looked puzzled, lost as to why they weren’t just listening to mainstream rap, one liners pumped out over catchy beats.
When he pressed his mouth against her throat and his palms into her hips and promised he loved her in the middle of Texas with their bare torsos pressed up against sheets that hadn’t been washed in weeks.
She’s his again before she knows it. Her god in purple with his rough hands and tattoos.