About this ENL 5F original fiction thing...
Title: Scratch Paper
Word Count: 1,755
The first is an old Safeway receipt, salvaged from the crack between the seats of his mother's rusty Datsun and smoothed out over the sun-split leather of the steering wheel. One long strip of register tape: smudged stories of "oranges," and "Tampax," and "Your Cashier: Ellen," in fading purple ink on the front, his handwriting in black BIC on the back.
You make me so angry sometimes.
It comes out of nowhere, really, except that it's been on the tip of his tongue for a week and a half - the product of some argument or another with his sister - and has gotten to a point where any conversation he has with anybody he's around is in danger of segueing to this one line.
So he writes it down this first time; scribbles it into the first paper product he can find after a stilted encounter at Jack-in-the-Box ("Regular or curly fries with that?" You make me so angry sometimes), and vows to let it go.
The funny thing is, it helps.
By the end of the week, there's a pile growing in the glove compartment. Envelopes, napkins, scraps of homework he started but never finished, all filled with things he wants to say but doesn't know how.
It isn't that he's shy, exactly; he can strike up a conversation about sports or the weather with any random guy on the street, get to know almost anyone without any real effort. But when it matters - when it's thoughts and feelings and other things he doesn't understand - then he draws a blank. There are words in his head but they sound stupid until later, when he puts them in Sharpie on the back of his graded Economics worksheets and adds them to the collection.
-
The list of People in his Life is short and succinct, limited mostly to blood relatives and people who have known him since he was born. His parents and sister, Taylor, Grandpa Earl and Grandma Lorraine, Aunt Jill, who lived with them for awhile while he was younger before "finally growing up, Thank God," getting a job, and moving out (Mom's words), and Rachel, who's been his best friend since the day she moved into the neighborhood in third grade and wowed him with her extensive baseball card collection and Nintendo prowess. They've grown up together, he and Rachel, and after ten years of playing in his backyard, swapping lunches, and eating dinner together, habits and traditions have formed.
Tuesdays have always been Slurpee days. When they were twelve, that meant hopping on ten-speeds after school, biking to the 7-11 on 5th and Llewellyn for grape and blue raspberry, and sitting on the playground comparing tongue colors until 3:30 when the janitor came around to start locking up. At eighteen things are a little different, what with classes and jobs and modes of transportation, but the basic premise never changes; always comes down to the two of them and plastic cups and brain freezes.
It's a night like this in October when his phone vibrates with her name flashing red across the screen and her voice on the other end of the line saying, "I can't do this. I really, really can't write this essay right now. Come pick me up?"
The Datsun's idling in her driveway two minutes later, motor hiccupping as she cuts across the lawn and slides into the passenger's seat.
"You," she says, shoving the shoulder strap of the seatbelt behind her back. "You are officially my hero. God, this day."
"Long?" He eases his foot off the brake and backs out onto the street.
"Let's just AMPM it, all right? I can't even go there yet."
-
He parks in the middle of a deserted back road and turns on the emergency flashers for no-one. Their drinks wait in holders affixed to the center console, strawberry condensation sliding in drops down wax paper cups.
And this is how it's gone, once a week, every week, for what feels like forever. Pour the Slurpees, pay for Slurpees, park somewhere and talk. Real talking, revolving around topics other than homework and music and people they know from school, but only as long as the drinks last. That's the unspoken rule. Complete honesty, no long and unnecessary pauses between questions and the answers they deserve, and an end to the conversation with the last few sips.
She starts this night, head falling against the seatback. "What am I doing?"
"Sitting," he starts, shifting to face her. "Having a drink. Wondering what -"
"You're a comedic genius," she cuts him off. "It's one of the reasons I like you or whatever. But that wasn't what I was going for, smartass."
"Huh," he says. "And I was so sure."
She rolls her eyes. "Seriously. Where am I going with my life? I have seven months left of high school. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I want to be. I've spent the last six hours staring at a computer screen, trying to fill out college applications and scholarship forms, and it's 'Describe yourself in two hundred words,' and 'Tell us who you are,' and I feel like I'm making it all up. It isn't math and it isn't science - it's me - and I should be the expert on myself, y'know, but I'm not even sure where to start."
It's silent for a full minute after she stops, and he knows he should have something to say - she always does - but instead of inspirational quotes or words of encouragement or anecdotes for reminders, his brain is playing clips of the things he likes about her on repeat without narration, and it's all images of her smile, and her laugh, and the faces she's made in countless situations and settings in the time they've known each other, and something suddenly seems different than it was before.
"You're a good person," is close to what he ends up with, though he'll never be able to recall exactly. It's the gist of the response he gives, and it seems to make her a little calmer as she sits back and finishes her drink, hashing out ideas over the next half hour. She visibly relaxes, which is great, he's happy - pleased with himself, even - except for the fact that the sensation that's started in his stomach gives him the feeling that maybe things aren't as simple anymore as he used to think.
-
The glove box holds stupid, pointless truths for the longest time until Wednesdays start rolling around, and the transition from Last night's casserole wasn't as good as I pretended and No - salmon-y, pink-y, whatever the hell that was really isn't your color confessions for his mom and sister to paper bag I like you's and I'm afraid I'll ruin our friendship's becomes complete.
It'd be different if she knew, he thinks, which is a stupid thought to have because obviously things would be different if he told her. Probably, it'd make things awkward, and maybe they wouldn't talk anymore. Or maybe they would, but she'd always have this look in her eye like she could see what he was thinking, and that would make him feel ridiculous and pitied and eventually uncomfortable.
The optimist in him says it'd be all right, that nothing could ever get in the way of such a strong and long-lasting relationship, but pessimism's always spoken louder, and the what-ifs keep him quiet.
-
"Have you ever felt like you needed to say something?" she asks three weeks later. "Like there's something inside of you waiting to come out if you'd just let it?"
The heat's blasting in the Datsun because although it's mid-November and beyond cold, frozen drinks are non-negotiable. Still, he doesn't remember it being this warm five minutes ago, and concentrates on looking anywhere but the compartment situated opposite her spot in the front seat. So much honesty in such a small space, but as long as it's contained behind a closed door it's still shrouded in secrecy.
He takes a long sip and closes his eyes for a moment before putting it off a little longer. "Like what?"
"Like." Her eyes move from the interior of the car to the park they're stopped next to as if she's looking for inspiration. "Like, I don't know. What you're thinking. What you're feeling. When it's so strong it stops seeming like just another sentence and turns into this thing - this huge, inescapable thing - that threatens to swallow you and any logical thoughts you've ever had whole if you don't say it out loud?"
"I guess so," he says. His next pull from the straw takes the last of the cup's contents with it and when it comes, "I'm done," sounds more like a song of praise than a statement of fact. He wonders if she notices.
Regardless, a half-finished crossword puzzle takes its place with the rest of the pack after she's gone inside, YES scrawled on the diagonal across the front.
-
November passes and December starts, and waiting for the perfect moment, or for her to say something first, gets to be an almost preposterous concept. He may or may not lose sleep over it, but all that may or may not do is cause the pile of trash in the driveway to grow.
-
She shows up on his doorstep following Christmas with her relatives laden with packages and baked goods for his family. "Hold these, all right?" is all she says, transferring a stack of Tupperware containers wrapped in colored cellophane from her arms to his before he has a chance to react. "I'm about to drop something."
Four cookie plates and three muffin baskets later and she's back on the porch, giving him a rushed hug and Merry Christmas before running to the sidewalk where her car's waiting to take her to another family get-together.
He waves goodbye and watches until she turns the corner and disappears.
-
On January 2nd, the door to the glove compartment bulges, threats of busted springs and broken latches in the air.
When it flat out refuses to close a few days later, the decision's made.
-
The Datsun's completely clean by the 10th; nothing in the glove box but the manual and registration papers.
He leaves the recycled cookie tin on the Welcome mat outside her front door the morning before she's supposed to return home, inconspicuous except for the receipts and newspaper bits that stick out around the edges and keep the lid from shutting all the way.
Word Count: 1,755
The first is an old Safeway receipt, salvaged from the crack between the seats of his mother's rusty Datsun and smoothed out over the sun-split leather of the steering wheel. One long strip of register tape: smudged stories of "oranges," and "Tampax," and "Your Cashier: Ellen," in fading purple ink on the front, his handwriting in black BIC on the back.
You make me so angry sometimes.
It comes out of nowhere, really, except that it's been on the tip of his tongue for a week and a half - the product of some argument or another with his sister - and has gotten to a point where any conversation he has with anybody he's around is in danger of segueing to this one line.
So he writes it down this first time; scribbles it into the first paper product he can find after a stilted encounter at Jack-in-the-Box ("Regular or curly fries with that?" You make me so angry sometimes), and vows to let it go.
The funny thing is, it helps.
By the end of the week, there's a pile growing in the glove compartment. Envelopes, napkins, scraps of homework he started but never finished, all filled with things he wants to say but doesn't know how.
It isn't that he's shy, exactly; he can strike up a conversation about sports or the weather with any random guy on the street, get to know almost anyone without any real effort. But when it matters - when it's thoughts and feelings and other things he doesn't understand - then he draws a blank. There are words in his head but they sound stupid until later, when he puts them in Sharpie on the back of his graded Economics worksheets and adds them to the collection.
-
The list of People in his Life is short and succinct, limited mostly to blood relatives and people who have known him since he was born. His parents and sister, Taylor, Grandpa Earl and Grandma Lorraine, Aunt Jill, who lived with them for awhile while he was younger before "finally growing up, Thank God," getting a job, and moving out (Mom's words), and Rachel, who's been his best friend since the day she moved into the neighborhood in third grade and wowed him with her extensive baseball card collection and Nintendo prowess. They've grown up together, he and Rachel, and after ten years of playing in his backyard, swapping lunches, and eating dinner together, habits and traditions have formed.
Tuesdays have always been Slurpee days. When they were twelve, that meant hopping on ten-speeds after school, biking to the 7-11 on 5th and Llewellyn for grape and blue raspberry, and sitting on the playground comparing tongue colors until 3:30 when the janitor came around to start locking up. At eighteen things are a little different, what with classes and jobs and modes of transportation, but the basic premise never changes; always comes down to the two of them and plastic cups and brain freezes.
It's a night like this in October when his phone vibrates with her name flashing red across the screen and her voice on the other end of the line saying, "I can't do this. I really, really can't write this essay right now. Come pick me up?"
The Datsun's idling in her driveway two minutes later, motor hiccupping as she cuts across the lawn and slides into the passenger's seat.
"You," she says, shoving the shoulder strap of the seatbelt behind her back. "You are officially my hero. God, this day."
"Long?" He eases his foot off the brake and backs out onto the street.
"Let's just AMPM it, all right? I can't even go there yet."
-
He parks in the middle of a deserted back road and turns on the emergency flashers for no-one. Their drinks wait in holders affixed to the center console, strawberry condensation sliding in drops down wax paper cups.
And this is how it's gone, once a week, every week, for what feels like forever. Pour the Slurpees, pay for Slurpees, park somewhere and talk. Real talking, revolving around topics other than homework and music and people they know from school, but only as long as the drinks last. That's the unspoken rule. Complete honesty, no long and unnecessary pauses between questions and the answers they deserve, and an end to the conversation with the last few sips.
She starts this night, head falling against the seatback. "What am I doing?"
"Sitting," he starts, shifting to face her. "Having a drink. Wondering what -"
"You're a comedic genius," she cuts him off. "It's one of the reasons I like you or whatever. But that wasn't what I was going for, smartass."
"Huh," he says. "And I was so sure."
She rolls her eyes. "Seriously. Where am I going with my life? I have seven months left of high school. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I want to be. I've spent the last six hours staring at a computer screen, trying to fill out college applications and scholarship forms, and it's 'Describe yourself in two hundred words,' and 'Tell us who you are,' and I feel like I'm making it all up. It isn't math and it isn't science - it's me - and I should be the expert on myself, y'know, but I'm not even sure where to start."
It's silent for a full minute after she stops, and he knows he should have something to say - she always does - but instead of inspirational quotes or words of encouragement or anecdotes for reminders, his brain is playing clips of the things he likes about her on repeat without narration, and it's all images of her smile, and her laugh, and the faces she's made in countless situations and settings in the time they've known each other, and something suddenly seems different than it was before.
"You're a good person," is close to what he ends up with, though he'll never be able to recall exactly. It's the gist of the response he gives, and it seems to make her a little calmer as she sits back and finishes her drink, hashing out ideas over the next half hour. She visibly relaxes, which is great, he's happy - pleased with himself, even - except for the fact that the sensation that's started in his stomach gives him the feeling that maybe things aren't as simple anymore as he used to think.
-
The glove box holds stupid, pointless truths for the longest time until Wednesdays start rolling around, and the transition from Last night's casserole wasn't as good as I pretended and No - salmon-y, pink-y, whatever the hell that was really isn't your color confessions for his mom and sister to paper bag I like you's and I'm afraid I'll ruin our friendship's becomes complete.
It'd be different if she knew, he thinks, which is a stupid thought to have because obviously things would be different if he told her. Probably, it'd make things awkward, and maybe they wouldn't talk anymore. Or maybe they would, but she'd always have this look in her eye like she could see what he was thinking, and that would make him feel ridiculous and pitied and eventually uncomfortable.
The optimist in him says it'd be all right, that nothing could ever get in the way of such a strong and long-lasting relationship, but pessimism's always spoken louder, and the what-ifs keep him quiet.
-
"Have you ever felt like you needed to say something?" she asks three weeks later. "Like there's something inside of you waiting to come out if you'd just let it?"
The heat's blasting in the Datsun because although it's mid-November and beyond cold, frozen drinks are non-negotiable. Still, he doesn't remember it being this warm five minutes ago, and concentrates on looking anywhere but the compartment situated opposite her spot in the front seat. So much honesty in such a small space, but as long as it's contained behind a closed door it's still shrouded in secrecy.
He takes a long sip and closes his eyes for a moment before putting it off a little longer. "Like what?"
"Like." Her eyes move from the interior of the car to the park they're stopped next to as if she's looking for inspiration. "Like, I don't know. What you're thinking. What you're feeling. When it's so strong it stops seeming like just another sentence and turns into this thing - this huge, inescapable thing - that threatens to swallow you and any logical thoughts you've ever had whole if you don't say it out loud?"
"I guess so," he says. His next pull from the straw takes the last of the cup's contents with it and when it comes, "I'm done," sounds more like a song of praise than a statement of fact. He wonders if she notices.
Regardless, a half-finished crossword puzzle takes its place with the rest of the pack after she's gone inside, YES scrawled on the diagonal across the front.
-
November passes and December starts, and waiting for the perfect moment, or for her to say something first, gets to be an almost preposterous concept. He may or may not lose sleep over it, but all that may or may not do is cause the pile of trash in the driveway to grow.
-
She shows up on his doorstep following Christmas with her relatives laden with packages and baked goods for his family. "Hold these, all right?" is all she says, transferring a stack of Tupperware containers wrapped in colored cellophane from her arms to his before he has a chance to react. "I'm about to drop something."
Four cookie plates and three muffin baskets later and she's back on the porch, giving him a rushed hug and Merry Christmas before running to the sidewalk where her car's waiting to take her to another family get-together.
He waves goodbye and watches until she turns the corner and disappears.
-
On January 2nd, the door to the glove compartment bulges, threats of busted springs and broken latches in the air.
When it flat out refuses to close a few days later, the decision's made.
-
The Datsun's completely clean by the 10th; nothing in the glove box but the manual and registration papers.
He leaves the recycled cookie tin on the Welcome mat outside her front door the morning before she's supposed to return home, inconspicuous except for the receipts and newspaper bits that stick out around the edges and keep the lid from shutting all the way.