sense of elation [original fiction]
So it’s Christmas break and I’ve been catching up with old friends.
I swear I have an sign above my head, visible to everyone but me, that says MAH COUNSELLING QUALIFICATION. LET ME SHOW YOU IT. They tell me their life stories, and their deepest secrets that they’ve never told anyone else ever.
As a result, I have a lot of material to write mediocre original fiction. :D
you’re something beautiful (a contradiction)1.
She frustrates him in ways that makes him want to scream.
She’s beautiful (and she knows it); she’s a hurricane of fun, chaos, and technicolor rainbows.
And he loves her (really he does) but he thinks he finally understands the meaning of his best friend’s words when he said, “I love her, but I don’t like her” because she’s all wrong for him in so many ways which is why their on-again, off-again relationship usually results in them being off-again for the fifth time.
She’s fiercely intelligent, but dumbs herself down in front of others. She knows his opinion of certain issues but eggs him on purposely, backpedaling when he’s upset with a “it’s just a joke, love” in a patronizing way that suggests that he’s the one being irrational.
She makes unwise decisions (and he usually ends up bailing her out). He’s seen the best and worst sides of her.
He reminds himself daily of the goodness of her heart (because she means well, really she does) but he’s getting tired of her indecisive ways (he’s constantly shifting between best-friend/boyfriend/therapist around her) and he knows that once they’re dating (again) that it means stepping on eggshells around his family.
2.
(
“So, what do you think of her?” he had asked his parents, after their first meeting.
“She’s very enthusiastic,” his mother had answered very carefully.
“She seems very nice,” his father had said, in a similar tone.
His twelve year year old brother, who had yet grasped the concept of ‘being diplomatic and not an asshat’, made a face. “She has the emotional maturity of seven year old.”
Jeff had gotten a lecture by his parents, but he noticed how neither of them disagreed.
)
3.
So when it happens, it happens the usual way.
She had one too many glasses of wine (“I’m tipsy,” she says, carefully enunciating her words, “not drunk. Tipsy.”) and he’s there to make sure she doesn’t do anything incredibly stupid. One time, she called him at 3 AM to ask if he wanted to go sky-diving– she somehow managed to get hold of harnesses and everything.
“I really don’t know we broke up,” she says, frowning up at him.
“You’re the one who broke up with me,” he answers quietly, steadying her.
“Yes,” and this is the part where she’s beginning to slur her words, just slightly, “But I don’t know why. You’re always here for me and we love each other.”
He remembers her words from last time (“We’re not right for each other”) but keeps silent.
“I think,” she says, her eyes lighting up, “we should start dating again. What do you say?”
Like he could ever say no to her.
4.
It doesn’t take long for everything to fracture (again).
She likes parties, he can’t stand them. He hates the smoke and inebriation of everyone around him.
She flirts shamelessly with everyone, and he resists the urge to do the same for the sake of something to do because she left him to do who-knows-what.
And yeah, realistically he knows he’s not the only teetotaler on campus– but sometimes it feels like he is.
Needless to say, he leaves the party after the third guy mistakes him for a bouncer and hopes that she’ll at least text him– but that doesn’t end up happening.
Sometime between midnight and 10 AM, he realizes that the two of them are no longer Facebook official.
He sighs.
It’s Saturday.
He decides to get a head start on his lazy Sunday–he’s going back to bed.
5.
“You do realize,” his best friend says slowly, as though he were an exceptionally dim-witted child, “that the two of you can still be friends and love each other in a completely platonic manner without being in an actual relationship, right?”
“Um, yeah?” He rubs his face and grimaces. “But it’s hard to say no whenever she randomly decides we should date again.”
“Then that’s your problem. You’re too nice of a guy to say no or to end said relationship even when you’re miserable– and don’t start, as official Best Friend, I know that you’ve been feeling like crap for the last two weeks.”
He sighs. “I know that a lot of our friends don’t like her–”
“Let me interrupt you right here to say that some of us do like her in small doses. And we may even like her if we didn’t know that she’s totally wrong for you and makes you miserable.”
“So what you’re saying is that the next time she thinks we should get together– I should say no for my mental, emotional, and physical well-being?”
“Uh, duh?”
“I think we should get gay-married in Vermont and become professional video game testers. It would be awesome.”
“As tempting as that is, I think my non-psychotic girlfriend would take issue with your plan.”
“Point. Thanks.”
“Not a problem. And I will seriously kick your ass if I see that you two are back in a relationship on Facebook.”
“Heh, not going to happen.”
6.
Except it does.
Again.
And again.
And yeah, he gets his ass kicked. Several times.
So much for self-preservation.
7.
“My life is like (500) Days of Summer.”
His best friend is entirely unsympathetic. “Your life is going to resemble Shaun of the Dead if you keep saying yes.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah. Just like that.”
8.
The worst part of it is how unaffected she is when he’s the one who finally says, no, let’s not date again because we know how that’ll turn out.
She frowns slightly, tilts her head and nods. “Okay.”
Just like that.
Okay.
She never brings it up again.
(There’s a part of him that’s secretly disappointed by this, and he tries to ignore it.)
9.
“What you need is to find your Autumn.”
“Are we still using (500) Days of Summer as a metaphor for my own love life?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Okay. Just double-checking.”
10.
And he does find her, eventually, which so counts as a happily ever after.
At least it does in his book.
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