Freshly Dusted

A/N: The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, something I googled after I wrote this. So if some places don't feel quite right, that's why. That said, this is another piece really close to my heart, so please keep that in mind as you read. 

1. Denial

You never see it coming until it happens.

And then one day, you wake up three hours early to a text from your mom telling you to check your email. She warns you to brace for the worse, and the minute you see the sender’s name, you know. You know exactly what is in the email.

So you cry before you open it. You allow the tears to well up, pushing down the fear that rises with it. It is better to be logical about this, you remind yourself. But that doesn’t stop the tears. But it is enough to open the email with.

And then you read, and it starts out innocently enough. It’s not harsh, or attacking, just simple truth for the most part. But you make it halfway through and you start bawling again. It’s too hard to make it through to the end. You aren’t ready to say goodbye; you aren’t ready to lose another friend.

You finish reading the email, bite back the urge to say, “okay,” and that is all. Your mom’s busy trying to comfort you, but she’s just making things worse because she doesn’t know what to say—she never has quite done it right in times like this.

You don’t know what to do, so you tell a friend. You cry over the phone, unable to understand where all this liquid is coming from. You change the subject, and then reread the email while he talks about his girlfriend.

You fight back the tears and the denial.

You think.

There’s a second email you read first, because you knew what was going to be in the first one.

2. Anger

Did you know?

Did you know that that would be the last thing we said to each other? Did you know we’d leave frustrated? Why didn’t you leave it on the good note, the good day because those are so far in between, and it would have been a good memory to leave it on.

Why did you have to leave it where I will always see my asking question:

“Are you mad or annoyed with me?”

“I’ll answer tomorrow.”

With this second train of thought comes the anger, and for an hour you scream into your pillow, you rant, you say exactly what is on your mind, things that aren’t true, anything to alleviate the pain.

 3. Bargaining

And then you get cold. You leave your dorm-room filled only with rage and anger and pain and hurt and sadness. You are barely dressed, your hair’s a mess, your shower shoes are breaking on your feet to where you can’t even walk in them, but you go get breakfast and eat ice cream you hate at 10am because you don’t know what else to do.

And you’re a mess, and you know it, but still you glare at anyone who comes within ten feet of you.

It’s not their fault. You know this.

But those walls around your heart look awfully tempting right now.

So now you want to go buy something. You want to distract yourself, attempt to fill that pain with things that you don’t really want.

CVS has four really ugly shades of nail polish for an exorbitant price, and you ask your friend which two you should buy. He tells you that you shouldn’t. You agree and buy overpriced acetone instead.

You’d buy more, but they didn’t have shower shoes.

You head back.

4. Depression

And on the way, the marching band is practicing in the square, banging away and celebrating and making a synchronous cacophony of noise. The school is filled with strangers, people here to cheer for your school. You ask them what they could be cheering for. You ask them how they can be happy.

But they can’t hear you over the noise.

You head back and you write, and you cry, and you write and cry some more. It’s rough, it’s messy, you shouldn’t do anything with it, but it helps. It helps to cry tears of ink. You remember an old story you wrote, so you pull it up and reread it.

It’s still badly written, but parts 1 and 2 hold new meaning now.

You’re crying again.

You force yourself to stop. To blow your nose. To wipe your face and concentrate. You reread the email before you respond.

And at the end, you want to attach this picture, but you refrain. 

The sender’s right. You know she is. There are many things you want to say, want to do, things you regret, but that’s no way to live.

You know what will happen, you’ve done this before. You’ll email back and forth for a little while, slowly growing farther apart and farther between. Days will go by, then months, then the next thing you know, you’ll be both miles and years apart.

You’ll miss her. You’ll miss her SO much.

“I brought the rain.”

To some extent, he was right. It had come in with Henry’s vehicle, followed about ten minutes later by the advent of lightning, a harsh reminder of God’s strength.

“You could have waited a few more hours,” the homeless man muttered. Another thunderclap shook the night, but I only pulled my cardigan closer around my chest. The covered bus stop provided some semblance of shelter, but the two lights creaked back and forth as they swung.

I risked a glance at Henry, and he caught my eye, a helpless expression on his face. “Look Shaera, what was I supposed to do?”

“Certainly not that,” I replied, turning to stare back out at the rain.

“Shaera,” he said, grabbing my arm. I wrestled it out of his grasp.

“Don’t touch me,” I spat.

He lifted his hands upward, stepping back. “Okay.” A few moments passed, and he took a deep breath. “Shaera, I’m sorry.”

“It’s too late to be sorry,” I said. “We’re here because of your foolishness. They stole your car, for crying out loud.”

“And—”

“Not here,” I interrupted him, casting a meaningful glance towards the homeless man in the corner. He watched us wide-eyed from behind a bundle of sheets, but when he caught me looking he closed his eyes tightly.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m asleep.”

I raised an eyebrow, but he unnerved me, so I stepped a little closer to Henry. Another bolt of lightning arced across the sky, and this time I jumped despite myself. The scent of Henry’s familiar aftershave met my nose, and I shouldered away from him.

“I can’t do this,” I muttered.

“What was that?” he asked.

I repeated myself. “I’m leaving. When the bus comes, I’m leaving.”

“But I’m going with you,” he said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I want nothing more than to be alone!” I shouted. “I’ve wanted nothing more than to be alone this whole time.”

Henry glanced back at the homeless man, who did not even make a show of pretending he wasn’t watching. “Look, you’ve just gone through a difficult experience, and I—”

“And you what, Henry? Where were you?” I asked, words erupting from my lips. He stammered, not answering. “I kept calling your name—they kidnapped me, drugged me, and you were too drunk to even understand your own name.”

“I still came back for you!” he retorted, defensive.

“You are always coming back. You’re never there before anything even happens.”

“And I’m not supposed to be your watchdog. You’re a grown woman perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.”

“I’m a black woman in a white man’s world, Henry. I’m powerless, and I needed you there, and you weren’t. So yes, I’m leaving,” I said, glaring at him. “Don’t follow me.”

He glared back for a few moments before stepping away and running his hand through his hair. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“How are you getting there?”

“I’ll figure it out. I always do.”

The bus chose that moment to make its way down the street, and the three of us watched it in the aftermath of the words just spoken.

As the bus pulled to a stop, I raced out towards it without a word. Henry shouted something, but it was lost to the wind. The driving rain pelted me, soaking immediately again the parts of me that had dried.

I paid my fees and took a seat, peering through the rain-coated glass. Henry was waving goodbye, mouthing words I could barely decipher: “I love you.”

I ignored him and turned away, but my eye caught on something behind him.

The homeless man was laughing.

Hello all. This is a different kind of story that I just felt the pressing need to post somewhere. It is unedited, unscripted, plotless, and really close to my heart. I may do a string of these in the future, but regardless, here goes the first attempt. 

Words don’t do it justice.

This clawing, aching feeling threatening to scoop out everywhere you put your heart. This desperate desire to be wanted—to want. The obsessive need to fill that whole with anything and everything that one possibly can.

It’s like diving into darkness, having dreamed there was a light on the other end of the path. And that dream keeps you awake at night as you smile to yourself in the dark. Staring up at your ceiling, you laugh and imagine stories and people filling that place in your heart. You long to give them a hug, a smile, hell, even to see them one last time.

And then you remember why you shouldn’t. You remember why two years will still be a four-year age gap. You remember all the flaws you assigned him. You realize that he won’t still love you in two years—he will have moved on.

And you wonder if you truly love him or if you are simply assigning someone at a futile attempt to fill the empty void within you.

You wonder if you dream solely for the sake of dreaming, so that you don’t have to imagine the reality you are living in. You watch others kiss and you fall apart inside, unwilling to admit that YES, even a cynic wants to love.

Because as much as you hate to admit it, being in love is the best feeling in the world. But what happens afterwards…it destroys friendships. And then you move on, and it’s just another event that happened in your life.

Because you don’t even want the commitment of love—you just want this empty hole within you to go away, and the only reason it is there in the first place is because someone four years older than you reminded you that it could be filled with something, and some stupid guy calling you his best friend asked you who you thought about at night.

And you refused to answer…until you answered honestly, and he gave you the saddest look anyone has ever given you and said, “I’m sorry, Kara, I really am, but you can’t. You just can’t.”

And you nod along and agree, hoping that the logic will still your too-fast heart. Yet still, when you close your eyes you see him, you hear him in the silence.

You slam your words onto paper, bleeding into ink and pen. You bleed your denial, your hopeless, helpless longing of your wretched heart, and you slowly let the life drain away, until passion recedes, and once more you are cold.

Logical.

Smart.

Pathological.

And when you close your eyes, you only see the darkness of your heart’s abyss.

A/N: So this is a rather pointless piece, more echoing some of my own frustrations in life and hopefully giving it a humorous twist. I was smiling the entire time I wrote it though, so hopefully y'all will like it too. :)

“Why can’t a guy and a girl just be friends?” I asked.

“Who said we can’t be friends?” Jason replied, winking at me. We both knew no chemistry existed between us (at least not that way), and more than once we had openly voiced this fact by loudly talking over each other.

 ~ ~ ~

I could never date you, Jordan.

            Of course not, I’m too good for the likes of you, Jason.

Danggg, seems to me you’ve got it flipped.

            How do I put this, but you’re just not my type.

As you’ve made crystal clear.

            Now that Savvy…

Mhmmmmmm

            Whatttttt?

 You like herrrr

            Is it that obvious? 

You literally just said her name and smiled. 

            aldsjfa;lsdfkjalsdfja

~ ~ ~ 

“Will this be together?” I mimicked the waitress, who in her defense was quite good at her job. “See, Jason, everyone thinks we’re dating or at least like each other. You should have heard what Shaley said to me.”

“And what was that?” Jason asked, slurping down his slushee. (We were seated at a bench outside a restaurant while he casually wrapped his arm around my shoulder.)

“Dang it, Jason, she thinks you like me.”

Jason made a retching sound, and I rolled my eyes, but we were both grinning. “Sounds to me like your friend is looking for love herself,” he commented, sticking his blue tongue out at me. “What’s her number?”

I gave him a look, but he didn’t notice at first, so busy was he with scooping the last remnants of dyed ice out of his cup. “You don’t think it is the slightest bit weird for me to randomly give you my friend’s number out of the blue?”

“Haha, blue, I see what you did there,” he joked, lifting his almost-empty cup towards me. “Want some?”

“Jason, no!” I insisted, scooting back. “That has all your germs on it, and after Covid, I’m not drinking after you any longer.”

“Well you shouldn’t have in the first place,” he winked.

“You promised you didn’t have Covid,” I retorted.

“I still think you’re the one who gave it to me,” he replied.

“You had it first, bozo.”

“But you got tested first, didn’t you?”

I started laughing, “Shut up, Jason.”

“Aha! You can’t refute that fact, can you? You know, I’ll forever hold this over your head!”

An aging woman walked past us on a cane, and I leaped up ready to help her. She just motioned me back down though, winking and gesturing towards Jason. “You and your boyfriend stay where you’re at. Y’all look cute together, so savor it while it lasts.”

“We’re not dating,” we clarified in unison.

“Well, you should be,” she winked.

After she had gone, I turned back to Jason and raised an eyebrow. “See?” I questioned. “Every. Single. Time.”

He shrugged, and I sighed, settling back beside him on the bench. “Want to know the second question they ask?”

When he said nothing, I just went ahead. “They always want to know if you are gay. Because apparently a guy can’t have a girl as a friend unless they are dating, they like each other, or he’s gay.”

“Well, I am bisexual.”

“Shut up, Jason—you’re just proving my point further.”

“Shut up, Jason,” he mimicked, sticking his blue tongue out at me. “What if I licked you?”

“Ew no. Guys are so immature,” I sighed.

“Sexist much?” he gasped in mock surprise.

“Am I wrong?” I retorted.

Settling back against the bench, he caressed his stubbled chin. “No…” I merely raised an eyebrow in satisfaction.

“But girls are so catty,” he said snootily, wrinkling his nose and contorting his face.

“Shut up, Jason,” I said for the millionth time.

“Make me,” he insisted.

I stuck my hand over his mouth, holding it there until I felt something like a coarse sponge rub against the side of my skin. “Ewwwwww, grosssssssss,” I shouted, taking my hand away and rubbing it on his jeans to wipe it off. “Why’d you lick meeeee?”

“You were asking for it,” he said, grinning in obvious pride at himself.

“Now my hand’s blue,” I said, rolling my eyes again.

“Mhm, and so is that ballcap,” he added, yanking it from my head and taking off with it.

I shouted after him in frustration and hilarity, chasing after him for my hat. As I passed, a middle-aged man clucked his tongue at me and said, “Get you a man who will chase after you and not the other way around.”

“For crying out loud!” I shouted to the sky. “WE’RE NOT DATING!”