A further revised work still in progress...

Adorable Disaster


Laura Berger says: Hey I found your Facebook page and noticed that you come from a place called Downingtown, near Philadelphia. I’m from there too and thought I’d send you a message.
I turned in my chair towards Blake.
“Do you know who Laura Berger is?”
“Who?”
“This girl just messaged me saying she’s from the same town as me and I dunno who she is.” It was shocking to say the least considering Downingtown was roughly six hours, three long arduous highways and at least five million map miles away from Bradford, where we went to school.
“Does she have a picture?” Blake responded, seemingly interested. I pulled up her picture to find the short, freckled girl with straight dark hair leaning against a wall. Her jeans were unbuttoned and she looked extremely attractive stretching along the wall outwardly telling me through her gaze that she wanted to have sex with me.
“Damn,” I said, still in shock “Isn’t that the quiet girl who lives next door?” We actually assumed that her and her three housemates were all batshit insane because they never seemed interested in talking to us.
Ross Sharkey says: Yeah I’m from Downingtown. I never imagined that I’d find another Downingtownie way up here in Bradford.
Laura Berger says: Yeah what are the odds?
I scrolled through her Facebook page and stopped on the section labeled “favorite music.” Bands such as Brand New, Matchbook Romance, Motion City Soundtrack, Mae and Rise Against appeared. She had literally the exact same taste in music as I did.
Ross Sharkey says: I noticed on your page that you like the band Brand New. Have you heard all their stuff?
I felt a little bit cocky because it was a documented fact that I was the biggest Brand New fan on this half of the universe. I even had a man-crush on the lead singer. It was bad.
Laura Berger says: Oh my god I love Brand New!
I already wanted her.

Laura was a short, freckled girl with straight dark hair that lived next door to Blake and I during our freshman year of college. Facebook was all the rage back then which must have accounted for our conversations.
I got another message from Laura the next day.
Laura Berger says: Hey Sharkey!
Ross Sharkey says: Heya
Laura Berger says: Any chance you could come over? I dunno if you’re any good with computers but I might need some help.

Her house was all of three feet away from mine. I logged off my computer and started making my way downstairs. I was well aware that on this current day I was wearing my favorite dark blue track jacket, flawlessly styled jeans and bitchin’ sneakers to go with my perfectly coiffed pompadour hair. Regardless of how good I thought I looked, I still found it odd that I was analyzing something as simple as this to go over and talk to a girl I’d hardly seen in person before. My girlfriend back home never even entered my mind when I went over to Laura’s.
I didn’t know which room Laura was living in so I just started making my way upstairs until she came and met me on the landing. She was wearing some jeans (buttoned up this time) with a tight pink shirt and an unzipped hoodie with stars all over it. She wanted me to look at her computer for something and seeing as how computers are my biggest nerd pastime, I was up for the challenge.
“There you are! Come look at this. Do you know much about computers?”
“I dabble,” I remarked coyly. She walked me over to her computer and started opening a series of programs as she tried to remedy her mysterious problem. She also put on some music and started playing the song “The Quiet Things that No One ever Knows” by Brand New. God I loved that song.
“Okay I downloaded this program called Bandwidth Monitor Pro. It runs in the background of my computer all the time and lets me know all the traffic that goes in and out of my computer through the internet.” Makes sense so far.
“Okay so what’s the problem?” I asked, half interested, half looking around her room in curiosity, half lost in the lyrics of Jesse Lacey on guitar, and half curious as to why this girl made me lose all conception of math and how many halves are in a whole.
Despite my closet-nerd stature, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her computer. I may or may not have actually been paying attention because a lot of my energy was spent restraining myself from looking like a complete loser.
“Okay well thanks for coming to look at it for me. I have to get to class, but we should hang out sometime.”
Yes! Yes we should hang out sometime, I thought, realizing that I was allowed to be as pathetic and excited as I wanted within the confines of my own mind.
“Yeah that sounds good to me.” We exchanged phone numbers and I was on my merry way.
I began spending much of my free time with Laura. Things were pretty rocky with Sari, my girlfriend back home, and I had been forecasting the end of our relationship in the not-too-distant future. My newfound friendship with Laura seemed like just what I needed to take my mind off this. Laura was good at making me forget about the small-town worries I was experiencing from a long-distance girlfriend.
****
“Knock, knock!”
I sat up from my position hunched over my computer desk to find Laura standing in my doorway.
“You and that roommate of yours should come over to my place a bit later on. I picked up some rum and I need some people to drink it with.” It was still my freshman year of college and I was relatively new to the whole drinking thing but I was slowly picking it up, having started my excursion with a six-pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and several drunken clichés a few months prior.
“Yeah sure. Blake is out right now but I’m sure he’ll come over afterwards.” I just liked looking at her leaning in my doorway, everything about her was so inviting.
“Alright sounds good, swing by sometime after dinner.” She scurried down my stairs and I couldn’t help but lean around the doorframe to watch her leave.
I arrived to Laura’s place a few hours later and found her scrolling through her music collection on her computer, sipping on a rum and coke. She had curled her hair and put it in a pony tail. She was sitting with her legs up against her absent roommate’s desk.
“Boo.”
“Hey, you made it! Let me make you a drink.” I sat down at her computer as she made her way over to her fridge. I immediately scrolled to the “Brand New” section of her music library to find that her collection of songs matched mine, almost perfectly. Impressive, considering I had dozens of unreleased demo’s that I always thought would even impress the band.
“Nice music collection,” I commented, still scrolling through her library.
“Thanks,” she replied, handing me a rum and coke. She leaned over my shoulder and took control of the mouse. I took a sip from my drink.
“Holy hell, woman. Do you think you put enough rum in this? There’s enough in here to sedate a bull.” She just looked at me and giggled. I continued drinking it anyway.
The night progressed to the point that we just sat around bullshitting and watching music videos in her room until the alcohol had a complete grasp on our nervous systems.
“Let’s go watch some T.V.” She said, dragging me downstairs to the living room, after pouring us another few drinks. I plopped myself down on the couch and took drastic countermeasures to prevent my head from spinning – which basically just involved centering myself and taking deep breaths. Laura staggered her way down the stairs and almost fell over in the process. I laid myself down on the couch with high hopes that my head would come down. To this day I’m still unsure if she remembers what she did next.
“Hi, there,” she said putting her hands on my chest and crawling on top of me.
“Oh…hey,” I said, panicking as the inner mechanisms of my mind raced to decide what the hell I should do. I had a girlfriend, and even though our relationship was weak at best, I still held out hopes that the girl I loved would return to normal once the distance barrier was broken, and I returned home for the summer.
Laura didn’t say anything else. She continued to straddle me, and was well aware that I had a girlfriend of two years. Laura bit her lip and ran her hands down my chest as she slowly started leaning in closer. As she inched slightly closer two curly black strands of hair escaped her pony tail and ran down her face like a renegade waterfall. Her hands were still firmly on my chest and I was sure she could feel my heart pounding rebelliously as it tried desperately to escape from my chest. As Laura continued to slide herself closer to my face, I tried desperately to slow down at least one of my adrenaline-fueled thoughts long enough to process something. Anything. Before she could get any closer my mind froze and I realized that I had to chase down and contain my heartbeat before it ran off with her.
In a last minute decision, I quickly grabbed her hands and pushed her away, until she was sitting confused on the couch next to me, blowing curls of hair off her face. Before I could open my mouth to say anything, Blake erupted through the front door.
Shortly after Blake arrived, the three of us continued drinking and watching T.V. It didn’t seem to take Laura very long at all to forget what had just happened. I couldn’t cheat on Sari anyway, and with optimistic thoughts about our relationship, I didn’t get upset when Blake slept with Laura that night. I think it was just one of those “I’m drunk, you’re drunk, you’re not a complete stranger, let’s do this” college moments. I think it happened a few times, but that was about the extent of their relationship. Blake bragged to me about it the next day and I can honestly say that it didn’t bother me. I didn’t even judge Laura when I found out. I had a girlfriend, and everything was going to be just fine.

****

Two months later I no longer had a girlfriend and everything was not just fine. I still don’t know why I stayed with that girl for as long as I did, but needless to say I broke it off. I held onto the rope that held our relationship together for as long as I could, but by the time it ended the rope was frayed and my hands suffered painful burns.
It meant a lot to me that Laura came out with me just minutes after I broke up with Sari. I was an emotional wreck, having never lost a girlfriend before, and Laura came to pick me up and collect the pieces over ice cream. When I thanked her for coming to my aid so quickly all she said was “if you call, then I’m coming to get you.”
We went to Rita’s water-ice, a place so delightful that I swear it was made of happiness, sunshine, and orgasms. We sat down at a secluded table with our gelatos and absorbed the silence briefly until she snapped it in half.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never gone through this before. To be honest, I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to feel,” I replied, with my face buried in my cup. “I feel sort of odd. It makes me wonder if she feels the same way. She didn’t seem too bothered when I broke up with her.”
“That’s normal for girls. A lot of girls won’t let you know it bothers them until they want you back. Do you think you could ever take her back?”
“Hell no,” I replied adamantly, resting my head on the table on top of my crossed arms. Laura looked bothered, almost as if she felt exactly what I was feeling.
“You know,” she started, taking a long inhale and even longer exhale “I once had a boyfriend a few years ago. He was a huge guy. He played a lot of varsity sports and was always working out. He treated me really well despite the negative stigma that most jocks drag around, and spread like the plague amongst themselves. After a few months of dating I didn’t think it was working and I broke up with him. Despite his huge size, I watched him cry for what seemed like hours. All this pain that was pouring out of him was caused entirely by me. I don’t regret my decision because I knew it needed to be done, but it just shows you that people aren’t always what they seem. I already know that she’s missing you. Even if you aren’t missing her back.” She got up from her side of the table, sat down next to me and gave me a hug. It felt good having her that close to me again. It was then that I realized I never should have pushed her off of me on that couch. It didn’t matter that we were drunk, what mattered was that she would never do it again.

Laura and I spent our entire summer completely wasting time. Time wasted with Laura was time well-wasted, and time well-wasted was time well-spent. We spent countless hours around parks, malls, movie theatres and grocery stores. We reconvened almost every night after work, walked our asses to the same park two miles away and laid down to watch the stars.

“Take my spider webs bitch!” Laura demanded, waving her tiny fist at me. We were walking to the park and she walked straight through an absolutely massive spider web. It douched her right in the face. I laughed hysterically.
“Ross!” She screamed, picking spider web out of her hair. Screaming my name became routine for Laura and started happening more frequently as our friendship developed. It didn’t bother me because it was always masked behind incessant laughter.
“Take your own spider webs!” I laughed. Laura didn’t find it as funny and promptly grabbed another colossal spider web and threw it right in my hair.
“Touché.” I grabbed her hand and we finished walking to the park, accompanied by the constant ear-piercing sound of cicadas.
“Fuckin’ peepers,” Laura seethed at the obnoxious creatures.
We found a soccer ball when we got to the park at 11 pm. I played soccer when I was younger and therefore assumed that I was still awesome at it, even if I hadn’t played in twelve years. I made fruitless attempts to woo Laura with my most excellent juggling talents, but still couldn’t get past about three.
“Nice foot work, Ronaldo.” Laura laughed. I stopped the ball in mid-air and kicked it straight at her. She ducked.
“Ross!” I stayed where I was, laughing. It was around this time that we heard the noise. It almost sounded like a dying giraffe and a constipated bull were trying to mate on the soccer field. I wandered over to the source of the sound to find the smallest deer I’d ever seen sneezing uncontrollably. If I hadn’t seen the snot rockets leaving its nose then I’d have sworn it was having a seizure. Before long it spotted me, and ran off. I turned around to find Laura huddled over in laughter, before bursting into laughter myself. This was what we did.

Before long we were star gazing as normal. Laura made up a game wherein we both tried as hard as possible to spot slow-moving satellites among the stars. There was no prize, yet it still entertained us for hours. It was at this point that I leaned in to kiss her.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She sat up, but did not seem annoyed.
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be. Don’t feel awkward. Don’t feel rejected. I’m not rejecting you. Ross, I have a great time with you all the time. When I’m with you, I laugh constantly. We do nothing but waste time and I absolutely love that about us. I’ve just had a history of struggling to make relationships last, and that’s where I’m afraid this is going. Can we keep doing what we’re doing and see where it goes?” She sounded genuine. I think a lot of other guys would have told her no, along with several other choice words and walked off in a huff to go get drunk. For some reason I couldn’t have been happier. I wanted nothing more than to keep her as close to me as possible.
“Yes. Yes we can.” She placed her head back on my shoulders and we laid unadorned in a tiny park until 4 a.m, falling asleep to the sound of peepers and sneezing venison.

****
“How many do you think you can drink before we have to head in? I asked, polishing off another Labatt Blue. We were probably in the car for about forty-five minutes at this point, abusing our livers like they were evil and had to be stopped.
“I don’t know,” she replied cracking open a fresh can “We’ve probably only got a few more minutes before it starts.” We were in the parking lot of the Town Ballroom in Buffalo, waiting for The Academy is, and Armor for Sleep concert to begin.
We got out of the car, and settled our composures. I was really fucking drunk. I could tell Laura was too because when I looked over at her, we both just started laughing. For good measure, I grabbed another beer and stuffed it in my pocket. They were serving alcohol inside, so I hoped I’d just blend in, despite the fact that I was underage. With my hand covering the huge bulge in my pocket from the can, I miraculously made it past the bouncer and into the raging concert. Armor for Sleep was just about to come on. Laura inched ahead to find us a good spot, while I made my way into a disgusting bathroom stall to chug my leg-warm beer.
I barricaded myself in the tiny stall and quietly cracked open the beer. Evidently, I was too intoxicated to remember to put down my $300 cell phone before I started chugging the beer and dropped it straight into the toilet.
“Fuck me.” Before I could finish another thought I pulled up my sleeve and dove into the toilet fist first to grab my brand new phone and rip out the battery before it could sustain water damage. I washed my hands for a solid ten minutes and missed a few songs from Armor’s set. Nice job, dumbass.
I found Laura up front with a bottle of Molson Canadian in her hand, dancing around wildly, and splashing beer on half of the crowd. She eventually spotted me.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Chugging a beer in a bathroom stall…and dropping my cell phone in a disgusting toilet.”
“Eww! Nice job, dumbass.” God I loved her. Laura offered to get me a few beers with her special, rainbow colored “over 21 years of age wristband” but I was already too drunk. I don’t even remember half of the set list from the headlining band. The last thing I remembered was William Beckett from The Academy Is yelling into the microphone as he reached out to the crowd. With our ears ringing, we walked over to a nearby donut shop to sober up for several hours before having to make the long drive home. It was one of the best times I’d ever had.

****
We arrived back at school for the fall semester. It was August 30th when we were allowed to move our belongings into the campus residence halls. My birthday was August 31st. It was also about this time that Brand New’s newest album was released. Both of us pretty much listened to it relentlessly on the six hour drive up to Bradford. The song “Degausser” came vividly to mind with its amazing guitar and down-right confusing lyrics.

Take me, Take me back to your bed
I love you so much that it hurts my head,
Say, “I don’t mind you under my skin,
I’ll let your bad parts in, the bad parts in.”

By this point in our friendship, I was more than ready for something more from Laura and I think she felt the same way. I didn’t care that she had mentioned she struggled with relationships. I knew we were so much alike that it wouldn’t matter. I needed her.

“Hey dildo, what’s up?” Laura often called me dildo.
“Struggling to unpack all my shit from my tiny car.”
“Care to come over to my place and watch a movie to get your mind off of it?”
“Dear god yes, I don’t want to be buried in my junk anymore. I’ll be over soon.”
I arrived at her house to find she was already entirely unpacked.
“Dear god how did you unpack so quickly, half of my stuff is still in my car.” I snapped in amazement.
“I’m getting good at it. I like setting up a new room to make it look like I’ve been here a while. What movie do you want to watch?” She asked, reaching for her stack of DVD’s.
“I don’t care,” I replied, making myself comfortable on her bed and throwing my jacket in the corner.
“Ever seen Grandma’s Boy? It’s totally a pot-head movie but I laughed the whole way through anyway.”
“Go for it.”
Laura put the movie in and then situated herself resting on my chest like she always did. I was used to it by now. We watched the whole movie, and she was right, it made me laugh the whole way through, especially the scene wherein the main character accidentally ejaculates on his friends mom. It was around 11:45 when the movie ended.
“Ugh, I should probably get going.” I yawned and stretched. “I have class tomorrow morning.”
“But tomorrow is your birthday.” Laura sounded almost nervous when she said it. The first time I’d ever seen her that way. “You could stay with me for the night if you wanted to.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to react at first, but eventually put some words together.
“Uhh, yeah sure I can do that.” I took my jacket off and threw it back on the floor. I crawled back onto Laura’s bed.
We laid down next to each other, and to be honest it didn’t really feel all that much different than normal. That is, until her watch beeped, signaling that it was midnight. She looked into my eyes.
“Happy birthday.” She leaned over and kissed me, smiled adoringly, and rested her head back on my chest and fell asleep. I fell asleep smiling, and pulled her closer to me.

Laura knew that I loved warheads. Not the diabolical weapons of mass destruction, but the diabolical candies of taste bud annihilation that wreaked havoc on the tongues of anyone daring enough to eat more than one. I loved those sour candies. When I arrived back in my half-packed room the next morning, I found that the entire room was covered in colorful, wrapped warhead candies. They were everywhere and on everything. That girl somehow covered my bedroom in my favorite candy while I was with her. Standing in my doorway in shock and awe, I realized that I was in love with that girl.

****
Laura was hunched over her computer desk when I knocked on her open door.
“Ross, -I”
“Laura, I have to know what went wrong.”
“I can’t tell you, Ross. It’s not because I don’t want to, but I really don’t know. You’re just such a nice guy and I have such a good time with you-”
“That’s what I don’t understand, Laura.” I was starting to get angry, something that rarely happened. “I know for a fact that there is no one on this planet that knows you as well as I do. It doesn’t make sense. Give me something, please.” It was true, I’d only known Laura for eight or nine months, but I was still certain of that statement. I wasn’t going down in flames this time. I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes I did before. I wouldn’t be that blind and hopeful optimist who was slowly suffocated in his own ignorance.
“I don’t know. I love you. We know each other so well that I could actually see us being married in ten years time. I just don’t know what the problem is, and I don’t want to hurt you. I’m bad with relationships and even though ours is perfect, I can’t trust myself. I know there has to be something more keeping me away from you, but I just don’t know what it is.”
I sat with my head in my hands on the edge of her bed, ready to rip my hair out. We’d been through so much together and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to continue spending time with her without breaking out into unyielding misery wondering what the fuck she was thinking. It was depressing. I couldn’t do it. I collected myself and got up from her bed. She was sitting in her computer chair with her head in her hands, crying. She couldn’t look at me. I leaned down and rested my head on her shoulder and wrapped my arms around her.
“I love you so much that it hurts my head.” I turned away and walked out of the room.

****

I’ve since forgotten how many freckles Laura had, what color her eyes were, how dark her hair was and where her scars were, or how she got them. I didn’t think it was fair that she was using me to try to find answers for questions she still had about herself. None of my female friends could really offer any consolable advice and played the generic ace of spades for depressed, male friends in times of emotional hardship: “You’re too good for her anyway.”
Several things happened after that night. I almost drank myself to death the next night, I took up smoking, and I developed anxiety issues. However, I think what killed me the most was returning to the same state we were in when we were next door neighbors, and nothing more. After that night, Laura treated me with the same passive sentiments she gave me before we knew each other. Seeing her in passing, only to find her walking straight through me was almost as painful as walking out on her in the first place.

Commit this to memory...

I suppose it's been a while since I've posted anything significant. This is one of the short story's I've written that I'm rather pleased with. I have another one that I feel has much more potential but until it's revised perfectly, I won't be posting it.


Commit this to Memory

“You know if they just legalized murder then there would be a lot less crime in places like this,” Kyle commented while piloting his fictional, video simulated character through the streets of a made up city and brutally slaughtering any pedestrians, drug dealers and gang members foolish enough to get in his way.
“Well yeah, but then people could run around killing anyone they wanted. I think society frowns upon things like that,” I replied.
“Yeah but at least it would solve the ever-rising and often overlooked over-crowded prison problems our country has.”
We both laughed and continued on in our video-simulated shooting rampage. We were both mashing buttons on our controllers in a precise order so as to avoid the wrath of the police officers who could bring an end to our game and simultaneously. This would quickly destroy our dreams of attaining the highly sought after high score achievement. Just then my character (while wielding a flamethrower) was picked off by a sniper, keeled over, and died a horrifically painful and dramatic death.
“Weak sauce.”
“Nice job, Madison.”
“Meh,” I replied while trying to act unfazed that I cost us the high score, even if it was crushing me on the inside. Kyle got up and left for his bedroom.
I didn’t mind rooming with Kyle. I had to admit that I was a bit iffy a few weeks ago when he asked me to move in with him because I didn’t know him very well. I met him through a friend at some party we were really too old to be attending. He mentioned in casual small talk that he needed a new roommate because his previous one had moved out suddenly. I’m not normally one to act out so spontaneously when a situation such as this arises, but given the fact that I’d only just graduated, I thought what the hell?
I finished up with my schooling at the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in writing and a useful minor in history to back it up. Realizing that I might struggle finding work, I leaped at the opportunity to remain in Pittsburgh with a stranger and pursue a fascinating career as a freelance writer. The conversation at the party may as well have gone something like this:

Stranger I’ve never met: “Hey, I’m Kyle and need a roommate. Wanna move in with me even though I could be a potential murderer, rapist, racist, arsonist, axe-wielding maniac, or rude car salesman?”
Gullible Madison: “You bet.”

So here I am two-weeks later rooming with Kyle. I had to admit that the apartment was very nice, although perhaps I was basing this off the fact that my place in college looked like Genghis Khan threw up on it. The living room was always very nice and I tried to make sure I did my best to keep it that way. Keeping this in mind, there were always those nights where one of us had a little too much alcohol and turned the place into a wrestling ring, battleground, or slip-n-slide. Regardless, we always did a good job of keeping things tidy afterwards.
The room was very white. The white leather couch with white pillows sat atop a comfortable coat of white carpet providing a pathway up to our white curtains which were very close to the white end table and white telephone. Everything looked nice so I had no problem with the fact that the room also looked like it was devoid of all life, or like Martha Stewart was let loose in it for fifteen minutes with an armada of cleaning and decorating supplies at her disposal and told to “go nuts.”
I was currently working at an electronics store in the city and disliking my job very much. I soon discovered that new writer’s often struggle finding work that will fully support them when they are fresh out of college. I was able to find a little bit of success writing humor columns for various magazines. My most recent success was an educational article informing readers as to how they could win a fight against a mob of twenty five-year-olds should the need arise. I also wrote an article explaining a list of ten dinosaurs that most readers would be able to take in a fight with relative ease. I was getting by on the money I was making because I was able to get a lot of hours at the electronics store and the freelance writing checks were just sort of an occasional bonus.
Kyle was working at a credit card collection agency and somehow making much more money than me. He had recently received a big bonus for leading his department in collections and instantaneously spent it on an oversized, high-definition television. I didn’t complain.
Kyle emerged from his bedroom wearing only his boxers.
“What are you up to tonight, man?” Kyle asked while making his way to the kitchen.
“Oh, my girlfriend is coming over. Her name’s Samantha, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned her before. She’s just now getting back from vacation in Florida.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. You guys just hangin’ around here for the night then?” Kyle asked while reaching into the refrigerator.
“I think so, she just got back tonight and said she’s pretty tired,” I replied, watching Kyle sniff an old carton of milk questionably, and then cough and choke on the noxious fumes that emerged. He then proceeded to place the carton back in the fridge.
“That’s cool, I think I’m just gonna hang around here too. You know, I used to date a girl named Sam, brings back memories,” he shuddered and meandered his scrawny, muscular frame back into his room.
It was 6:00 pm. Samantha wouldn’t be over until 8:00. I figured I could kill some time by sitting down at my laptop and at least trying to spit out a few words for another humor article. I had myself convinced that every written word, no matter how stupid or senseless, brought me one step closer to writing a best-seller. I had been trying to sit down and write a comical argument aimed towards the raison and why he should keep his shriveled ass away from my delicious cookies. My argument was that nature should mind its own damn business and stop ruining my sugar-filled treats with unwanted nutrients. Just as I sat down at my desk, my phone rang. Samantha.
“Ahoy-hoy?”
“Hey dollface, it’s me!”
“Hey hey, what’s up? Did your flight come in yet?” I asked, excited to hear from her.
“Yeah we actually got an earlier flight so I’ll be over shortly. Gotta go, my phone’s about to die. See you soon.”
I ran outside to meet Sam at the curb as the familiar sight of her black Honda Civic approached my building. I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks so we exchanged a seventeen minute long hug and the mandatory exaggerated kiss accompanied by intermittent comments from her explaining how much she missed me. I really liked Sam. Seeing her short, slender body, pretty face and long librarian hair often made me feel better if I was upset. We had only been dating for a few months but things seemed to be going pretty well.
We came back upstairs and situated ourselves in the angelic living room and she started to tell me about her trip. None of this was news to me considering she’d been calling me most days to tell me about everything her and her friends had done. Most of it involved lying on the beach, gradually roasting under the hot sun.
“So what’s been going on around here? What’s your new roommate like?” She asked while picking at a piece of flaking skin on her forearm.
“He’s alright. No complaints thus far. We’ve spent much of our time drinking and playing video games when we aren’t at work so I can’t complain.”
Just then, Kyle emerged from his room yawning. He was fully clothed this time. He wandered to the kitchen seemingly still in a daze from a nap that may or may not have put him in a coma, his eyes staring blankly at the floor. Sam was flipping through a magazine she found laying around.
“Hey Kyle, come over here I want you to meet Samantha,” I hollered into the kitchen. Kyle yawned again and stretched his arms upward as he made his way over. His hair was half-covering his face and his ribs protruded out of his chest as he stretched and approached the living room. Samantha looked up from her magazine and their eyes locked onto each other in astonishment. Both of them looked at each other like a deer facing imminent death from a tractor-trailer.
“Holy shit, it’s you!” Kyle screamed while pointing to Sam. I was shocked and confused. I looked over at Sam and she was sitting with her hands over her face, allowing her eyes to see through a partition in her finger-created mask.
“Stay away from me! Get out of here!” Kyle muttered in a panic, fear enveloping his voice. Sam looked at me with tears in her eyes, threw the magazine to the floor and ran out of the apartment.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t talk to her that way!” I yelled at Kyle, enraged that he could treat another person, let alone my girlfriend, that way.
“I don’t wanna talk about it” Kyle replied, rushing to his room and slamming the door.
I ran outside after Sam. She was just entering her car when I started dashing down the steps after her.
“Sam wait! I’m sorry, I’ve never seen him act that way before” I called to her while running down the stairs out of breath. She started the car and put it into gear. I caught up to her and stood at the driver’s side window hoping desperately that she’d open the door.
“Open the door Sam and talk to me. I dunno what the hell his problem was.”
“He’s my ex. I don’t wanna talk about it” she cried to me, tears running down her cheek. Her car pulled away before I had a chance to say anything else. I watched her black civic pull away down Tullamore Avenue, watching my tall, pathetic figure reflect off the shiny back window. Furious at what had just transpired, I stormed back inside and started banging on Kyle’s door.
“Come out here and tell me what the fuck just happened!” I barked at him through the thin layer of wood that was his bedroom door. I probably could have snapped it over my knee if I wanted but figured that’d only make things worse. There was no reply. I figured I could bang on his door all night but if he was going to be stubborn then I’d have a very hard time. I walked back to the living room and sat down on the couch, running my hands through my curly brown hair. Before I could even continue thinking about what happened, Kyle’s door opened and he slowly made his way out. I didn’t say anything and watched him come over and sit down next to me on the couch. It took him a few minutes to collect his thoughts and spit out what he wanted to say.
“I was seventeen when I dated Sam. I assume she told you that much if you were able to catch her before she left.”
I nodded. Still confused.
“Met her at a bar near the university. We both had fake ID’s. We were also both young and attending different high schools in the area. It wasn’t one of those corny one-night stand types of interactions, you know? We got along well and talked for a while and then all of a sudden I had her phone number and was calling her the next day. We were together for a long time and didn’t see eye to eye on what would happen to us after high school. I cared about her and even loved her but I just didn’t want to change my life around by trying to go to the same University as her. We saw a lot of each other and never really had any major problems like a lot of other couples do,” he paused and took a breath “that is, until she told me she was pregnant.”
My organs sunk about a foot lower each, effectively stopping each and every one for a moment.
“There were a few times that we didn’t use a condom and she called me while I was at work one day to tell me she was pregnant.”
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hit him even though I knew everything he was telling me was perfectly understandable. I figured this type of thing happened to a lot of couples who may have been careless once or twice. It’s human nature.
“I was still only eighteen at the time and was ready to somehow change my life around and help her support the child. I decided not to be one of those guys that run out on the girl, leaving her with her grief and a stack of bills. After a few months, I noticed that she wasn’t getting any bigger. I asked her if she had been attending regular doctor visits and she assured me that she had. She told me that the doctor said everything was normal and that some women get bigger more quickly than others. I’m pretty sure that’s a load of horse shit, but I had no idea at the time. When after another month she still wasn’t any bigger, I found out that she was never really pregnant.”
“What? Did she have a miscarriage?” I asked, half confused and half enraged.
“No, she was never pregnant to begin with. She told me that she loved and cared about me so much and didn’t want to leave me after high school. Sounds cliché right? Like a lot of other high school couples go through the same thing? Nope, she faked a pregnancy with hopes I’d change my life around and move in with her at age eighteen.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I promptly cut things off with her in a panic and stopped returning her calls. I was disgusted that someone would try to do something like that to me. She couldn’t take it and would often come to my house and bang on the door claiming she was still carrying my child.



“Wow…” It was all I could think of to say. I was having a very difficult time trying to think about Sam the same way. I had always figured that situations such as these rarely, if ever occurred outside of Jerry Springer re-runs in which multiple lounge chairs are thrown across the room in anger. I got up from the couch and dispatched myself to my room without a word. Kyle didn’t bother coming after me. He retired himself back into the seclusion that was his bedroom.
I plopped myself down on my bed and began staring at the ceiling as I thought about what Kyle had told me. My cell phone was sitting on my bed stand and I didn’t bother picking it up to call Sam just yet. I figured she probably wouldn’t even answer for a little while. I put on my headphones and let the shuffle button on my iPod decide what I should be thinking about as I drifted into sleep.


Over the course of the next couple days I didn’t talk to Sam at all. Neither one of us made the effort to contact the other, likely thinking that we both just needed a little bit of time to let things sink in. Things with Kyle were okay, but only okay. We didn’t talk to each other much, but my feelings of rage had subsided gradually. I couldn’t in good conscience blame him for something that happened before I was with Sam and at that, something she was responsible for. I was avoiding her in all my cowardice like a seven year old kid trying to avoid a girl that had a crush on him.
I spent most of my time outside of work focusing on writing. Even though it was partly my job, I really enjoyed writing. It was one of those things that helped keep me sane in an otherwise boring atmosphere I called my life. I had spent the greater portion of the last few days spitting incoherent jumble into my laptop. Nothing that I had written really made any sense; it was mostly just inarticulate free-writing. I didn’t care. It was helping.
I enjoy writing humor columns for whoever is willing to take the time to read and possibly publish them. I like to think that every day someone is laughing at something I’ve written, or even cursing at the poorly developed themes that I pass off as humorous and slap my name onto. However, when I sat down after speaking with Kyle, I wasn’t really in the mood to continue my rant about the egotistical raison. I sat down and spat out some garbage about why I’m a bad writer.
I don’t read, I don’t note small things that should be written down for later use in writing, I don’t envision anything that I may want to write about, I give poor critiques to others if I’m uninterested and I claim to know more than I do about many topics. I don’t properly proof read anything I write until it is positively reinforced as a “good piece of writing.” I lack the confidence to recognize when a piece of my writing is a valid and well constructed piece of work and I overestimate other pieces of writing simply because I use good diction and a few humorously compiled words. I lack the ability to recognize when I’ve bludgeoned a dead horse, lost the reader or poorly constructed a scene and the fact that I’m not working to correct these problems isn’t helping.
I don’t really consider myself a bad writer, but after seeing some recent flaws in myself and my mindset towards Sam, it was hard for me not to be critical of other things in my life.
I had a very difficult time thinking of Sam after what Kyle had told me. I had never once seen any kind of psychotic behavior from that girl. Hell, we still hadn’t even used the word love around one another, and the thought of it scared me after only two months. She was only ever a good girlfriend to me and I knew she cared about me like I cared about her. I almost wanted to see this other side of her just so I could find out if she was capable of acting in such a manner. However, when I thought about it, I realized that we were twenty-two now and this all happened when Sam was leaving high-school. I convinced myself that everyone is a dumbass in high school and that made me feel a little better – but I still couldn’t shake these new thoughts I was having about her. Was she really as crazy as Kyle thought?
I decided to man-up and head over to her place after work the next day. I didn’t get off until 7:00 so I figured she would definitely be home when she got back from her job as a secretary at some local firm. I got to her apartment complex and rang the buzzer.
“Hello? Who is it?” The familiar sound of her voice.
“It’s me, it’s Madison. Can you let me in?”
…
“Yeah, alright.”
Our fifteen second conversation was very awkward and I feared this would foreshadow the rest of our conversation that night. She slowly opened the door and let me inside. I quickly entered and made my way right for her couch and sat down. I looked up at her. She was wearing a pair of shorty short shorts and a tank top with what looked like a push-up bra. I instantly forgot about why I came here for a few seconds after looking at her. Her long brown hair was curling down over her chest. It was as if she picked the most seductive clothing possible and sat around waiting for me to call. She came and sat down next to me. It didn’t look like her roommate Cassie was home. That was a plus.
“I assume Kyle told you about our past together” she asked slowly.
I nodded.
“Look I was very young and still in high school when we were together. I had never had a serious boyfriend before and panicked when college was going to come around and we would both be going separate ways. I didn’t want to lose him at the time and now I realize that my behavior was totally irrational, immature and straight retarded. I hope you understand why I didn’t tell you about this. It was embarrassing.”
“So everything Kyle said was true? Everything about the pregnancy, and the restraining order?”
Sam was sitting on the couch, looking down at her awkwardly crossed legs. She sighed and heaved a deep breath before responding.
“Yes, it’s true,” she eventually revealed, “I hope you aren’t petrified of me now.”
I hesitated before I could reply which apparently was mistake number one. After a quick breath to think about what I could say in response, I came up with absolutely nothing.
“Madison?” She interjected before I could correct my error and say something.
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t say I’m scared, but it’s definitely something that’s been on my mind over these past few days. I really didn’t see something like this coming.” Weak at best, but it was all I could come up with. Sure, Sam and I got along pretty well and we liked each other but we’d only been together for a couple months. I really didn’t think our relationship was strong enough to withstand a ship wreck. It was around this point that I realized how much I didn’t want to be at Sam’s place. A lot was racing through my mind and none of it was willing to slow down and let me catch up to myself.
“You’re really thinking seriously about everything Kyle told you, aren’t you? I know we haven’t been together long but I liked to think that by this point we would at least be capable of acting maturely and attempting to figure things out. Yes, I had a bit of a rough adolescence and I understand why this would be a bit of a shock to you but it’s no reason to act like a coward, Madison. Either speak to me about things that bother you, or don’t bother wasting my time. I sat around here these past few days waiting for you to call, and half-hoping that I wouldn’t be home when you did. I’ve been scared shitless of your reaction and I had to wait three days in mental anguish, waiting for you to come talk to me.” I watched as her kill switch engaged, switching her from defensive to aggressive. I couldn’t blame her. She was right about everything. No matter which way I went about this, she was right and I wasn’t able to grow up and accept it. Mistake number two came in the form of another hesitation. It was a few seconds before I could find my tongue and muster up the strength to say anything.
…
“Sam, I-”
“Save it.” She cut me off and motioned towards the door, gesturing that I leave. I chose not to say anything and obeyed her. The fact that I couldn’t even say anything confirmed her accusations that I was a coward. I think most normal people would have tried to defend themselves and at least left with the tattered remains of their dignity. Mine was left on the center cushion of the couch she ejected me from. I looked back over to her as I opened the door to see if the expression on her face had changed. Before I could think of my last words, she once again interjected.
“Don’t let the door hit your ass.”

When I arrived back at home I found Kyle sitting on the couch in his underwear slaughtering police officers and pedophiles with a chain gun. I sat down on the couch next to him and watched him play the game. I finally worked up the courage to say something.
“Sam won’t be coming by here anymore.”
“You wanna talk about it?” He asked while throwing Molotov cocktails at unsuspecting cars.
“No, that’s alright. Maybe later” I replied, thinking of very few other things to talk about. Kyle picked up a controller and handed to me. Within seconds I was wielding my trademark flamethrower, burning innocent victims and watching them suffer. I felt better instantly, smiled, and asked Kyle if he knew where the sniper rifle was.

****
As mentioned several times, I like to write. I often write humor pieces because they seem to be one of the elements I excel in, and sometimes I just write whatever the first thing I think about is. Up until the incident with Sam I had never been very good at articulating my emotional or intellectual thoughts and getting them on the page. I always avoided such things by writing like a smart-ass, making myself laugh and forgetting about any insecurity I might have had to face that day. Everything Sam had scolded me about in that brief interaction was not only true about my personality, but was also reflected in my writing. These limitations seemed totally unwarranted in my writing and there was no reason I couldn’t correct them. I sat down at my computer screen imaging the horrific scowl on Sam’s face as she sent me away and quickly began work on something with a little more meaning. I made sure to commit this to memory.

The beginning of the first chapter...

Chapter 1
Carrie Jacobs found herself dashing around the corner of her living room and sprinting up her winding set of stairs with the force of a small tornado, her two younger siblings attempting eagerly to keep pace with the speed demon.
“Come on, Carrie. Give us the key!”
“Yeah, this isn’t funny. Where did you even get handcuffs anyway?” Unlike her sister who was only a few years younger than Carrie, her brother was able to restrain any unwanted feelings of hatred at least until things escalated to a totally unwanted level. Carrie had found herself bored after school and used a pair of handcuffs to tether her younger siblings together. That slightly younger boy that she was only just friends with had all kinds of useless junk lying around his house that he liked to share with her.
Reaching the top of the stairs first, Carrie was able to successfully seclude herself to her room for a whole seven seconds before her door was hit with such repeated force that she was nervous they might actually kick it in. While she felt no fear from her siblings, the wrath enforced by her parents was a whole other story and the penalty for knocking the door off its hinges would lie strictly on her shoulders as the oldest of the children.
“Okay okay, calm down,” replied Carrie. She had to grab Amanda’s hand out of mid-air to prevent her from finishing off the door. Brent had taken a more reserved approach and merely decided to sit down against the wall while his sister gave Carrie’e door a beating as if it were a punching bag. Carrie took the key out of her pocket and reluctantly freed her siblings. Amanda mumbled a stream of incoherent jumble and walked off in defeat, while Brent merely rubbed his sore wrist, seemingly apathetic towards the idea that he was now free. He followed Carrie back into her room and sat down on her bed while Carrie spun the handcuffs around her finger with a smug sense of satisfaction devouring her already impulsive ego.
“Why’d you handcuff us anyway?” Brent didn’t seem bothered, just inquisitive.
“Sorry. It was more to annoy Amanda than it was you. I know that you can take these things and walk away laughing, or at least with a neutral look about you. Amanda isn’t like that and it makes me smile to see her so frustrated.” She had no reason to lie about it. Amanda was always a bit of a nuisance to her. If she wasn’t helping herself to half of Carrie’s belongings then she was complaining to her parents that she should have the same rights and responsibilities as Carrie when she was clearly not ready for such things. Brent was polishing his glasses on his t-shirt and acting a little too compulsive in the process as he struggled with a particularly stubborn smudge.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” he replied while walking out of her room, “just try not to annoy her to the point that she tries to include me on her violent schemes for revenge.”
“Gotcha.”

For Carrie.Hannah...

Welcome back everyone.

I'm glad to see you've chosen to join me on another installment of the super awesome, fabulous blog full of questionable content to be enjoyed by an audience of a questionable nature.

It's been quite some time. I suppose I'm back into the realm of literature construction known as writing, seeing as how there actually is a writing program at my university this year. I'm fully unsure of how one chooses a university that has his major...but only sometimes. I have become rusty. I have become lazier than normal and I have seemed to become more of a computer nerd as of late. I suppose there is nothing wrong with any of the aforementioned character traits as long as I've chosen to live my writing-free life in an enjoyable manner. I've found myself partaking in activities lately that I could not say I would normally find myself involved with. For example, the other week I took the advice of a friend and mastered every musical instrument known to man, including the elusive old-timey jug with 3 X's written on it. It produces soul-soothing hymns to calm even the most up-tight nerves. I also found myself kicking names and taking ass much more frequently than before. I've been running up vertical hills at unflagging speeds with no traces of fatigue. I'm even capable of playing my hymn-inducing bottle while doing so.

I've enrolled in a few writing classes this semester. One called Advanced Fiction Writing and one called Writing for Children. Because of this, there should be more writing to come. This writing in question may not produce any intelligent thoughts from the reader and may commonly produce my trademark response of "what the fuck?" However, it's writing and if that's what my audience (right now I think it only consists of a few Fauseys and possibly some rogue UPB students) wants then that's what they might get at a time that does not conflict with my earliest convenience.

R Shark