She only ever cried in the shower.

Sure, she'd get upset in other locations. Her eyes would begin to sting. But, the tears wouldn't come. She wouldn't let them.

It seemed OK in the shower. Water washed away the tears. Nobody was any the wiser.

It was like it didn't happen.

She wasn't crying that morning. Though it would have been understandable if she had been.

As she dried off, she noticed the bags under her eyes. To her, they seemed more pronounced than they had on the previous day. She thought that her boobs looked great, but still...

If someone had asked how she was doing, the only way she could have thought of to describe it was, "like a top beginning to wobble while still spinning towards the edge of the table."

But, no one ever asked. She always seemed... "perfect."

She lifted her toilet seat up and then put it back down. It had been so long since a man had been in her house, she wanted to make sure that it still worked.

As she got dressed, she realized that she had been without a boyfriend for eight months and 14 days. And that ex... he wasn't a good guy. A very not good guy.

She double-checked to make sure that her pepper spray was in her coat pocket.

She did have a blind date last month. Her first impression was that the guy had the overly gelled hair, leather string with weird stone around his neck, and lean punchable face of a part-time ecstasy dealer.

And the night went downhill from there.

Half-dressed, she marched to her fridge and started writing something down on the erasable board stuck to the front of it. She wrote an anonymous blog with three friends and sometimes jotted blog ideas down on this board.

Today she wrote: "Sick of shoveling horse shit in other people's mental parade."

She planned on telling her friends that she didn't know what it meant.

That would be a lie.

There was one guy on her mind though. And she was thinking about him as she got dressed. He lived many hundreds of miles away. But, he excited her. A lot.

She flipped open her laptop. "He is in a different time zone and he gets up early, so..."

Her gmail inbox was full. But, there was nothing from him.

She was surprised by how much that bummed her out. It wasn't as if they were "dating."

She noticed a couple of other e-mails and quickly closed her laptop.

She went to her living room to find her briefcase. She peeked out the window to get a feel for the weather.

"Hmm. The neighbours bought a new truck?"

She put on her coat. She grabbed her briefcase. She stood in front of the full length mirror.

A mirror that she would swear to you was being used to "open the room up a little." But, it was really just there to let her check her game face once more before leaving the door each morning. And she did have a professional game face. She was named her high school prom queen while her parents were embroiled in the angriest and most public divorce in the history of her hometown.

She smiled at herself in the mirror.

"ABC. Always be composed." Her mother's voice lived in her head.

She walked out the door and her phone rang immediately. She fished it out of her pocket. It was work. She gave dating advice to a co-worker -- and ignored irony -- as she walked towards the sidewalk.

She looked up and saw some neighbours. One had a puppy on a leash.

She "Awwww"ed out loud.

"Excuse me?" a male voice from behind interrupted her puppy thoughts.

She turned around.

He continued, "Dana... Are you Dana Patterson?"

"Yup. That's me," she said, with the practiced smile, as her hand found the trigger on the pepper spray in her pocket.

Labels: fiction, first drafts, second parts

He yawned and stretched. His left ear popped. Finally. He exhaled loudly. Well, it seemed loud to him. Now.

He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a package of cigarettes.

An unopened package of cigarettes.

It had been 6 months and 4 days since he had quit smoking.

He rolled the package around in his hand.

He still carried it. Everywhere. It was something of a security blanket, he supposed.

He tapped it with his finger for a bit before putting it back into his pocket.

He knew that it would be a big deal for him to remove the plastic wrapping. A symbol.

Of failure? Of inevitability? Something.

Probably not the text book way to quit smoking, but it worked for him.

He did things his own way.

He didn't have to, but he picked up the old picture from his passenger side seat. He absolutely wouldn't need it to recognize her.

But, that was probably not why he was looking at it. Again. He stared. Again.

He was fascinated by her smile. Still. It wasn't put on. It wasn't forced. It was... happiness?

He was amazed by how she looked at the camera, yet seemed oddly unaware of it. Or just indifferent. It couldn't affect her.

He didn't know any of the other people in the picture, but he was sure that they existed in orbit around her, and not vice versa.

He put the picture back down on the seat. Next to a shiny black leather case.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to Eddie Vedder singing about "a star in somebody else's sky."

"But, why?" indeed.

The steering wheel was attached to the rest of his Toyota Tundra 4x4. Which, according to many, was a strange choice for someone who drove exclusively in the city. He didn't care.

Again, another example of him doing things his own way.

And doing things his own way led him to where he was sitting today. Right now. At that moment.

Despite it only being the 21st of August, there was a slight chill in the air. It felt and smelled a bit like fall. All the more jarring considering the oppressively hot summer they had just endured.

It all had a first day of school vibe to him. He imagined/remembered wearing brand new white sneakers -- that would be lucky to remain white until lunch time. Suddenly, inexplicably, and without invitation, twenty-five year old memories of his childhood began to flood in. He quickly pushed them out of his mind, having no time to wade through the Rorschachian mess of images and unavoidably intertwined emotions.

He was here for a reason.

He noticed two men shooting the shit down the block. One had a dog on a leash. Perhaps a chocolate lab puppy. Unnoticed by his owner, the little dog gnawed on his leash. As if trying to make one heroic break for freedom from a future lived under the thumb of this stocky, accountant-looking motherfucker with the bad combover.

He could relate. He rooted for the dog.

And then he saw her.

He definitely didn't need the picture to pick her out.

He felt his breath catch in his throat a little.

She was leaving her house and already on her cellphone. He was sure that she was the recipient of the call. And he wasn't surprised.

Her hair was a little shorter, he thought -- or just tucked a bit into her coat. And it was what he had always imagined chestnut brown to look like, but he could be completely off.

She was wearing glasses. They worked.

They really worked.

She was dressed cutely, but not really showy. She looked like the cover of a JCrew fall catalogue. She looked so damn good, he thought. It was almost as though she was doing the clothes a favour by wearing them.

Instinctively he glanced in the mirror and ran his hand through his hair. Presumably to achieve just the proper amount of rumpled-looking.

After a couple of failed attempts to extricate himself from his seatbelt, he got out of his truck and walked towards her. She was going in the opposite direction. He sped up a little to catch her. His pulse was racing. When he got close...

"Excuse me?" He said, never more aware of his voice.

She turned around.

He continued, "Dana... Are you Dana Patterson?"

"Yup. That's me," she said, her mouth, eyes and voice all working in concert to create the perfect smile.

He reached inside his pocket and tapped on his package of cigarettes.

Labels: fiction, first drafts

Jeff: Hi.

Jennifer: Hello.

Jeff: This is Jeff.

Jennifer: Hi, Jeff. I'm Jennifer.

Jeff: First time using "The Pretty People Party Chat Line?"

Jennifer: Yup. You?

Jeff: Yeah.

(Beat.)

Jennifer: Really?

Jeff: Fifth.

Jennifer: Sixth for me.

Jeff: So, we are both undateable AND filthy liars.

Jennifer: Common ground. Great start!

Jeff: Indeed. So, tell me about your last relationship.

Jennifer: Well, it lasted, like... four months. Give or take. But, we ARE so different.

Jeff: How so?

Jennifer: Views. Goals. Everything. He'd say "to-MAY-to" and I'd say, "Go fuck yourself."

Jeff: So, probably not love then?

Jennifer: I'm guessing not.

Jeff: Mine wasn't much better.

Jennifer: Oh no?

Jeff: Suffice it to say, you should not date a woman just because she has a spectacular ass.

Jennifer: The same goes for picking a gynecologist.

Jeff: What?

Jennifer: Nothing. Anyway...

Jeff: Yeah.

Jennifer: My ex was all sorts of crazy. Plus, he thought we were going to get married.

Jeff: Here's my theory on marriage... You should date a woman long enough to make sure that she isn't completely crazy. Then you should stay engaged long enough to make sure that she didn't sneak by the initial completely crazy filer. And then you can finally relax and marry her... knowing full well that she is going to eventually turn completely crazy on you.

Jennifer: Wow.

Jeff: And to make it apply to men, you usually replace "completely crazy" with "lazy pain in the ass."

Jennifer: That's a pretty solid theory, Jeff.

Jeff: It's what I do.

Jennifer: So... what are your turn-ons?

Jeff: My turn-ons...

Jennifer: Like, for me, I love a man in uniform.

Jeff: So, I should dig out my old boy scout uniform?

Jennifer: Exactly.

Jeff: Well, where do you stand on French Maid costumes?

Jennifer: Where do I stand? Uhm... over you?

Jeff: I could not like that answer more.

Jennifer: My Aunt Sheila had a saying, "It all ends up balled up on the floor regardless." Of course, she also said, "The best way to get over someone is to get under... their best friend."

Jeff: That is SO weird. The only other person I've ever heard say that is my mother.

Jennifer: Jeff... What's your mother's name?

Jeff: It's Sheila, why do you--? Oh no.

Jennifer: Oh crap!

Jeff: It's can't be...

Jennifer: Cousin Jeffrey?!?

Jeff: I am going to puke.

Jennifer: I feel dirty. SO dirty.

Jeff: Right here. Vomit all over the place.

Jennifer: This is a new low for me.

Jeff: We can't EVER discuss this again.

Jennifer: It didn't happen.

Jeff: Definitely going to puke.

Jennifer: And a regular shower is not going to cut it... I need to be sprayed down by that hose they use to clean 18 wheelers.

Jeff: This is terrible.

Jennifer: I could not be more embarrassed.

(Beat.)

Jeff: Were you serious about the french maid uniform?

*click*

Jeff: Hello. Hello?

Labels: fiction, NaBloPoMo

"It's not you, it's me," she said.

And he believed her.

Mostly because she is a huge fucking mess.

He felt guilty for thinking that.

And then he felt justified because she rocked such a cliché on him.

And then he felt guilty for that too.

As he ran, Stars' "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" echoed through the ear buds of his iPod.

Not by design.

Honestly.

He ran the same route every single day. He could do it on auto-pilot.

Luckily.

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin.
Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in.

It could have been worse.

The last of his walls was just days from coming down.

He would have been completely unguarded.

Against her.

He knew better.

It's not as if he wanted his heart to get it's ass kicked.

Probably.

Maybe.

He tried to run fast enough so that people couldn't see him.

He caught himself thinking, "It's her loss."

But, he didn't want to be THAT guy.

Even if it was true.

He could see the positives.

He could.

Like with every other failed relationship, he had learned something.

Though he found more solace in that when he was younger.

He arrived home. He stretched on the sidewalk.

He went in for a drink. Strawberry Melon Powerade sucks.

He stared in the bathroom mirror. He shook his head and managed a little smile.

He knew better.

He got undressed. He got the shower temperature just right. He got in.

It was time to wash it all off and get a fresh start.

"Maybe the next one..."

Labels: fiction, It REALLY is

Dude #1: How goes the whole getting over your crush thing?

Dude #2: I've come up with a new plan. Every time I think of her and smile, I hit myself in the nuts with a meat tenderizer.

Dude #1: Ouch.

Dude #2: Yeah. I still think she's awesome... But, I haven't had a steak in three weeks.

Labels: fiction