An exercise in creative writing

** Disclaimer: The following events may or may not have actually happened, and may or may not have involved actual people. This idea was born out of intense boredom and the avoidance of doing something truly productive. Upon its completion I realize why I'm entering the field of political journalism, and not writing novels. Apologies in advance. I'll never do it again. I promise.


'You know you don't handle change very well.'

'Yeah well, I haven't been exactly thrilled with the status quo either.'

He grinned and looked nervously at the ground, as he is prone to do when speaking aloud about anything regarding feelings, emotion, and all things intimate.

She probably knew what he was thinking, but out of courtesy didn't let it show. It was probably better that way. To address the fact that at any given point he was just a few utterances away from a flood of tears certainly didn't benefit either of them.

She continued talking, but he had long since let his mind wander. Not to say that he wasn't paying her any attention, but rather than her words, he was much more captivated by the movement of her lips as she said them. The small freckle above her upper lip swayed back and forth with every subtle movement, bringing attention to the others sporadically placed around her otherwise flawless skin. His favorite was the one just inside her ear that she probably didn’t even know she had. For a moment, he found himself in his high school english class discussing a Robert Herrick poem professing a ‘delight in disorder’. Suddenly it all made infinitely more sense.

He wanted badly to look into her eyes, but shied away from them -- almost as if he wasn’t worthy, or rather, allowed. Not here. Not today. With the timidity of a young boy entering his parents bedroom during a storm, he pulled his eyes up to hers, only to dart them away at the first inkling that she might be watching.

His stomach swelled with a feeling he hadn’t known in much too long. It was a feeling that, if only for a fleeting moment, everything was right again. He held onto that moment for as long as he could, but soon the demons of logic and reality quickly stole it away.

Amidst the thoughts of long drives, movie nights and dinner dates racing through his head, he noticed an awkward silence. The words had stopped, and he'd not heard a single one of them.
She looked at him as if expecting an answer.

‘Oh, yeah. I-- I know what you mean.’ he said, vainly attempting to feign focus.

‘You weren’t listening, were you?’

He again grinned nervously and with a trace of shame, and felt the warmth as blood rushed to his appropriately embarrassed face.

‘Sorry...I guess I phased out or something. What were you saying?’

‘Nothing. It wasn’t very important anyway.’

She didn’t understand. He wanted desperately to listen. He wanted desperately for her to talk to him, to notice him, to seek out his company. To think of him the way he thought of her. But his own self consciousness would not allow him the freedom to listen. He was much too involved in avoiding saying something uncouth or making a fool of himself. Not to mention that she was far too gorgeous to be talking to the likes of him in the first place.

There was so much he wanted to tell her, if she would only want to listen. He had ideas, plans...solutions. He loved her, but was somehow prevented from telling her as much. She was unapproachable. It didn't make sense, but then again, logic was a luxury not often afforded to these situations.

As she left, he felt the stinging disappointment of another missed opportunity. An opportunity to tell her. To show her.

He watches her until she’s out of sight, then fishes out his pen, opens his tattered notebook and begins scribbling the things he wishes he’d said -- that he’d been able to say. The things that he wishes she wanted to hear. He closes his notebook and makes his way to his car.

‘Tomorrow,’ he mumbles to himself, ‘tomorrow I’ll tell her. Tomorrow will be different.’

Just not today.