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fridaywriting-blog1 · 7 years

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The Fourth of July

It hadn’t been the stellar night I had initially envisioned. The time I spent at my aunts home greatly outweighed what I had projected, resulting in a half hour of nervous tension that I’m sure David could feel. The two of us were packed in next to one another on an item that was either an impossibly small couch or, more likely, a large chair. David had a pipeline to my dread, and I his embarrassment. They, my aunt and uncle, grilled him on things he wasn’t apt to answer. David is the music director of our school’s All- Male a Cappella group. I’m communication’s director. This is David’s first year in this position, and his fears for the group are evident.

Finally, salvation came in the form of a beautiful girl, like the least-epic Greek epic ever put to stone tablet. Aubrey Dabe had arrived, and we were out of there as fast as I could force it. I’m walking a thin line as I continue to lie to my family about the nature of our relationship, being that there is one between us at all. I know this. I nonetheless keep it up. I have some inexplicable trepidation that telling them I’m dating Aubrey would end badly. Though tonight, I manage to avoid any unwanted truths. We met with Ceres who I’d unintentionally kept waiting in an awful rude fashion due to the time spent at my aunts’.

To know me at all is to know this wasn’t a naturally put together group. However true, it was all of my friends. Ceres and David had quite possibly never met for more than minutes at a time, but that was not where I had chosen to place my fear. I’d say my fear was with my girlfriend, but it was our friends that mattered.

Her friends.

They used to be our friends.

Until they decided they hated me.

I know: “overly dramatic”. But I really don’t know what I’d done to lose them all. It’s not the first time, but I thought my freshman year would be different.

I told Aubrey she should go with her friends, who invited her earlier, instead of my friends that she barely knows. They were also downtown, wandering probably just out of view all night. Our paths running a horrible and frightening parallel. When I texted her about going with them, she told me no, she’d like to meet David and hadn’t seen Ceres since school got out. No mention of me.

There are things I know I should write off. But at its core, that’s my problem, I write nothing off. In my mind, everything matters. I’m obsessive and I create problems for myself I shouldn’t have. But the longer I’m alive the more I find this is a good mentality. Because turning off this analytical side cost me the foresight that might have stopped the end of my relationships with Aubrey’s friends.

I assured myself that she would rather be here with my group instead of people she enjoyed the company of. She’d tell me the truth, I thought, what’s stopping her? Then, many things, like, so many reasons she wouldn’t be honest about this.

I wish I could say I put it out of my mind. Instead I was being devoured from the inside out all night. Finally, as the show began, I sat down next to her. Our legs were dangling over the water, as if we were held there by nothing, and falling slowly into the mirror sheet reflecting the sub-par fireworks.

I shot a small glance over to her at just the wrong time. She was disappointed. It was a split second but it was clear as anything. It felt like the last bit of light leaving the sky at sunset. My body went numb little by little, spreading like a pulse from my feet down my arms into my fingers and up through my head.

I was so lightheaded, I barely noticed we all were walking back, and only their underwater-sounding voices stopping me from getting hit by passing cars. I hear Aubrey tell me where she’ll wait for her parents, and I hear myself reply. I’m no longer really piloting my body.

We arrive to where Aubrey leaves us. Ceres continues on to where he’ll be picked up. David turns a corner to our shared destination. I’m motionless. Whomever was in control of my mouth asks Aubrey if she’s okay waiting alone. She reassures them that she’ll be fine.

I knew what was happening next. I pushed myself out of my head and into the driver's seat. I reached hand up and place it underneath her hair, my thumb resting just before her ear and the other four fingers wrapping around her head. I send my other hand to her upper arm. Her eyes close; I follow suit. Our lips find each other and feeling comes back to my toes and the hairs on my neck. Then a voice in my head speaks,

“You’re not good enough for her.”

It wasn’t mine. It was a voice I’d never heard before. I didn’t have to time to worry about the fact that I was actually starting a spiral into true madness. All that really mattered in that moment was that they were right. I’m not.

We separate and she has a big, radiantly beautiful smile on her face and color has run to her cheeks and her eyes look at me and show me nothing. I can’t tell if it’s real. I want nothing more than to know how she feels. As my hands leave her body I retreat back into my own head, desensitized her goodbye that lacked an “I love you” that once was there.

My eyes open and I’m in my bed. My phone has messages from Aubrey and David and Ceres telling me last night was real. Aubrey said nothing of our kiss, though I do not think anything would provide aid to my racing and troubled mind. I lay back and accept that it's all over. And as of yet, nothing has changed at all.

#writing #story #true story #independenceday #fourthofjuly #love #dispair #memoir #journal #diary #personal

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