Work in Fiction.

I'm trying my hand at a bit of fiction today.  I like fiction because it's much more fun than my everyday life and anything is possible.  I just never know how to end it.

This is kind of a really short story.  I don't know what I want to do with it, yet.  For now I'll probably just toss it in the "Works in Progress" folder on my laptop.

Hope you enjoy!



"Oh, no one ever told you? They put an expiration date on love."


No. No one ever told me that.

You'd think that would be on the list of important things to tell a little girl. You know, always keep your legs together when you're wearing a dress; always wash your hands after touching raw meat; wear cotton or you'll get a yeast infection; high-heels will make your ass look tighter; love expires... Seems like it should be one of the normal necessities needed in order to get through adolescence and some of adulthood.

"It's still there," he said, his chocolate eyes watery from beer and glazed with some kind of filthy, disgusting satisfaction. "There are embers from what once was a passionate fire that still glow. But it's like when medicine gets real old; you have to take a bunch for the pills to do anything worthwhile. That's how it is with us now. It would take more effort than it's really worth to start the fire back up again. And what would we get out of it? Just more pain. Just like before. I like being your friend. And I like the new fire I have with her now."

Her.

Sarah.

Even her fucking name seemed mediocre.

"I'll always love you. But it's different now. And I'm happy with the way my life is," he continued. I knew what he was insinuating. Happy the way my life is without you in it.

I knew he wasn't finished with his pointless and uninvited lecture. I pulled my dark sunglasses down over my eyes, despite the darkness of the bar. The other patrons had been awkwardly watching us for twenty minutes, probably because I was the only female in the place. I didn't want them to see me cry.

"It was good to see you. I really have to go," I said. He shrugged and turned away from me.  I practically ran out of the bar and into the harsh sunlight and screaming cars.

There's nothing quite like running out of a meeting with your ex, the one person you have and will always love, telling you they don't want you in their life except to be a friend and then having to wait pathetically at a crosswalk in five o'clock traffic.

He'd been dating her a little over a month. Helping with some business venture and sleeping on her couch.

She didn't know he talked to me every day. She didn't know that once every week or so we got together for beers and inapproprate conversation. She didn't know he still told me he loved me. She didn't know about the week before when he took me swimming in the surf of the ocean, then laid me down in it and kissed me, like an old black and white film. She didn't know the love in his eyes as he wrapped me up in his old blanket under the cool stars. She could never understand how the stars exploded like fireworks when we were together. He would never have that with her. I will never understand why he chose to have it with me that last night. Why he chose to be unfaithful. Why he ultimately chose her over me.

She didn't know he didn't come home that night because he was holding me. And he, quite obviously, was not about to tell her.

If I had been cheated on, I would want to know as soon as it happened.

Would she want to know now? If they got married, would he tell her then? Or would he just keep this massive infidelity to himself, hoping I wouldn't say anything, for the rest of his life?

Would she care that the baby I had been carrying was his? That it had been conceived while they were a couple?

I never told him about the baby.

I never will.

Her name is Lydia, after his grandmother. And when I look into her big chocolate eyes, I see his face... And the way he loved me. Many, many years ago.