October 15, 2007

• They sat in the room with the door locked, speaking in hushed tones that couldn’t be carried through the air vents or the other minuscule holes that have betrayed too many secrets of clandestine, illicit affairs.

  “You must think I’m pathetic,” she whispered to the girl quietly munching a slice of bacon.
  “Hmmm….. ” and the blonde paused to look at her normally gregarious friend, reduced to a brittle-shelled column of quivering emotions. “Not pathetic, just…… lonely.”
  The brunette guffawed loudly at the absurd aptness of the description. “You can say that again,” she whispered under her breath.
  “No, I mean…. you had fun last night, yeah?”
  “Yes, I did, but I don’t ever want to go through it again.”
  “Go through what again?” asked the blonde.
  “The whole…. thing!” She threw her right hand away as if encompassing and dismissing the subject that she wanted to broach and quell in a heartbeat.
  “Honey, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”
  The brunette sighed and brought her hands to her forehead, slipping her glasses off for a second to pinch the bridge of her nose in a posture of frustrated defeat.
  “I can’t do the things you do – the dating for dating’s sake – I can’t take the possibility of rejection as easily as you can.”
  “Wait a minute. Back up a sec. What on earth…….. what are you talking about? Rejection?” and the blonde rolled her hands forward, gesturing for her friend to rewind and continue. “Have you never….. haven’t you ever dated before with no expectations, no worries – “
  “No hope? No desire? No mutual attraction? No, Beth, I haven’t.” The brunette shook her head, soft strands of dark hair pulling loose from her bun and brushing the side of her neck. She shook her head vehemently again, as if to rid her mind of something forbidden. “Every time I’ve ever had a Date, it was always because I was already attracted to them, and it’s like…. it’s like holding your breath when you plunge head first into the water, because the next breath you take is so much sweeter for lack of oxygen.”
  Beth sat back a little to ponder this new information from her usually modest, almost prudish friend. Then carefully, slowly as if approaching a cornered animal, she plied her words to soothe the suffering little creature before her. “I don’t think you have to worry about the feelings being returned. He really seemed to be just as nervous as you were last night.”
  “Nervous, huh? God, you must think I’m a pathetic loser right now,” her friend repeated dejectedly. “Complaining that the first date I’ve been on in years didn’t end the way I wanted it to.”
  “I think it ended the right way. I thought he was gonna kiss you for a second when he hugged you goodnight.”
  “Wha-what?” she looked up, horrified at the thought that perhaps she’d read him wrong after all.
  “He hugged you for a moment longer than he hugged me, I think.” Beth picked up another bacon slice to nibble as she thought about the situation.
  “No………. No…………..No. Don’t you See? I can’t go through that again. It hurts too much to not say what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling. And I know that’s what you’re not supposed to disclose on the dates you’re talking about, but listen to me, Beth. This is me – I’m completely flummoxed by the social niceties everyone else seems to know. I can’t….. I can’t just leave it like that. If I like someone and want to spend more time with them, then I say so. And to leave me hanging like this…. No, I don’t want to date the way you do. We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree about this.” The brunette turned to her fair-haired friend who nodded. “This is the difference between us. This is what makes you Beth, and what makes me Joni.”

  • 1:29 am
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