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creative fiction

The History of Romance (original fic)

The History of Romance
by attica
Rating: PG-13
status: one-shot
summary: He didn’t know a thing about romance. And romance sure as hell didn’t know a thing about him. He thought he was supposed to find comfort in this balance of mutual cluelessness and neglect, but he didn’t find any at all.
 

“Oh, Jesus Christ in Heaven.”

There was a shuffling noise then, the shrill squeak of rubber against glazed tile. He felt something lift him up by the shirt on his back – damp, no doubt – and then fingers in his face. At first the fingers swept away the matted, grimy hair from his forehead, and then they began slapping him around. Softly at first, but after a few seconds of nonresponse, they began to get harder.

He figured this would be the opportune moment to let out a throaty moan.

“You,” the voice said to him, “look like shit right now, do you know that? Real shit. Shit run over shit. Sit up. I mean it. Sit the fuck up.”

When he opened his eyes he felt like he was in a cocoon. You know, with a thin layer of whatever it is caterpillars shit out of their mouths surrounding him, separating him from the rest of the world, keeping him all cradled. Everything was milky. And blurry. Then he began to cough, which almost turned into throwing up on her bright blue shoes.

When she realized this, she hopped back. “Shit, man! I like these shoes!”

When he recovered himself – although what that meant exactly, he didn’t quite know, since he still really felt extraordinarily like shit – he looked up at her. Her eyebrows were knotted in the middle, and he recognized this look from her, ever since they were little. Then he looked back down at her bright blue shoes on the beige tiles, trying to figure out what he was doing, sitting here and feeling this way.

“Guess it didn’t work,” he heard her say above him. He felt like there was an engine in the kitchen, making it hard for him to hear her. She was holding up an empty bottle of aspirin. “Killing yourself and all.”

“Guess it didn’t,” he said back. He swallowed. He felt hot vomit slide back down his throat.

“You’re a genius, you know that? Brightest fucking boy on this side of the pond and he swallows all the aspirin. Einstein Jr., passed out on my kitchen floor.”

He noticed she was wearing her red sweater with the birds on the shoulders. The one she’d worn when he’d kissed her for the first time, and she laughed into his mouth before she told him that he smelled like Greek food. Funny, because he hadn’t liked her at first. She was all right looking, you know, with dark hair and a small mouth, but her nose was too narrow, and he didn’t like that. The first time he met her, nothing clicked like it was supposed to when you know you’re supposed to be with someone. He’d read enough books and heard enough songs and watched enough movies to know that something – some-fucking-thing – was supposed to click. And he kept waiting for something to click. They’d gone to a Greek place they both liked and talked about what people are supposed to talk about on dates, and nothing clicked. Then he drove her home.

It was the drive home that did it, oddly enough. It was a silent ride back, which usually makes any ride seem longer than it actually is, so he grabbed the first CD off the pile in his dashboard and popped it in. He liked doing this. There was an odd thrill for him, hearing the soft whirring of the internal machinery and then seeing the 1 blink on, before hearing the first note of the first song. It was a guessing game for a few good seconds. The anticipation built up, and there was excitement. Very small excitement, but excitement all the same.

It was Simon and Garfunkel. He didn’t listen to them much, but he did occasionally, when the mood struck him. They reminded him of his mother. And then they reminded him of how, on a bright Tuesday afternoon, she’d found his father cheating on her with some accountant. And then they reminded him of how she’d left, and how she didn’t bother to take him with her.

He was busy thinking about this when he heard her sing. Softly at first, and then a little more comfortably. And then he looked at her. He didn’t know any other girl that sang in other people’s cars, much less people they barely knew. But she was doing it. And she wasn’t fantastic, either – but she wasn’t bad.

But there was something about it. Something that made something click. Watching her sit in the passenger seat, with the fading lights of the cars that passed them by, singing in the presence of someone she hardly knew. Their windows were open, and he could smell the rain they’d just happened to miss.

And it clicked.

God knows how, or why. He’d never been particularly fond of Simon and Garfunkel. But when they pulled over at the sidewalk of her apartment, he turned off the engine and leaned over to kiss her, in her red sweater. The one with the birds on the shoulders.

And now he was here. Swallowing back his own vomit after downing more aspirins than he could ever care to remember, looking like shit on her kitchen floor. Not exactly the most heroic gesture known to the history of romance when trying to win back a girl that sings Simon and Garfunkel in a stranger’s car. He would have kicked himself if he didn’t still feel mildly paralyzed, as if he’d traded bodies with a block of lead. He didn’t know a thing about romance. And romance sure as hell didn’t know a thing about him. He thought he was supposed to find comfort in this balance of mutual cluelessness and neglect, but he didn’t find any at all.

He didn’t realize she was trying to offer him some water until she was holding it in front of his face, like he was a dog. He numbly took it from her. He mumbled a thanks, before he drank. His throat was painfully dry and the water slid down like silk.

It tasted like vomit.

She was sitting down with him on the floor, just watching him. It was early. He could see the sunlight peeking through the small curtains by her kitchen sink.

“I didn’t mean to” – he stopped himself. His hands were shaking. And he was damp all over. When he looked her in the eye she wasn’t angry, and that was what made things even harder. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Nothing,” she said to him, “is supposed to be like anything we expect it to be.”

He wanted to tell her that he’d originally come here to win her back. He’d had daisies. He’d never given her back her key so he’d meant to surprise her, and he waited up until about two in the morning before he realized she wasn’t coming home any time soon, because she was sleeping with someone. Letting some stranger take off her clothes and then fuck her like an animal.

He’d never been this way. When he finally remembered it, it was dark and hazy, like a bad dream you try to keep in the dark parts of your mind so you never have to remember. He didn’t feel like himself last night. He was possessed by the evil spirit of an insanely, psychotically jealous heart, is what his friend Frank from Michigan would say. Frank was into that stuff, talking about emotional issues. He didn’t know any other guy that was as open with it as Frank was, which is why he surmised the other menfolk at his job called Frank a faggot.

“Do you like him?”

He’d been watching her for several minutes and he’d finally gotten the guts to ask. When she didn’t answer right away, he asked it again, but differently this time. “Do you love him?”

“I’ve only been on three dates with the guy,” she said to him. “Don’t be stupid.”

“But you slept with him.”

She looked him in the eye. “I did, last night. “ Silence, cold hard silence, tightened around his chest like frozen fist. “But it was the first time. If that matters.”

Now he didn’t know much about relationships but he knew enough to know that when somebody looks you in the eye and admits they’ve slept with someone else, it’s a hint of how things are supposed to be. Or, rather –how things are.

Over, in a simple singular term.

Just. Over.

He handed her the glass of water and tried to get up, which was difficult at first, but he managed during the second try. His knees felt hard and stiff but his brain felt like porridge. As he stood up, he felt like a ghost. As if he was moving faster than his body was taking him. He felt numb but he felt this heaviness in his chest that signaled to him that no, everything was not okay.

He thought about all of the other times when he’d felt like this. The day he watched his mother pack all of her things while trying to drown out her crying by playing Frank Sinatra. The way she’d kissed him and told him she loved him and then walked out the door. Empty. Betrayed.

“It’s not the end of the world, you know,” he heard her say as he was leaving. “Just when you think it should be, it never is.”

He looked at her. Tried to smile, but he didn’t know if it worked out or not. “I know,” he said. “I just took a whole bottle of aspirin and I’m still alive.”

If his world was supposed to end, it would have ended last night.

Because there was another thing Faggot Frank used to say. He would say, “Love isn’t end the world. It’s supposed to be the start of it.”

And then he walked out and threw up in her rosebushes.