FICTION | THAT QUESTION.

No real heart-to-heart post today, friends. I'm still experimenting with my fiction-writing and as per the advice from Amy (my unofficial writing mentor), I'm just letting it out and writing. Not thinking, just writing.

image via Unsplash.

I remember the day that we sat together on the railing, our jeans barely touching. We were overlooking the beach below, looking out into the vastness of the world. We were sitting so close and yet our conversation was bringing us farther and farther away.

The way he talked made it seem like I was part of his past and I didn't like where it was headed.

"So what are you trying to say?" I stammered, trying not to let the tears welling in my eyes burst like a flood.

"I don't know," he replied, rubbing his hand against his thigh. He turned his head away from me, looking out into the dark starry sky. He was avoiding me, this conversation, this moment. He was distancing himself, just as he'd done time and time again.

"I don't get it. I just don't get it. What does 'I don't know' mean? What are you trying to say?" I held myself back from asking the next question that almost left my lips.

I stood up, climbed off of the railing and tried to wipe a tear from my eye as discretely as possible.

He didn't say a word. I wanted to run, escape all of this. I wanted to get in my car, curl up under the covers of my bed in my apartment and just cry. Let it all out. And let it all go.

And yet, I stood there. Frozen in time. I didn't know what to do, where to go, what to say. I let the silence take over.

I saw him pull out his phone. His phone.

"You're kidding me," I said in response. "You're seriously going to check your phone right now?" my emotions were quickly boiling and I knew I was just about to lose it.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, suddenly defensive.

"I want you to talk to me. I want you to tell me what you're thinking. Are you saying we're, we're done?" That last word lingered in the air and sent a chill down my back. I didn't mean to say that. I wanted to take it all back as quickly as I let it slip out of my mouth.

"Yeah, I think so." He answered too quickly, too matter-of-factly. He, too, got up from the railing and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked away again and acted like we had never met before.

I tried looking at him. I wanted to make eye contact and yet he looked away and avoided my every effort. He was done and I wish I was too.

I felt my phone buzzing in my purse but didn't move. I was still frozen and yet there he was, getting ready to get up and leave like we had just had dinner and a movie.

Which we had, only hours before.