FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #7

She's a local. Al heard an police officer with sunglasses say to another writing on a clipboard. He waited for the traffic light to change colors and the cars to clear, then walked over with his dog in tow, sniffing the smell of gasoline and burnt tires making its way through the air, to the man filling out the police report.
    “Keep clear, sir,” the office said, putting his hand out.
    “I’m sorry. The white accord, who does it belong to?” Al asked.
    The officer in sunglasses nodded in the direction of the ambulance, where a paramedic tended to a girl in a stretcher. Al couldn’t get a good look at the girl, so he took a better look at the car.
    “The driver’s side is all smashed to hell.”
    “Yeah.”
    “What happened?”
    “The accord was at the red, minding it’s own business, waiting to go Southbound. The grey Lexus was coming Northbound, boogying to make the yellow, while the green jeep was on the crossing street, waiting to turn left, Southbound.”
    “Lexus says his light was still yellow and the jeep says his light turned green,” said the officer with the clipboard.
    “Yeah,” Al said, trying to put a motion to their words. “Was anyone badly injured?”
    “The guys in the first collision are fine. Shaken up, but fine. I don’t know about the girl though,” said the office, nodding to the ambulance again. The stretcher was now loaded into the back of the ambulance. Al thought he saw someone put a sheet over the girls face, but the doors closed before he could really tell.  
    “Did you know her?”
    “I know her,” Al said. She lived directly across the street from him. He had known her since she was a little girl, running around in the front yard. When her and her family moved in just across from them, Al and his wife, Beth, knew they wanted a little girl just like her, and they tried for many years, but nothing happened until they got too old to keep trying and got Roxy, their dog. The lights turned and cars began again, so he walked back to the sidewalk and headed home.

#

    Early that morning she was sitting outside of a cafe with Matthew, her boyfriend.  
    “I’m very sorry,” she said.
    “You’ve very sorry? That’s great. Just great.”
    “Matthew.”
    “No, really. It’s better than great. It’s a laugh.”
    “You don’t have to be like this.”
    “Is a laugh better than great?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I feel like it is, but I’m not sure.”
    “This isn’t funny.”
    “It is though. It’s so funny I could slit my wrists.”
    “I’m trying to talk to you. I’m trying to tell you something and you aren’t listening.”
    Matthew gave her a look, but she wouldn’t play along.
    “Is this it?” he asked.
    “This is it.”
    He put his head down and ran his hand through his hair, like he always did when he didn’t know what to say.
    “Matthew, I don’t want you to think I didn’t care about you, or that I didn’t like being with you. I did. You’re a great person.”
    “Please, stop.”
    “I just want to let you know how I feel.”
    “You’re making it worse.”
    “Making what worse?”
    “Everything.”
    “Please believe me when I tell you this is hard for me. It really is.”
    Matthew wiped his face with his sleeve, trying to keep her from noticing, but she did and it made her think of when Victor broke her heart in a diner, and how she had wiped the flesh under her eyes, just like Matthew just did, so many times that it became raw and stung each time. Victor was so calm and crying hurt so much she let out a whimper of frustration. People started to look at them, but Victor didn’t seem to notice. He smiled at her and said “Don’t you cry, Anne,” and she stopped right then. She blew her nose in her napkin and thought maybe they could get back together when summer started and she immediately began making plans in her head, but Victor started seeing someone by Valentine’s Day, and she had just met Matthew and he was nice and sensitive, then Victor moved away without telling anyone where he was going. Summer started and nothing had worked out the way she thought it would, and here she was, sitting across from Matthew, thinking about Victor for the first time in years, wondering where he was.
    “This is hard for you? I’m the one who still loves you. Can you imagine how hard it is for me?” She knew because she had still loved Victor when he ended things with her. She wondered if Victor was lying when he told her about how difficult it was for him to come to that decision, and if she was lying when she said how difficult it was for her.
    “I love you,” Matthew said. “I mean it. I really do.”
    “I know.”
    “You don’t love me. “
    “Matthew..”
    “You don’t. Just say it.”
    “Don’t be like this.”
    “You can say it. It’s okay. I mean, it isn’t okay. I feel horrible, but you can say it.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s just better if you say it. I want you to say it. Please. For me.”
    “I don’t love you.”
    She saw Matthew tremble.
    “I thought I’d feel better if you said it, but I don’t. I feel worse,” he finally said.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I didn’t think you’d say it.”
    “What did you think I’d say.”
    “That I was wrong and that you did love me.”
    “You know that isn’t true.”
    “I guess so.”
    “Did you ever love me?”
    “What kind of question is that?”
    “A valid one. I think it is a valid question.”
    “Yes.”
    “And now you don’t.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. It just happened.”
    “It just happened? Things don’t just happen. Something makes them happen. No, I’m not trying to be difficult here, but I feel I deserve an explanation.”
    She agreed, and she thought for a long time.
    “I couldn’t help it,” she said.
    “Is that it?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Okay.”
    They sat there for a long time. She looked at him. He looked out into the street at the cars driving by. She knew he was thinking of all their memories together and already they were being changed, altered in a way where the places, words, and movements all stayed the same but were completely different. Tomorrow they would be diminished and meaningless. It was unfair that all the years could be changed in an instant.
    They stood up and hugged. He felt familiar in her arms, his shoulder pressed into her face, like it had a million times before. She began to sob.
    “Why are you crying?”
    “Because it’s sad.”
    “You’re breaking up with me and you’re crying.”
    “I’m sad. I can be sad too. You aren’t the only one who gets to be sad.”
    “You get to break up with me and cry. What do I get?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing. I get nothing.”
    “Goodbye, Matthew. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
    “Sure.”

#

    She drove slow thinking about Matthew, if he was still sitting there or not. She didn’t mean to be mean. What else could be done? The sun was late to rise and the day had a dull look to it, though she liked gloomy weather. She felt good now, driving away from Matthew, away from the cafe, and away from something else too. She thought of a poem she found when she was sixteen, years before Victor, or Matthew, or any of them. She couldn’t remember the words exactly.
    
    God it feels so good
    to wake up alone
    in bed
    and not have to tell someone
    you love them
    when you don’t love them anymore.

The poem had always made her want to cry and now she had finally understood it. It was funny. She started laughing. Suddenly she felt so light she wanted to cry. She drove fast. She wanted to get home quickly and write down what it was she was feeling. She felt something that she knew she wouldn’t be able to describe, though she had to try. She had to. She stopped at the red light, gripping the steering wheel until her fingers went numb. She was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt when she saw the two cars collide in the intersection out of the corner of her eye. A blur of gray slid in her direction as she thought “There is nothing I can do about...

  

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