Story Sort Of

[Grouse]

An original story I wrote from looooong ago. Way long. Inspired by Ingrid Michaelson's Sort Of.

One

The moment she steps foot in their new house, she decides that she will never like this place.

She’s sworn to hate it, in fact.

She misses New York. She misses her old room (small as it is), and the way she can hear cars buzzing and people talking outside though it was already 2 in the morning. She misses the bright, glaring city lights at night, threatening to burn stronger than the rays of the sun. She misses the street performers and the tourists, the people who have just moved in and the people who have been there all their lives, chatting away in a symphony of accents and languages, old and new and familiar and alien blending into a glorious melting pot of creeds and cultures.

She misses New York. New York bustles with life; the city itself is alive.

The new town they have moved into is much too small, and her room much too big. She can barely hear anything outside after 8PM, even if she tries to press her ear against the window. Everyone turns off their lights after 9, and everyone dresses the same, and speaks the same, and it would not come as a surprise to her if they all turn out to think the same, too.

You can’t really blame her for swearing to hate it.

They move in during the middle of the school year. Everyone already knows each other, and everyone’s already chosen who they are going to be friends with, and everyone’s already decided that they don’t want to make any more. At lunch, she decides to sit on a creaky old white bench, all by herself, quietly munching on her sandwich as she watches the others run around, laughing, from afar. Somehow, her mind always finds a way to drift back to New York.

Really, you can’t blame her for swearing to hate this place.

It is around her fourteenth day on the bench when he takes up his place beside her. You have to understand; for an eight-year-old, fourteen days mean an eternity. She’s practically claimed the bench as her sole-territory-for-life when he decides to invade her space.

What? She asks, frowning.

He gives her a baffled look, smiles, and proceeds to take out his lunch as if she's never said anything.

She notes that his eyes are a dark brown. Like the colour of poop, she thinks, and then she shivers at the thought.

As if she hasn’t got enough reason to hate this town and everyone in it.

The two of them have their lunch on the bench for another sixteen days which, if you’ve been paying attention, is even longer than an eternity for a mere eight-year-old. They never acknowledge each other’s presence, never acknowledge each other’s existence, even. That is, of course, until the cat appears on the seventeenth day.

Meow!

An orange tabby cat makes a sound as if to announce its arrival.

They look at each other. Connect. This feline creature is threatening to entrench on their territory. She frowns at the thought; it used to be all hers in the first place.

He’s a telepath of some sort, she’s convinced, because he laughs almost immediately, as if he could read her mind. He shrugs, gets off his seat and kneels down to pet the cat.

Hello Mr. Kitty, he says, and she realises it’s the first time she’s ever heard his voice.

It’s Ms. Kitty; she’s obviously a girl cat. She rolls her eyes.

Is not.

Is so!

I’m going to be an animal doctor when I grow up, so I know, he retorts, condescension apparent in his voice, as if his word is the end all, be all.

Well then, you’re going to be a crap animal doctor, she sticks her tongue out.

He laughs at this. There’s something contagious about his laughter, she thinks, and she finally gives in.

Moments after, he tells him his name, and she tells him hers. They talk, and she forgets New York for a while. No more quiet lunches have been had since.

Later, she notes that his brown eyes reminded her more of chocolate. They're pretty to look at, she thinks.

Perhaps this town isn’t half as bad as she paints it to be.

Two

She hits puberty, and she decides she hates growing up.

Her dad tells her that she’s looking more and more like her mother each day, and he smiles, like he thinks this is a good thing. When she pretends to look away, she can see that he doesn’t look quite the slightest bit happy. Not really.

She supposes her mother must have been beautiful though, because boys have started paying attention to her more – or at least so he says. He is a lot more outgoing than she is, see. He’s friends with virtually everyone in their class, always knows what’s going on around.

After school, on their way home, they take a small detour and spend their time sitting on a certain creaky, old white bench. Him – feeding her all the newest juicy gossip about their classmates. Her – listening. She doesn’t really care much about who’s dating who in their class, can't really give a damn what they're doing, but she’s grown to like the sound of his voice and, sometimes, when the weather is right, he can really get a good, hearty laugh out of her.

One day, at the start of their last year in High School, he tells her he’s got great news.

Remember how he’s spent the break in a summer camp? He asks her. She nods. He tells her that the captain of the football team had gone to the same camp. They’ve become good friends, he tells her, all Cheshire grin and mischievous brown eyes.

He told me he likes you. Ever since freshman year, he’s liked you.

Tyler? She laughs at the thought. Tyler? She repeats, incredulous.

Tyler the golden boy? With his perfect body, and glorious blond locks? With his bright blue eyes, and majestic jawline?

He’s practically a superstar, idiot! Don't be silly. She punches him lightly in his arm, tells him he better not spread stupid rumours around.

He’s a superstar, she repeats, as if it proves her point. If he really wants to ask her out, he already would have a long time ago.

He thought we were dating, he shrugs, and now he laughs at the thought. She says nothing, keeps a smile plastered on her face, though a part of her questions why they aren’t in the first place.

It’s thoughts like these that make her wish she’d just stayed a child forever.

A few days later, he manages to successfully coax her into going on a double date with him. Him and Marissa. Her and Tyler.

Tyler walks her home after the date, asks for permission to kiss her. She smiles and says yes. When he kisses her, he kisses her gently. Tyler is sweet and nice, and she likes him, she decides. The thought of him makes her smile, though she also realises he couldn’t quite make her laugh.

More importantly, she thinks, his eyes just aren’t quite the right colour.

Three

As senior prom looms, she’s sworn off his girlfriend to the most unpleasant depths of hell.

This time, to her surprise, she’s come to hate her purely for unselfish reasons.

Marissa dumps him two weeks before the dance. He’s been looking forward to prom all year, and he’s devastated.

She decides to come with him to prom. He asks her about Tyler, and she merely shrugs. They’ve had a big row, she tells him, so she’s decided not to come with him to prom either.

When she tells Tyler, he only nods and smile. Nothing ever sways him, she thinks. And anyway, she assures him, it will not require him much effort to get a date much prettier than her at such a last minute. Tyler only nods and smiles. Nothing ever sways him.

Sometimes, she really wishes she could just fall in love with Tyler. Then, maybe, things wouldn’t have to be so complicated.

Prom turns out to be a disaster for the two of them. He sees Marissa with her new date, and so he decides to waste the night away. By the end of the night, he’s wasted and can barely stand on his own. She doesn’t know what to do, looks at Tyler, her eyes pleading for help, but all night he’s been avoiding her gaze. She can't exactly blame him.

Let’s go home, she says. He shrugs, his face all flushed and stinking of alcohol. She chuckles. You’re pathetic, she puts his arm around her shoulders, and they begin to trudge their way back to the neighbourhood.

In a way, she is, too.

He is too heavy, and she decides to take a break as they reach their old primary school. They sit on a certain creaky bench, miraculously still there after years of wear and neglect.

You’re a heavy son of a bitch, you know that? She remarks, sighing.

Maybe you should exercise more, fat ass, he slurs. They laugh.

Silence engulfs them for a while. It brings her back to the days before they knew each other’s names, back when they ate their sandwiches and ignored each other’s dreary existence.

Whatever happened to that tabby cat? She says, remembering.

I’ve no idea what you’re talkin’ ‘bout, he manages through barely intelligible speech.

Ms. Kitty, she clarifies.

Mr. Kitty, you mean, he corrects her, adamant. At any rate, how’d you know abo-

I went around later that day to find that cat, she interrupts, always eager to prove him wrong. It’s definitely Ms. Kitty.

Mr. Kitty, he insists, petulant. I would know, I’m going to be-

Ms. Kitty! She retorts proudly, grinning, turning round to face him. Ms. Kitty, she repeats, insolent, taunting him.

He looks back at her, finally, bites his lip before erupting into tiny fits of giggles. There’s something contagious about his laughter, she thinks.

What? She whispers, her eyes twinkling. He says nothing, only grins, pulls her face to meet his, palms cradling her jaw, lips hungrily locking to hers. He tastes like whiskey and chocolate, she thinks, and she kisses him back.

The two of them talk until it’s so late that she’s sure her father’s going to have both of their heads, until dawn begins to break. They talk about college, about the future, about how they know fuck all about what they are going to do. They settle, after a while, on living in New York after college, and adopting three cats and, at his drunken insistence, a ferret. He will do the cooking and she will do the dishes, and they will take turns taking out the trash every lazy Sunday evening.

After a while, they sit in silence together, watching the sun rise, until he finally mutters something that’s only remotely intelligible.

Marr… m? He mumbles.

What? She laughs, clearly taken aback.

He repeats himself. She still doesn’t understand, decides to simply sit in silence.

(Years later, she’s finally able to admit to herself that she did hear him the second time around.

Marissa, I’m sorry, he said.)

He looks at her moments later, anticipating a response. She pretends to have simply fallen asleep.

Four

They’re in college now, and she’s positive she’s grown to hate him.

They go to different universities. She opts for a college closer to home, so it wouldn't be too much of a hassle having to visit her dad every weekend. He chooses a university in a different state, far enough that he’d have an excuse not visit his family regularly.

They don’t see each other on a daily basis anymore, though every two to three days he magically appears outside her dorm. Sometimes, they go and hang out at a nearby diner. Other days, they’re content to just talk in her room.

He tells her about the fraternity he’s joined, tells her about all the silly little pranks he and his brothers pull, tells her about all the parties and the raves and the drugs and the girls. Once, she tries to bring the prom up in one of their conversations, but he only avoids the subject until she lets it go. As the weeks pass by, she finds herself laughing at his jokes and his stories less and less until they just leave a bad taste in her mouth.

By the end of it, she forgets what his eyes remind her of.

Eventually, he has less and less luck at catching her when she’s around. She’s always out with friends, other friends, or she’s out on dates with guys she never talks to him about, or she’s otherwise just busy and ran out of palatable excuses not to hang out with him. He waits outside her dorm for a couple of hours but she rarely ever comes back before he decides to leave.

It’s a four hour drive from his university to here, you know, her roommate tells her one day.

She pretends not to hear her.

His visits become less and less frequent. He goes from three days a week to once a week to once every two weeks, until he doesn’t appear outside her dorm at all. She does see him one more time, though, as she walks back to her room. He is eating at the diner the two of them used to hang out at. Sitting opposite him is her roommate. They are laughing.

She shrugs, keeps on walking.

Five

She lives in New York now, and while she doesn’t hate it by any means, it doesn’t quite feel as alive to her anymore.

It has been seven years since she graduated college. True love has become, to her, no more than a distant concept - a business deal, even. She works as a TV producer for daytime TV, trying to piece together deals and contracts and actors and writers to ensure a mildly attached audience has their dose of sappy soap operas.

She’s almost forgotten him. When she remembers him, she remembers him without any pang of bitterness or resentment. She thinks of him sometimes, the way a person might think of their childhood at the sight of an old toy, or the sound of an old love song.

She decides to go see the creaky, old white bench one day, as she visits her father for Christmas.

She finds a huge, unsightly mound of snow in its stead. She notes, amused, that its shape vaguely resembles a bench. Perhaps the snow simply swallowed it whole. A ridiculous possibility, that the harsh winter might target her bench specifically, but some part of her stubbornly clings to the idea.

And so she digs and digs and tries to look for the bench, but it just isn’t there anymore.

She has since fallen in love many times with other people – fallen in love harder, even. Sometimes they love her more; sometimes they don’t even love her at all. But every time, she has learned, someone leaves at one point or another. Sometimes she’s the one walking out the door; sometimes she’s the one getting left behind. But every time, she has learned, her heart grows just a little bit older.

She is twenty-nine now, on the cusp of thirty. She still dates people, still kisses them like she means it. Sometimes she even lets herself fall in love with them, but lately it’s like she’s just going through the motions.

She lives in New York now, in a quiet little apartment in Tribeca. She doesn’t live with anyone in particular, not with any other person, or at least not for too long. She adopts two cats as her constant companions: Sally and Chris – strays she has picked up during her lazy strolls around the city.

There’s a certain charm to these felines; something about their quiet loyalty and their lack of need to complicate things. Sometimes, she’s resigned to the fact that she will eventually die as an old cat lady. Really, it doesn’t seem so bad the more she thinks about it.

Naturally, as she breaks up with her most recent boyfriend, she decides it's time to get a third one.

She visits an animal shelter, picks up a small orange tabby that walks with a limp, calls him Bobby. Bobby is due for a vaccination next week, she is told, and so she comes back to the animal shelter almost immediately.

It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her that the attending veterinarian has eyes like chocolate. Fate has an odd sense of humour, she thinks, and she gives him a smile.

Ms. Kitty, finally, I presume? He returns her smile.

Mr. Kitty, she corrects him, glib. Didn’t you read his chart?

He raises his hands in mock surrender, always, just always so theatrical. Well, you know, a wise person once told me that I was bound to be a crap animal doctor, anyway.

And you've what? Decided to turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Well, so far, I don't mind where it's gotten me.

And he laughs, and she laughs, and it's the kind of laughter she's heard one too many times at work. It is the laughter of actors who play perfect couples on screen, who love each other until the director screams Cut! and the film stops rolling.

It is all part of the script.

When either of them speaks, they try to avoid each other’s eyes. Fair enough, she supposes. She is done figuring out what the brown of his eyes means to her.

Six

She sometimes finds herself going back to the animal shelter for no good reason at all, and she kind of hates herself for it.

He teases her every time he sees her there, asks her if she’s gone there to adopt another one. She grins. They start to banter. They go through the motions.

One day, she makes an offhand comment about her job as a producer for a daytime soap. He has since made a reference to it every time she visits. At times, she’s convinced he knows the story and the characters better than she does.

I thought you thought daytime soaps were cheesy and terrible, she tells him one day.

I do, he grins, and then excuses himself. They do that, the both of them – always try to leave before even just the prospect of silence crops up.

She finally gives him her number one day. In case of emergency, he explains, though she isn’t quite sure why he should ever call her instead of 911 if there really is an emergency. She gives him her landline, anyway.

The day after, she spends her day sitting in a couch beside the phone, reading or writing or drawing, trying to occupy herself before she finally hears the phone ring.

It’s her dad, reminding her to come visit for Christmas, and should he expect any additional guests?

I’ll be there, dad, she says. And it’s just me this year.

She feels guilty over being disappointed that it’s her father who’s phoned her. For the rest of the week, when her landline rings, she pretends not to hear it.

If he’s gone and called her, he makes no mention of it.

One day, she brings Bobby in for her regular check-up. Bobby doesn’t seem to like him very much, and for no good reason at that. The check-up hasn’t even begun when Bobby digs his little feline fangs into his hand.

It isn’t the first time she’s found herself sympathising with a cat, really.

I had that coming, didn’t I? He laughs.

Yeah, you did. She doesn’t know why, but she finds his laugh contagious, and it’s not long before she herself gives in.

It’s the first time she’s ever caught herself laughing, genuinely laughing, in years, and the thought of it scares her.

Hey, we’re good, right?

Yeah. She avoids his chocolate brown eyes, and smiles.

She decides to find another veterinarian the next day.

Seven

Late December comes, and, at least for now, she can’t find it in herself to hate anyone or anything anymore.

Maybe it’s the Christmas spirit. Maybe it’s the blinking lights, or the catchy Christmas carols. Maybe it’s the gingerbread houses. Maybe it’s the fact that there’s at least a hundred Santa Clauses going around town. Maybe it’s the snowmen, or maybe it’s because despite the freezing temperatures, everyone else looks so happy.

Maybe she’s just tired.

By itself, December is cold and harsh, and it makes no sense for her to waste any more energy on hate. Just for now, at the very least.

For Christmas, she goes back to the little old town, goes back home. The thought of it amuses her. A little over twenty years ago she would have loathed the idea of calling it home, but here she is now – baking some cheesecake while her dad prepares the turkey.

It is Christmas Eve, and they eat quietly but contentedly. Her dad mentions that she put too much flour in the cheesecake, asks her why she even put flour in the first place. She giggles, tells him to shut up and drink his eggnog. Sometimes her dad has a habit of making her feel like a child again.

It is an hour before midnight when they decide to open their presents. No sense in waiting, her dad says, and she agrees.

She gives him a roundtrip ticket to Prague. When he sees it, he smiles that smile again – the one he used to wear when he told her she was beginning to look more and more like her mother each day. She pretends not to see.

Her dad gives her a snow globe. There is a whole little village in that sphere. She shakes it, creates a snow storm. It's strange. All the colourful little houses and all the colourful little people just go on their own merry way, as if they all know that the storm will come to pass. And it does.

A snow globe? She remarks, shaking it fondly. Dad, I’m not eight anymore, you know.

I know, he says, smiling. It’s a real smile this time.

It is half an hour before midnight, and the two of them decide to visit her mother before Christmas. It is snowing outside. The whole town is completely white, covered in ice. Like a blank slate. The world born anew.

Her dad laughs when snow touches his face, as if those little snowflakes tickle him silly.

It’s been a while, he tries to explain.

It’s okay, dad, she says, and she laughs with him.

It is fifteen minutes before midnight, and her dad kneels in front of a tombstone. He is silent, but she recognises the look on his face.

She tells him she’s going for a walk, and he smiles appreciatively. She hears her dad’s voice in the distance.

I’m going to Prague, dear, she hears him say. How is Christmas up there?

The town is small, she thinks, as her dad's voice fades in the background. It is as small as it has always been. It’s inevitable, then, that she eventually finds herself heading back to her old primary school.

The bench isn’t there anymore, of course, hasn’t been there for a long time. But it isn’t like she has anywhere else to go.

It is ten minutes before Christmas. The bench isn’t there anymore, and in its stead she finds a vaguely familiar shock of dark hair, and a vaguely familiar pair of brown eyes.

He sticks out, she thinks, like a stain in an otherwise blank slate.

She watches him quietly for a while, and he is too focused on what he is doing to notice her standing. She watches as he gathers a small pile of snow, adds it to the larger mound near him. He pats the snow, clumps it together, shaves some of it off. It is beginning to look vaguely like a misshapen bench, she thinks, and she catches herself smiling.

It is five minutes before Christmas, and a big piece of snowflake lands on the tip of his nose. He frowns, his nose twitching, and sneezes. She covers her mouth, tries not to laugh. He sneezes once more, and again and again, before his nose turns red and he lets out an awful, wheezing sound.

She cannot help it, lets out an ugly half-snort, half-chortle, finds herself walking towards him.

You’re pathetic, she thinks, and she isn’t sure to whom she is referring.

She doesn’t say a word, only kneels near him and his horribly deformed snow bench, tries to help him make it look less ghastly and grotesque.

He doesn’t say a word either, doesn’t dare move an inch. He gives her a wide-eyed look, as if she has just appeared out of thin air.

What? She asks, frowning.

He gives her a baffled look, smiles, and proceeds to work on their icy masterpiece. As if she's never said anything.

In some distant corner of her mind, she think of snow globes - of snow storms, and of storms past. And then she looks at him, and how he sticks out in this blank slate.

But then again, so does she.

It is one minute before Christmas.

As one would expect, their final product doesn't feel much the same as the old white bench she has known. It feels like she is sitting on ice - and she is, literally. She would very much like to stand up instead, if he weren't sitting beside her.

She remembers when fourteen days meant an eternity to her. It's been nine minutes of dead silence, and it feels much longer than eternity.

She remembers, faintly, the curious tabby cat who approached them one day. What would've happened if it never did? Would they never have started talking to each other? Would she have gone on hating this entire town? Hating everyone in it, including him?

Hate. What a miserable word.

It is Christmas, and she's tired.

When she looks at him, she realises that both of them are.

Do you hate me? She whispers, hesitant, as if she would rather her words fly away.

I don’t know, he admits. He looks at her, really, properly looks at her for the first time in god knows how long. For the first time, perhaps, ever. Do you hate me?

I don’t know, she replies. All these years, finally, she finds it in herself to look him in the eye again. She smiles. But here I am.

(And here we go again.)