I didn't take her seriously. I mean everyone cheats. At least that's what I told myself. I can't imagine my face when she walked in. I remember her words, though. Or rather, her word.
"Mom!"
Everything else was blades and blood. The woman was like a ninja - I would have sworn there were two or three of her. It seems like everything from the past few months flashed before my eyes in seconds.
"We shouldn't," I had protested. "Rachel is...well, she deserves better. We really..."
Rachel's mom was unbelievably gorgeous. Being a yoga instructor hadn't hurt her physique one...
I always felt like I was stuck in a bubble. Like the Pope in his vehicle. On display like the Queen of England. A goldfish in a bowl. Maybe it was my shyness or my wart on my left cheek. Maybe it was the lisp that made everyone return my greetings with a "What did you say?" Maybe it was my slumped back, the hump that made shopping for blazers so difficult.
"Who's in there?" small children would say, peering at me on a Sunday in the park. "Don't bother that nice man," their mothers would say. The mothers were...
He could not even translate it. It was what one might call a specific knowledge, the fact that he did not understand this particular currency conversion did not mean he was not smart it just meant that he well did not understand it.
Still he felt anxious.
Hot
Clammy
He walked around the building, reading the strip of paper again and again. It was a a large number it could be something, life changing, probably not. Probably just another day. Someone had something wrong, something lost in translation.
He straightened his collar and opened the door.
Ready to deal.
He was absent. Again. The kid would only show up on test days - on which he performed well enough. But that wasn't the point. All the other students showed up every day, and worked earnestly. And taught each other. And applied the concepts. He would pass the exams but forget all the material down the road. It would be like most of the bright students - playing with ideas. Treating it all as a show - as a game. Show up to perform. Wasting their talent. Lacking direction. Lacking any real purpose. Where was the kid going to get...
Lost, without a hand to hold. Lizzie slowly sidled her fingers into the palm of Elder Barnes. He placed both hands on her soul bumps, feeling the hairy base of each above the fine stitch work, and the subtle movement below the skin. This act of passive acceptance of his touch was a necessary part of being his student.
"Tell me again of the Biclops." she asked. His fingers moved away from her head, more quickly than customary, forgetting to reciprocate. She understood the snub. He was not letting her feel his own soul flaps. He was angry.
"The Biclops...
Tom said my neck tasted of honey. When I told Jasper he laughed hysterically, dropping the crystal glass of champagne onto the thick white carpet. Snorting like a horse, slapping his black Parisian jeans, contorting his face like a fairground mirror image. I didn't think it was so funny but didn't say anything. I laughed too.
One thing that Jasper would never know about me is how lonely and disgusted I feel with myself when I tell him about Tom.
When I walked away from the car, turned back and waved at Tom who had wiped the condensation from the...
If we never speak again, there will be so many things I've never said. There will be no record of the thoughts that have been chasing each other around in my head. There will be no reason to remember me. You will never know the truth about what could have been - what I wanted us to be. I will never get to make you understand. If we never speak again...
"Wait!"
It was a surpise to discover that grandad's home disappeared down the sink hole. The ground literally swallowed him up, not a trace for over ten years.
Now I was grown up, I was allowed to stand around with the paramedics and police and watch the removal of the body. I didn't avert my eyes like Mrs Wozniak standing next to me, one moment excited and chattering, eating ham and mustard sandwiches, spitting crumbs, next moment for once in her life she was quiet. The reality of life versus CSI on tv. Soon after turning her thick neck away she...
"Wait, so he hit you?"
"Yes, but it's not what it seems. He's been really stressed at work. He swore it would never happen again."
I could tell she wasn't convinced. Cheryl, self proclaimed leader of our little girl's coven. Tea and cake Tuesdays. I'd always felt like I was a token member really. The others had more in common than me. Mousy little me.
"He's a brute. You should leave him." Amy blurted out over Death By Chocolate, then snorted her Assam.
"Or kick him out!" another chorused. Kate? Earl Grey. Victoria Sponge. As usual. Very bland girl. No...
"Good night," the bar manager said, as he tapped a stack of bills on their side to even them out. The waitress dumped another pile of crumpled bills, coins and receipts on his desk.
"Good as any other," she said. The manager paused in his count and looked up from beneath a heavy forehead.
"Something wrong sweetie," he asked.
"No," she said and left the office, heading back to the front. The manager watched her walk away, thinking about what her ass looked like twenty years ago, and smiling to himself. He finished counting the money she'd dumped and dropped...