Storied By Josh

In rained today, a soft mist like it does on the coast sometimes. The water slowly soaks you through and you can feel it and smell the grass and trees drinking drinking it all.

She looks over my shoulder.
“You couldn’t have gotten that wet; you’ve only been out for a few minutes today.”
A few minutes was long enough.

“Are you writing about us?”
No, but if you want I can read it to you anyway.
And she laughs like I remember.

But I can’t hear her. She is behind a glass window and there’s a dull light illuminating her face but hiding some one else too. I think it is a man. I wonder if she fell in love with someone like me or at all different. Maybe he calls his mother more than I do. Maybe he buys her flowers and they go on walks in the city. Maybe he kisses her more often and holds her longer. I do not know.

The last few weeks we were together I didn’t look at her this long. Not even in the rain. I wonder if I can go in and just say hello. I’ll pop in for just a moment like all life can be. I’ll ask her if I can buy her a drink and if she says no I’ll say how about a tea and if she says no I’ll say how about some crisps and if she laughs I’ll turn and she’ll grab my arm.
She’ll tell me to get her a future with me in it and we’ll kiss so long and deeply that no one has ever been able to write it in the history of novels and love stories.

The package I’m carrying home is getting wet so I decide I had best step in. I cross over to the door. It’s an old English door that moves slowly and is heavy. It creaks a little like they all do on this side of town. She doesn’t notice me come in. I take a table across the way from her. A man asks me what I’ll have and I tell him a pint of lager. He nods and walks away.

I pull my phone out and begin to look as busy as I can in case she looks over. I can say that I never saw her but would you let me buy a drink for you and your friend? We are all friends after all.
But I don’t see her see me. So when the lager arrives I sip on it and begin to wonder if I should just go say hello already.

The barman can see my drink is beginning to get a little more empty.
“Would you like to buy you a drink?” She asks.
We’re at a bar and I’ve never seen her before. I’m here with some guy friends for a stag party and they’re all I can’t be. I sit on a couch looking at my beer when she walks over. She offers to buy me a drink and I insist that no, I will buy my own and let me buy you one too.

She says okay and then after we’ve had more than a few she asks if I would like to go to the dancing bar upstairs and dance with her. I say of course and I feel her and she feels me. The world becomes just us and this horrible beat industrial music that I’ve never liked but since I’m with her I’ll try it just this once.

She makes it beautiful.
We move in together a couple of months after that. My life is complete. I wake up with her every​ morning and I can’t believe how used to this I’m getting. I’m waking up next to Mona Lisa every morning. Of course we both became too comfortable, I suppose.
But she hasn’t come over yet and I’m just sitting at the table holding a phone that has gone into screen saver as I dream about her. The barman hands me another lager and why not. I’m in no hurry to battle the constant drizzle outside yet. The man with her is tall and handsome he leans in and whispers something into her perfect ears and her curly black hair bounces back as he pulls away. The room is smaller suddenly and I’m beside her. Let’s get out of here. I say. This place isn’t good enough for you and I try harder than anyone in the world anyway. She says yes and we run outside together. We run through the city and she jumps into the mud puddles like she used to. It makes me laugh more real than I have before. She kisses me and the rain running down her face connects to me. It runs down my cheek down my neck before it splashes onto the cobblestones below.

I’m still sitting and drinking this lager. The man moves in for a kiss and her perfect lips touch his. She used to want me to kiss her more but work became a thing and she was my rock. I knew she’d always be home for me. Most days I was just too tired to kiss her and it wasn’t like she wouldn’t be there tomorrow.
And now I’m sitting in a bar with a package. The contents don’t matter to me anymore. They will tomorrow like all silly things that are no consequence always matter later when something that really does matter announces itself and you forget the stupid things for a bit.

The light flickers and she picks her coat up next to her. I still remember when she bought that coat. It was on sale at some hippy mart. She loved it and I joked she loved it more than she loved me. She told me she could never love anything more than me. “Not in a million years.”

Let me touch you. My heart screams and drowns in its own melancholy. But instead I watch him stand up and wait for her as he puts a few quid down to pay for their drinks. Let me touch you. She slaps me across the face. She is angry as ever. I have found her with another man and this bedroom is ruined forever for me. You bastard she said. How else was I to get you to pay attention to me.
Get the fuck out I say and she curses at me. The man says nothing. He sheepishly puts his pants on and god help me if he says anything I’ll rip his dick off and shove it down his throat. She tells me to shut it. The man leaves without saying anything. I never got his name.

A day later she packs her things and I want to make it better somehow but it’ll never be better I keep telling myself. She cries while she puts her things in boxes and her friends come to move her out. She says that she’s staying with her father if I ever come around to talk.
Never. I say. She stops crying after that. She leaves and touches my hand before she does. I just want want want to hold her again and scream at her that if she is better I’ll be better then we can both do better.

This won’t have to end. She walks past me in the bar and I don’t look up. The man is with her and he’s holding her arm like she likes. I’m not sure why I’m hiding my face. I smell her after she leaves. My phone screen is wet. I can’t be in here anymore in this fucking place. I throw a few sterling down and leave after she has gone. Damn her. Damn her.

The rain catches my cheeks and runs down before it drops to the cobblestones.

“Wait, why is this story so sad?” She asks.
Because all the best stories are.

She’s wearing my t-shirt and resting her head on her hands as she lies in our bed.
“But it isn’t so good if it happens to you.”
No then it is beautiful.
“This is a silly story.”
I like it. I say to her.
She looks at me and her eyes ask me to come to bed and to touch her for a few minutes before she falls asleep. But I’m not quite done with my story.
“You’ll never be done with that story.” She says.
How do you mean?
“Because if it was up to you, you’d write the damn thing and not be finished ever. Not in a million years.”
I power off the lap top and sit on the bed. I run my hands through her hair. She closes her eyes. She falls asleep very quickly, like she always does when I touch her. I’ll finish this story, I promise. This moment stays with me always. In the dark when I reach over and she isn’t there. In the quiet moments as I stare into an unwritten document and my scotch glass is running dry. It comes to me when I’m walking to pick up the post. It comes to me in the evening when I’m eating something she always liked.

It comes to me now as I stand in the rain and watch her walk down the street with the man.

The rain pounds down now. It soaks me and the package.
The package is probably ruined. I think to myself but I want to just stand here and watch her walk away. I want to run to her. I want to.
I turn away and begin to take the package to safety. I know I probably won’t be able to save it.