Return to Ducky's Collection
A couple of my friends do little "snipets" of written works. Kinda like sneaking in to a movie halfway through and realizing after twenty minutes, you're in the wrong theatre. I thought I would try something like this since my writing is, very unfortunately, rusty. So I'm hoping this might inspire me to work back up to writing "real" stories again in the future.
I Think I Love You
Alyssa knocked impatiently on the forest green door that led to her ex-boyfriend's apartment. She shifted her weight from foot to foot and gestured quickly with her hands for him to answer. She was running late as it was and she was annoyed with him already that he had called her over in such an urgent manner. And now he wasn't answering his door.
"Great," she muttered to herself. "Just great. I'm gonna miss this banquet and Charles is going to kill me…" She paused as a man in his late forties passed her in the hall. He shot her a questioned and judgmental look just before he turned the corner. "Wonderful. And now people think I'm a lunatic." She took several deep breaths, attempting to calm down; but she couldn't keep herself from frantically pacing. After waiting outside for thirty seconds, she knocked again. This time, she knocked with urgency.
Jackson responded at the door five seconds later. He greeted her with a smile and a phony explanation of him not having heard her knock several times.
Alyssa glared at her ex before she shoved passed him and inside the apartment. She couldn't afford to waste any time playing any more of his games. If she gave him the opportunity, he might have told her he'd left a pie in the oven and would be right back, shutting the door in her face and leaving her there.
"What do you want, Jackson?" Alyssa asked, rushing past the normal small talk. A smirk crossed her ex's face.
"Oh, cutting to the chase. I get it." Casually crossing his arms across his black V-neck sweater, he leaned against the island in his kitchen. "But first, let me ask you: what can I do for you?"
Once again, Alyssa's eyes narrowed. Trying to remain patient, she spoke between her clenched teeth. "You called me and told me it was urgent I meet with you."
"Ah, that." Jackson smiled. "Well, I'm glad you care enough about me to rush over here."
"You said you needed help. Now look, Jackson, I'm already late to Charles' banquet and—"
"Dear old Chuckles has a banquet, does he?"
Alyssa was losing exponentially more patience by the second. "So can you just tell me what you needed that was so urgent it couldn't wait until tomorrow?"
Jackson smiled at Alyssa but he knew very well he was on dangerously thin ice. Not wanting that ice to break and find himself drowning in subzero temperatures, he picked something up off the island behind him. "I wanted to return this to you."
Alyssa took it and stared. For several minutes, she said absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, the tension in the room grew more fierce. When she finally spoke, it sounded as if thunderclouds were gathering in her throat.
"You called me all the way over here…" Each pause was delivered so she could barely avoid strangling the man in front of her. "To give me back….a book?"
"I thought you might want it back."
"THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL URGENT!?" She shouted at him. He was at first taken aback by her outrage, but not entirely surprised. Right between his legs, the ice began to crackle. "My boyfriend has a banquet tonight in his honor and you, knowing this, called me with an urgent message that I should come see you immediately and you give me back my BOOK?!!" A straight line shot through the ground beneath his feet, causing the ice to shift and reveal a small flicker of the water that awaited his fall. "I can't believe this! What is wrong with you!? Are you so sick and twisted that you actually think you can get away with sabotaging my relationship?" Ground shifting more, Jackson could look down and see the fish swimming below, looking up at him invitingly. "Are you seriously trying to sabotage this night for me, Jackson?" Trying to retain his balance, Jackson's foot slipped on the near frictionless surface and he almost met with the freezing water. But the true moment he fell was when he noticed tears rolling down Alyssa's face.
And, just like that, he became completely submerged.
Jackson sighed heavily and, unable to look at his ex girlfriend, stared at the ground. "I'm sorry," he mumbled as she moved to his couch to sit. Alyssa hid her face in her hands as she continued to sob. Jackson moved swiftly to her side to comfort her. "I'm really sorry, Alyssa. I didn't mean to ruin this whole night for you."
"Then why did you?" Alyssa asked through her falling tears.
Jackson shrugged. "I wanted to make Charles angry." He admitted pathetically. "I didn't mean to upset you. I just—"
"But you did!" His ex looked up at him with her mascara running from her eyes and her cheeks flushed. "You did ruin this for me, Jackson. Why would you even do that? I mean, we've been broken up for seven months now. Why do you keep trying to keep me from being happy?"
Jackson was silenced with pain at that statement. He had never thought about his actions in such a harsh way but, in the end, he knew she was right. She had had two boyfriends before Charles and Jackson had always come up with a scheme to come between them. He had never wanted to make Alyssa unhappy, but the girl sitting next to him on the couch was a profile of anything but happiness.
As the minutes passed them in silence, Alyssa stopped crying and began to dry her face of her tears. When she looked at her watch, however, she almost stated up again. But, after taking a few breaths, she remained calm. Without saying a word to Jackson, she got up and headed towards the door. She turned back to face him right before she was about to leave. "Just be honest with me for once, Jackson." He nodded solemnly in agreement. "Is there a reason you keep trying to keep me from dating other people?"
There was a long and difficult pause that swept the room as Alyssa waited for her answer. As soon as the question had been said, Jackson knew how to answer it. It was the delivery that was the difficult part. Finally, unable to contain it any longer, he finally told her the truth.
"I think I love you."
Soft black hair flowed over her eyes as she slept. He watched her, unable to look away. She looked so beautiful:
