Girl, you've got to be what tomorrow needs.

[momebie]

Original fiction.
866 words.

We bumped hands in a bar in Seattle, and as I looked up to apologize I felt time slow and stretch. The look on her face was the same as the one I’d left her with five years before. Surprised. Then she had been surprised that I would leave her so abruptly, in a flurry of boxes and hastily painted over walls. Now I imagined she was surprised to see me at all. I was certainly surprised to run into her a good fifteen-hundred miles from the last moment we’d shared.

She recovered quickly, her face folding into a warm smile. She’d always been good at that. “Roommate!” she squealed, and leaned forward, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. She was warm and soft, and she smelled like she always had: mint lip balm, floral oils, stale pot smoke.

“Hey there,” I said. It wasn’t what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was ‘I’m sorry’. I’m sorry I left you alone when you needed me. But the words that we need don’t always come at the right times.

She pulled away and I got my first good look at her. She didn’t look like the girl I’d left behind. That girl had been wild, growing upward like dandelion weeds through the cracks in my life. That girl had dyed her hair a different color every week and danced around in her underwear in the living room, been unapologetically sexual and liberal and open to new ideas, absorbed the light of the world and shot it back out at you in blinding rays. She had been everything I wanted to be, and many of the things I’d worked to become in her absence.

This girl kept her dull brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her glasses were black and her clothing was simple. Even the bolts of rainbow light that shot out from the dance floor couldn’t add color to her. And as she smiled demurely back at me I wondered if I was responsible for some of that. I wondered if she remembered me as just another person who had let her down.

“What are you doing here?” she said. I heard: what are you doing back in my life?

“Just running away,” I said, and tried to match her smile. Like the coward I am.

“It’s nice to see a familiar face,“ she said. I’m new here.

“I’ve missed you,” I said. I’ve missed you.

Her smile brightened at that. She grabbed her beer off the counter with one hand and my hand with her other and pulled me out to the dance floor. The music was pounding. It was some remix of a Bloc Party song and the synth traveled back and forth in the speakers as the beat bumped and thrummed over the top. I closed my eyes. I felt dizzy. I felt infinite. I felt her hand on the small of my back.

When I opened my eyes I was looking into hers. Her nose bumped mine as she leaned in close. Her hand dipped down and her fingers slipped up under the tail of my shirt. She traced circles on the delicate skin of my hip. I leaned in and kissed her. And it wasn’t what I wanted, but I hoped that my lips could communicate the words I wanted to say this way. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. She closed her eyes.

Thirty minutes later we were falling out of the elevator at my hotel and laughing loudly, our cries punctuated by one or the other going shhhh! as if that would actually keep the noise down. She clung to my waist as I opened the door to my room and tugged at my shirt once it had closed behind us.

“Wait,” I said. I have so much to say.

“Why?” she said. I don’t really need to hear it.

And so it went. She didn’t give me a chance to tell her how badly I felt. I traded my confession for penance in the form of the taste of her tongue, the soft undersides of her breasts, and intermingled sweat. In the afterglow I tried to tell her that I’d spent five years needing her, needing to make amends. In response she rolled into my side and talked to me about the city. About how she loved it because it was untainted for her. About how hotel rooms were the spaces in between spaces and that the moments you made in them weren’t moments you carried out into your life.

“I’m tired,” she said. Stop talking.

“I think I love you,” I whispered. My voice cracked around the words and I hoped she hadn't heard them. I think I love you.

In the morning she was gone. My room key had been pulled from the pocket of my jeans and there in a mintberry scrawl were the words find your own home.

I had come all the way across the country to do just that. I’d bumped into exactly what I needed the moment I stopped looking for it. All it had gotten me was a hollow feeling in my gut and another place that wasn’t mine.

Finis.

I've done several things I usually don't do here, so all comments are appreciated. And because I'm curious, if you don't mind.

[Poll #1646023]


This entry was written for Topic 3: It's a Trap! at therealljidol.

Comments

[tailoredshirt.livejournal.com]

I think because I saw the poll before I read the story, I spent the whole thing trying to figure out which one it was and trying to figure out which gender you were trying to make us think it was vs. which one it really was in your head. I thought, okay, it's probably the one we're not supposed to assume it is. If I have to choose, I'd say the narrator was a girl.

Also, I liked the bits of dialogue followed by what the speaker actually meant (especially the 'I've missed you' lines).

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Ah, good point. I'll go up and put the poll inside the cut so it's a little less obvious to someone scrolling through. It actually was a girl in my head.

And thank you, that's one of the things I was playing with.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

I put myself in the narrator's shoes, and as a gender-queer/androgynous person who doesn't typically think of gender first, I didn't really see either. But then, I'm not your typical reader when it comes to gender roles and gender lines, so don't base anything too far-reaching on my input. LOL.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

That was actually the sort of thing I was looking at. I just wasn't sure how to poll it without being too invasive to the reader! I was wondering if most people, when confronted with first person narrative, would put themselves into the narrator's shoes, for lack of the a better way to say it. You know, without being given specifics.

So thank you!

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a guy, and the part mentioned above: She didn’t look like the girl I’d left behind. That girl had been wild, growing upward like dandelion weeds through the cracks in my life. That girl had dyed her hair a different color every week and danced around in her underwear in the living room, been unapologetically sexual and liberal and open to new ideas, absorbed the light of the world and shot it back out at you in blinding rays. She had been everything I wanted to be, and many of the things I’d worked to become in her absence.

I didn't assume this was a girl, because I rather like any guy who would admire these traits in another person, whether they were male or female. And I liked that your character admired that in the former friend. It made me like him (or whoever) all the more.

Regardless...loved this excerpt, exercise, whatever...and how you pulled in your experiences out there in music venues. It felt authentic, real, and full of fav lines like these:

That girl had been wild, growing upward like dandelion weeds through the cracks in my life.

and

Even the bolts of rainbow light that shot out from the dance floor couldn’t add color to her.

and

I traded my confession for penance in the form of the taste of her tongue, the soft undersides of her breasts, and intermingled sweat.

This short piece makes me glow happily for another reason--I absolutely ADORE well-written first person POV. And this definitely is.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

I fret about writing in first person, C. FRET. I worry that it opens me up to being too maudlin or introspective. This is pared down quite a bit from the way I had started it last night. I'm glad it worked in that way, because that's one of the things I was referring to as never doing.

I would also rather like a guy who could admire those traits regardless of gender, because society seems to dictate that that's a feminine perspective to have. I am all about giving the finger to society and just rolling how you want to roll. In my head the character was female, but it didn't really have a bearing on the character's feelings, so I left it out and was curious about how people would read it.

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

Yes. This. Exactly.

[soundandvision.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the poll but was actually wondering who the narrator was when the two began dancing. At first I thought it was a man but somehow the language and the dialogue swayed me to think otherwise. There seemed to be more feminine thoughts if that makes sense. I opted to think androgynous (woman) by the end of it.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

It does make sense, because tailoredshirt also pointed out that some of the thoughts read as feminine to her.

[gaea-rising.livejournal.com]

This was my process as well.

[admiral]

Hmm, I think I thought female at first, then maybe transgender/genderqueer in some way, but I chose female on the poll since that was my first idea. I actually just recently wrote a short story where I left the narrator ambiguous for a while myself, so I was automatically like "mysterious first person narrator, I bet the gender is going to be ambiguous." xD

[momebie.livejournal.com]

In my head she's a cisgendered female, but I understand what you're saying. That would be a good way to introduce an ambiguous person. Letting them develop character before being pinned down with pronouns.

[brilligspoons.livejournal.com]

I thought the narrator was female during the first read-through, though now that I've thought about it a bit more, the thoughts are more androgynous than strictly male or female. So! Changing my answer to "neither" in the poll.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

In my head she's female, but I spend so much time writing males that I really need to get better at female perspectives (not feminine perspectives so much as fully developed women), so I'm forcing you people to be guinea pigs while I work out the kinks. EXTRA RUNS ON THE WHEEL FOR YOU! ♥

[myrna-bird.livejournal.com]

An interesting reunion. I assumed female with the word "roommate" as in my college age era, there was no such thing as co-ed.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting assumption. In my head she's female, but their roommate situation (while in the college years) had been an off campus apartment, which could have been co-ed if they'd liked it to. I took it out of the story, but before they lived together the other character had been sharing the apartment with a guy, who had broken things off with her in much the same way as our narrator did.

[basric.livejournal.com]

A wonderful story of regret. Well done.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I find that even though we try not to regret things, per se, it's hard not to wish some things had gone differently.

[belgatherial.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be able to tell you why I thought the narrator was female. She just *felt* female from the start. I see from comments that you meant it that way. Interesting.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

That is good to know, though. Thank you.

[mstrobel.livejournal.com]

Whatever the gender, I absolutely loved this. Exquisite writing. Though I also love that added touch of how you never actually give away what the narrator is! I hadn't really thought of that while reading until I saw the poll, I just made my own assumption and I really love that sort of thing.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm really interested in what people are assuming based on the text, and how they came to their conclusions. I think it's just that I've been out of school for too long and have no one to talk about these things with. :p

[tentaclecore]

I love how you have the communications play out in this-- what they really say versus the translation. V. enjoyable read ♥

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Thanks hon. That is one of the things I was playing with that I wouldn't normally allow myself to do.

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

I thought the narrator was female, though I have to say that I wasn't thinking about it all that closely. I just made an assumption.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

That's good to know. And I honestly probably wouldn't have thought about it all that closely if I was just reading it for the first time either.

[awriterswindow.livejournal.com]

This was beautifully written. I enjoyed it!

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[wyrdfishes.livejournal.com]

I actually thought the narrator was female, probably because my sole experience with roommates was in college.

Great writing. I enjoyed this post.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

That's a good assumption to make. :)

And thank you.

[locknkey.livejournal.com]

First I really enjoyed this. I loved this description that girl had been wild, growing upward like dandelion weeds through the cracks in my life

At first I read this as male,a bout here She traced circles on the delicate skin of my hip it first occurred to me the narrator might be female. It didn't jump out and scream at me, but when i went back and thought about it, it's probably because while a man might use the word delicate, I think applying it to himself would be rare.

I like the idea that the narrator could be either - I write a lot in a fandom that has some very definite ideas about what being male means (and where women are primarily writing male characters which could skew my reading of this), so I enjoy fiction that plays with stereotypes not just about sexuality, but about other things we take for granted like race or social/educational status.

I liked the subtextual conversation and how once again life found them on different pages, almost a flip of the palce they'd been before.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, and not something I'd even realized I'd done. A man might say delicate, but writing as a man I probably would have said sensitive instead. I will definitely keep an eye on those different word choices when I try and write women in the future.

I enjoy fiction that plays with stereotypes as well. In different fandoms you tend to come across a lot of different stereotypes of what a thing should be, mostly informed by the canon, I believe. Which is just kind of silly. People should be people, regardless of what walk of life they've come from. One of my very favorite characters to write is a horrible person. He's rigid and cold, but he's also fallible because he's human. Just because his story arc in canon doesn't show him dwelling on his feelings it doesn't mean he doesn't have any. Or didn't in the past. Those are the parts of characters I like to write the most. The parts that get looked over.

And thank you.

[gaea-rising.livejournal.com]

This was wonderfully done. :)

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading it.

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

I don't think the gender of the storyteller mattered in this piece. I guessed at it, but I wasn't sure.

[theemdash]

Some how I missed this when you posted it, but I just found that I'd saved the link to it.

I really like that you don't tell the gender here (something that I'd actually noticed while reading). I assumed the narrator was female, but I questioned my perception when they were going home together. I really liked that this story showed how matterless gender can be.