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).

[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]

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.

[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!

[mijan.livejournal.com]

No prob! Glad to contribute! I just generally see the world as gender-ambiguous and bisexual/asexual until proven otherwise. :D

[tailoredshirt.livejournal.com]

Ah, yay, I was right! The line that made me think it was a girl was this one: She had been everything I wanted to be, and many of the things I’d worked to become in her absence. And wishing he/she could have been more open to new things, unapologetically sexual, etc. That seemed like something a girl would think about another girl.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Ha. It does seem like something a girl would think about another girl. I don't often write girls, but I have several girls in my original projects and I want to do them justice, so I'm trying to get better at it. >.>

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

Well, your fretting isn't a bad thing, but those things are a good thing to be aware of, definitely. Especially the introspection, balancing that out with everything else. I think you are doing great.

I'll be interested to see if anyone else thinks it is male. If anything, I didn't assume it was male straight-off, though by the end I was happily think 'oh I love how well KL writes guys! I like him!' LOL!

Rereading it knowing you had thought of the character as female makes me like the character no less, honestly, but I do have a sense of it being a more boyish female, lol.

Nice piece.

[admiral]

Yeah, first person's a good way to do it, it'd be pretty interesting to read more stuff like that. (Though I attempted to use pronouns as little as possible for everyone in my fic, and it was hard, holy crap. xD)

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it's not much different from the way I would write a guy, which is another thing I was trying to work out. I have Amelia in the steampunk and Heeden in the scifi novel and I really ought to get better at writing women. Not necessarily feminine women, but genuine people who identify as being female.

I get caught up in characters being whole people a lot, and sometimes put aside how genders act for the sake of conformity. And then I try to write women and freeze up because I am so comfortable writing men.

Thank you, dear. ♥

[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.

[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]

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! ♥

[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.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

What woman do you know really well? Like Em. Maybe try writing something about her...could be fun. :)

You know how we've been mainlining Supernatural? I was really stuck with one of my two main characters in my ms, capturing his maleness, making him a strong character who was complicated and interesting, and strong yet vulnerable, and it was the craziest thing but after I started watching SPN, I began to write Lee like he was Dean. I've never written any SPN fanfic at all but damn if Lee isn't actually Dean...it helped me so much to understand that character. LOL. (Bad thing--the first 53k did not have the benefit of the Dean. Rewrite will be fun!)

OMG is it really only 2:33. I am dying to get out of here. SO TIRED!!!

[brilligspoons.livejournal.com]

*pokes my belly* I COULD USE THOSE EXTRA RUNS.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

WHAT? DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH THAT BELLY. *pokes*

[brilligspoons.livejournal.com]

MY BELLY IS SQUISHY AND ROUND!

[momebie.livejournal.com]

The thing with writing women that I know really well is that I know them. You know? Nothing about their actions is anomalous to me. I really need to start writing some vignettes and focusing on Heeden and Amelia and Feliks as I go. Just short pieces. That when I get to them I can be as comfortable with who they are as they should be. Though, I did write that bit of Feliks and it wasn't as awkward as I was afraid it would be. I LIKE LEARNING THINGS!

And I hear what you're saying, about Dean and Lee. I do things like that too sometimes. For instance, Rajin is similar to an anime character I greatly enjoy. I spend too much time going 'what if this person ended up here' and then pondering the fall out. :p

FOUR O'CLOCK HERE NOW! Only thirty minutes until my co-worker blows and then I can too. Then it's off to the comic store and the bookstore, and home to vibrate until I have to meet people for dinner and Potter later. Seriously. Coming to work on a day that's sandwiched between a concert and a midnight movie was not the productive things I've ever done.