Sunday, April 12, 2009

Checkout

He thought about grabbing his single item and hurrying back into the isles where he'd be safe, but he feared he’d already been spotted. He hoped that the clerk would get him out of there fast, but he soon found himself in the situation he dreaded.

“Hey Dan, how’ve you been?”

“Fine.”

“You still have your old stuff at the house.”

“You can throw it out.”

“Do you have time to talk to me?”

“About what?”

“About anything.”

“Not now, I’m in a hurry.”

He knew that by talking all the bad feelings she had instilled in him that he had spent his life trying to disprove would return, and everything that he wanted out of life would become impossibilities once again. But he also knew that most of the things that she did, she did because she thought they were right, and that made him feel bad as he walked away from her.

Years ago she had asked him if he blamed her for something. She couldn’t realize he didn’t tell her for her own sake. He blamed her for everything. Everything that was wrong with his life. But he didn’t see how telling her that would help anything.

He didn’t want to tell her about how when she was around, the world shriveled to the hopeless meaningless mess he remembered from childhood. He didn’t want to tell her that she was everything he didn’t want to be, and stood for everything he thought was wrong with the world. She thought that him not talking to her proved he didn’t care. The opposite was actually true.

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