Occasionally I will pick a writing prompt and see where it takes me. This one took me to the kitchen of a relationship on an edge. Should I continue the story?? More writing prompts to come in the following weeks…
She stood at the sink looking out the kitchen window, vaguely aware of the warm water splashing on her shirt as she mindlessly rinsed off a spoon. The sticky sweet August breeze floated through the open window, making the yellow and white check curtains dance quietly in front of her. She noticed a small tear in the lace at the bottom hem. The realization made her chuckle. It was her: faded, worn, torn, yet somehow still dancing. In the distance, she heard the train horn calling her.
She knew he was standing behind her before he said a word. She could still feel the heat radiating from his body from their fiery words said earlier and their feeble attempt to extinguish them with their bodies.
“Please don’t go,” he said, shattering the silence.
She looked down at the clean spoon in her hand, then the wet oval on her gray t-shirt over her stomach, and turned to face him.
“I’m empty. I can’t stay here anymore,” she said flatly. “Sam, you deserve someone who can give you what you want. I won’t ever be able to do that.”
He took the spoon out of her hand, set it on the counter and tried to hold her hand. She couldn’t open it to receive his. He held her fist instead.
“Where are you going to go? And, that’s not true,” he said with a hint of bitterness.
Jade had arrived in his life like a lightning bolt striking too close. One moment he was walking down the street with the goal of obtaining coffee, the single thing on his mind, and the next, he saw her sitting on a bench with her headphones on, eyes closed, slow tears trailing down her cheeks. The hair went up on his arms and the back of his neck, and he magnetically walked off the path to her. He sat wordlessly next to her on that bench on 4th street for exactly 3 minutes and 28 seconds before she opened her ice-blue eyes and looked at him.
“Damn, that’s a good song,” she said, staring back, as if they were long-time friends.
And now here she stood, looking straight into his emerald eyes again, and in the background, he could hear the beginning guitar chords of “Last Goodbye” start to hum out of the speakers.
“J, that’s not fair! You can’t do that to me,” he said exasperatingly, running his hand through his hair.
It wasn’t long after she met Sam that the secrets of her abilities started to seep out. Things moving unexpectedly, strange too-perfect coincidences, the flowers on the table that never seemed to wilt. Three months after that chance meeting on the street, she had decided to stop hiding it. She had stayed the night at Sam’s house after hours of late-night laughter and debates. He had quietly snuck out early for work, careful not to wake her, and left a note on his pillow,
“Jade, I’m not sure what’s happening…but you’ve tilted my cloud and I don’t want it to be straight ever again. Please stay awhile. Sam.”
The next day, she moved out of her shared loft in the city, and took her one suitcase of belongings to Sam’s.
—next chapter—
“Delusions of Grandeur”
Summer 1999
Kate Genord 