Short Story: The Rush

The feeling? 

This morning it was hunger and then he received a text. 

“Hey,” it had said.

That lit his heart aflame.  Not the words but the promise they brought with them.  She hadn’t replied last night but now she had and so would he.

“Hey beautiful, what should we do today?”  He waited and waited for her to respond.  He had other things to do so he started his day with a meal. 

“IDK, I’m at the mall.”  He stopped and replied to the text, offering a movie and the girl accepted.   

With his meal half eaten he hurriedly cleaned himself up, got dressed, and left his half eaten breakfast to head out into the cold Michigan day for his bus stop.  The sun’s rays had provided some relief to the frigid wind and the man felt really stupid for wearing such a light hooded jacket as the wind ripped through the threaded fabric and crashed against his skin.  He didn’t shiver because he wasn’t so weak. 

The bus was late by a few minutes and he boarded it without looking directly at anyone.  After twenty minutes he was at his second stop and he decided to text the girl to make sure that she wasn’t bored waiting on him.  She was getting her eyelashes done.  He had no idea what that meant.  She was already very beautiful.  To him she didn’t need any more modifications.

“I really miss you,” he wrote and waited.

“I really miss you too,” she wrote back.

He smiled at his phone. 

His love life was really crummy lately and it was making him miserable but now that she was back he felt like he had found something that was missing.  They had clicked so well before and discovered that they had similar childhoods.  His last memory of her was from two months ago when she slept in his bed with him.  It had come out of nowhere.  He hadn’t seen her in months before that and back then she had told him that she only saw him as a friend after he asked how she felt about him.

He decided at that point to stop seeing her because of the mixed signals that she was sending.  Months after that they started hanging out again and watched movies for the whole day.  She went to sleep in his bed but he didn’t know what he should do.  He didn’t want to pressure her into anything but he felt like maybe she wanted him to do something.  He crept closer to her and waited for a sign that he should make a move but he never did because it made him feel like a creep.

He never knew if she wanted him to make a move or not and never got to ask the question because she had disappeared for two months after that. He was confused as to why she didn’t respond to his calls or texts.  He even thought that she blocked him.  His last straw was on Facebook when he sent many messages and got no response.

Upon chance on his news feed he found that she responded to another guy’s wall post so he knew she was on Facebook.  He decided to leave her a message and to delete her from Facebook.  One month later he left another message asking her what had happened between them and she responded that her phone was off so she wasn’t receiving his texts or calls.

 

He never asked about Facebook but he did ask her out.  She hadn’t responded for weeks.  On the day of the date he had proposed she had responded but he had already made plans so he asked her out the next day.  The next day was today.  Now they were good and he was happy.  When he talked to her yesterday he was all smiles even going so far as to post, “This day just got a lot better :-),” on Facebook.  He couldn’t wait to see her.

 

The next bus took roughly thirty minutes to arrive and he excitedly texted her again.  “What’re you up to?  I’ll be up there in a half an hour.”  He received no response.  A little after that he received, “you on your way?”  He knew that her phone had issues receiving some of his messages and his phone was the same way.  By that point he figured he was ten minutes away and so he texted that to her.  He had finally arrived at the mall and decided to call her to figure out where she was.

“What’s up,” he asked. 

“Hey…” she said, “ummm, what movie are you trying to see? “

“I don’t know.  I don’t even know what’s out.  We can just pick something when we get there.”  He crossed the street and left the frigid air for the warmth of the mall. 

“Well I don’t have that much time.”  He himself only had a little over four hours before the busses stopped running because it was Sunday.  He figured that was enough time for a movie and something to eat after. 

“I know me neither.  Well maybe we can just get something to eat and talk a bit.”

“I’m already eating,” she said.  Something felt off, she sounded upset and rushed.

“Which restaurant,” he asked. 

“Near the deli,” she said. 

“Okay I’ll find you and see you in a bit,” he replied. 

He walked through the mall as quickly as he could and wondered how people could be so slow.  He hated the mall and all the gaping people and hated those moments when people took the time to look at him.  He made it to the food court and scanned the crowd near the deli but couldn’t find the girl.  He figured he’d stop and get his food while he took the time to find her.  He got himself a sandwich and called the girl. 

“I’m here but I can’t see you, are you with two other people,” he asked. 

“Yeah,” she replied. 

“I think I saw a group of three girls but I couldn’t tell if one of them was you,” he said. 

“It’s a girl and a guy - listen!  We’re going to have to do this some other time,” she explained. 

His mood suddenly darkened and he lost his words, “ok” was all he could get out and then he hung up.  A few moments passed and he found himself a seat. 

He called her back and asked, “Did you all leave already?” 

“Yeah,” she said. 

“Okay I’ll see you around,” he said and then he ended the call. 

He again waited in the cold for the bus.  It took thirty minutes to get there.  When it approached his second bus stop he saw his bus ride past and knew he’d have to wait another hour for the next bus.  The sun was now hidden behind the clouds and the biting wind tore into him even worse than before.  He took it all in stride until the anger came.  He hated himself.  He couldn’t fathom why the girl hadn’t just cancelled on him at the beginning.  At this moment the thing he wanted more than anything was to get back his lost time.  He lost five hours, precious time that he could’ve used for precious projects.  He felt silly but at this moment that girl didn’t and would never exist to him.  And again he brooded on his love life and why it made no sense.

(Belart)