Three Words: Thought, Choice, Decision
Theme: Realistic (Any Emotion)
Rules:
- This is a short story contest. There is no word limit, feel free to write any amount you want, but no chapters.
- There can be violence.
- There can be romance.
- PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS ALSO REALISTIC. (Next one, you will be allowed to venture.)
- Don't stress. This is supposed to be fun.
- Have fun! Although it's serious, writing is supposed to be fun. Remember to keep the theme around the three words.
Prizes
1st Place - 600 Points + 2 Reviews
2nd Place - 400 Points + 1 Review
3rd Place - 200 Points
Submissions: Due August 1st (Sunday)
~ Giving more time due to events.
Second Challenge: Thought, Choice, Decision
4 posts in this topic.
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I sit in my chair, hands shaking as I grip my phone tightly. I have to tell her. I have to. But…
I glance out the window, and realize it’s dark. Grateful to have something to do, I set my phone down onto my side table and close the blind, flick on my desk light. Standing in the middle of my room, I glance at the on the wall clock. 10:40 PM. I could avoid her until it was too late and she went to sleep and forgot I ever mentioned that I wanted to talk. I could quit being a wuss and just call her back. I could pack a bag and run away, just run away from everything, and never look back. I chuckle to myself, at the idea that I could ever get my shit together enough to be able to take care of myself. Then I frown, and start rubbing my face, and pacing my small bedroom. I can’t deal with this pressure. Too much thinking, too many decisions to be made.
My phone rings.
In two strides I’m at my side table, phone in hand, wrapping it in my palm to try and silence the ringing as much as possible. It’s her. I should have known. Who else would be calling me at 10:45? I pace a little again. Should I answer? I have to. I don’t want to lose another friend. But…
I put the phone up to my ear, press the button and whisper, “Hello?”
“Hey,” she responds. Quiet, as usual, but happy sounding. Like a mother. How funny, to think of your closest friend as a mother. How funny. She sounds slightly different over the phone, a little bit more nasal. But it is, unmistakably, her.
There is an awkward silence, neither of us wanting to bring up the reason she called. Finally, I start to speak. She does too.
“I’m sorr-”
“So-”
We both stop. There’s a short silence, and I imagine the phone lines crackling with the tension. I start again, this time, uninterrupted.
“I’m sorry about that message, I didn’t mean to make you worried. I realize it was a bit cryptic…”
“Yeah, no, it’s fine, I was a little worried, because of the way you said you ‘wanted to talk’,” she says with a nervous little laugh. “So what’s up?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “It’s nothing.” I’ve decided I’m going to try to deter her. Maybe if I deny and apologize enough she’ll just forget what we’re talking about, forget about the nervous message I had left her, asking her to “Please call me when you get the chance, I need to talk to you.” That’s how it works with most people. Most people are relieved to be given an excuse not to talk about… Sticky subjects.
“But you said you needed to talk,” she says. Damn her and her stubbornness. Always wanting the truth, always wanting to help. Damn her.
“No, it’s fine, forget it,” I say with a quiet nervous laugh. I’m trying to be quiet, my parents are sleeping down the hall, and I’m sure they don’t want to hear anymore of my drama, especially not late at night. I glance at the clock again. Somehow it’s eleven. So much for getting to bed early. I grab the rainbow bracelet off my side table and fiddle with it, pulling it on and off my wrist, pulling at the little knots that hold it together. It reminds me of myself. Looks strong, but could easily be undone. “Yeah, I’m sorry for making you worried, but it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” She asks. “You know you can tell me. It might help.”
Damn it. Stop being so… insistive. She’s right though. She’s probably right. I’m going to have to tell her anyways, at some point. I’m going to have to tell everyone. Might as well start with my best friend.
“But if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to…” she continues.
“No, no you’re right I should tell you. I should. I’m going to have to tell you anyways, so why not just tell you now. Um… Uh…” I laugh nervously, then remember my parents and try to be quieter. “Um… I don’t want to say it out loud.” Another nervous laugh. My hand unconsciously rubs my face, then slides down and rests on my neck. I heard somewhere that holding your neck is an unconscious sign that you’re feeling insecure. I remove my hand, and reach back down to fiddle with the rainbow bracelet again.
“Well you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, really,” she says, her voice clearly growing more nervous. I wonder who’s in the room with her. What they must think of our conversation.
“No, I do, do, I’m just… Um… Um…” I pause for a moment, gathering my strength. I’ve decided. She needs to know. “I’m gay,” I say, almost a whisper.
A pause. I hear the static. Wonder if she’s hung up. No, I think I hear her breathing. I wonder if she will hang up. She wouldn’t, would she? I didn’t think she would. That thought had never occurred to me. What if…?
She clears her throat, laughs nervously.
“ Me too.” -
This may not feel like there's a choice here, but there is, I promise. I think. I hope.
War GamesSpoiler
It was 3 AM in the morning, and neither of them had gone to bed. Neither seemed particularly interested. Marcel’s hollowly lavish dwelling disappeared in Alessia’s point of view, replaced by the pictures on the glass coffee table, lit by the lamplight beside the couch.
“Twelve men, eight women,” she said, tossing another Mary Somethinglastname into the pile. The woman in the picture was beautiful in the most generic way; blonde hair, blue eyes, no blemishes or sign of humanity on the complexion. Could’ve been a Barbie doll, if Alessia hadn’t snapped the photo herself. “This month. Must be a new high score, considering how hard it is to find a lesbian in your ordinary bar.”
Marcel came in from the kitchen, a mug of coffee in one hand and a pile of photos in the other. His Tom Ford blazer hung over his shoulder, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. The bedhead was obvious in his hair. “At least two of them are bi or pan,” he said, tossing the pictures down. He sipped his coffee. “I can vouch for that.”
Alessia stared down at the wide array of men and women in his photo picks. She picked up the wine glass on the coffee table, chuckling as she brought it to her lips. “Don’t tell me you’re still competing with me.”
“I’m not, I’m not,” he said. He replaced her wine with his coffee mug, taking a sip of his own. “If I were, I’d be winning by a lot more than just two.”
She smirked, chugging down the coffee. Cold. “Please. Only a mother could love your face.”
“Yours or mine?”
Alessia gurgled a laugh into the coffee mug, wiping her mouth once she set it down. “I walked into that,” she answered, “I really did walk into that. I still blame you.”
The night was cotton, soft and frayed. Fingers flashed over faces, and mouths talked of symbols, representations. The pictures were not of people. They were of conquests—success stories, shortcomings, failures. Alexander and Julius Caesar conversing in an eight-digit apartment.
“This one.” Marcel picked out a photograph. Eyes like a river, a jaw like a siege, a pair of lips like bloodshed. “I found him at Nowhere. Prefers scotch over bourbon, Sinatra over Springsteen, the nightlife over the housewife. We spent the night over at a motel, flip-flopped a bit. Lovely fellow.”
She leaned back on the couch, sipping her wine. “How’d it end?”
He took his time. His story was a familiar tragedy. The name of the nation was Emmett, its history steeped in the expected repression, its current situation emotionally crippled by a plague named Marriage. Infidelity was not an effective vaccine, but neither were Children or Work. “Something in his eyes,” Marcel mused. “I felt like I knew him, somehow.”
Alessia nodded. She understood. She was the only one who understood. She picked out a woman from her collection, a modern Pallas. The coal in her eyes had helped mold swords, and her cheeks were the virgin Earth, wild and pure. The nation was christened Christine. “She comes back often,” she said, slowly. “We hooked up a couple of months ago, and now it seems like we always meet at Ginger’s. I don’t think she has a girlfriend.”
Marcel arched a brow. “I thought you had a no-string attached policy.”
She shook her head, shrugging. “I’ve only brought her home once,” she confessed. “She was an annoyance the first few times we met after, but now I can’t help but feel a bit affectionate.”
Caesar laughed at Alexandria, though there was no spite in the sound. “Will our infamous jezebel finally settle down?”
Alessia rolled her eyes. “Only when our notorious Don Juan admits he regularly pulls a Monica Lewinsky.”
Marcel shook his head, giggling. “Look, Allie, there’s a thing called self-control, and—don’t gasp at this—it’s not exclusive to people with ovaries.” He spread his arms about, in faux shock. “Besides, interns give horrible blowjobs. There’s a reason why we don’t pay them, you know.”
They laughed, and the photographs watched them as they recounted the hearts their arrows have pierced, the wells they’ve pushed men and women alike into. The body count was high. The mortality rate was abhorrent. None of the bodies in their beds could satisfy their bloodlusts.
“Emmett loves his wife,” Marcel justified. “It’s in his body language. He never wanted it to go the way it did.”
Alessia lied down on her couch, staring up at the ceiling with an empty wine glass against her chest. “Is there anything you could do?”
Marcel shook his head. “I know there isn’t,” he acknowledged. “I just can’t help but imagine myself in his shoes, sometimes. In love with something I could never touch. It’s an innocent love, a better love. Yet, simultaneously, a disquieting love. Uncomfortable with its own existence.”
Alessia paused. “I don’t think there’s any quiet love,” she concluded. “I dread that there is a quiet love.”
The two of them stay in their silence. It was then that a question hung above their heads, a realization that hadn’t struck either of them for some time. The battlefield settled, and the photographs, they molded into one picture. Two people. Two faces. Neither quite human, but getting there.
There were two empires.
One was named Alessia, its skin as dark as the skies that follow it, its lips kissed by veteran swords. One was named Marcel, its eyes an oncoming storm, its hair the color of drought-stricken pastures. And they sat, staring at one another. Waiting for someone to shoot the first arrow.
Marcel looked Alessia in the eye, and said: “I do, too.” -
Hi! I know this said that you gave everyone more time, but I still hope I'm not too late! XD
A Good Story
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