This is my first attempt at a romantic short story. Eh, I'm nervous. Please critique this. And if its too long, I might split it up into 2 parts.. hmmm.
12+ for mild language and very brief sexual references
On the banks of the Tolt River was where I first realized I was in love. It was a midsummer evening, and the maple trees were casting their shadows on the clear water. Behind us was the farm where I had spent the last three years of my life working endlessly for fifty cents less than minimum wage. Usually the repulsive aroma of decomposing manure permeated this section of the river, making it an undesirable area to visit, but on that day the wind was gently blowing in the opposite direction. The air smelled sweet and felt cool on the skin, a lovely example of what every summer evening is meant to be.
Nearly every day that summer, Dallas and I hung out after I was finished working. He lived on a farm less than a mile down the road from where I worked, so it all went along perfectly. On any given day, we would retire to his house and work on his truck or watch television.
After I finished all my farm chores that afternoon, I called him, tired and cranky. There was so much work to be done on the farm, but since the previous summer they had been forced to lay off more than half of the workers due to the failing economy. As a result, I had to accomplish nearly twice the amount of work as I used to. And in the middle of the summer, extensive labor is easier said than done.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hey, Dally.”
“You need me to come pick you up?”
I nodded my head, even though he was incapable of seeing me. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”
“Be there in a minute.” He hung up.
It was peculiar; usually I would have to put on a show and pretend to beseech him to come give me a lift to his house. He would pretend to be too busy, but he was always there a couple minutes later. But on that day, he offered to come. It was not something Dallas would usually do.
He pulled up in his mother’s little green Subaru less than two minutes later. I always teased him about driving a girl’s car, but he insisted that it was a good, steady car.
“That was quick,” I said, sitting down in the front seat. The car was cramped and dirty, with a plethora of his mother’s junk scattered about the seats and an ashtray glued to the dashboard.
“Yeah, I guess.”
I looked over at him. His eyes stayed intent on the road. “Everything alright?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He turned the steering wheel suddenly, turning onto a gravel road that was closed with a metal gate. I knew that road well; sometimes in the summer, when the river was low enough, some of the other workers and I would bring some horses down to the river’s edge for a dip.
“What’re we doing down here?”
“I dunno. I thought we’d do something different today. Watching the same episodes of King of the Hill gets kinda old.”
He parked the car in front of the gate and got out. I followed. We walked down the gravel road, all the way to the river.
“The river looks so beautiful today,” I said. “I almost want to go swimming.”
He laughed. “Don’t, it’s too cold. Trust me, Kenny and me tried that once.” Kenny was his older brother.
“I wasn’t actually thinking about doing that!” I said, although a swim would have been nice. My shirt was still sticky with sweat originating from six hours of hard labor.
“Sure you weren’t.”
I did not reply. We sat there in silence, watching the slow folds of the water, the way it brushed smoothly against the rocks, and the occasional maple leaf that floated down the creek.
“Laura, I know we’re best friends. But there’s something I gotta let out.” He looked over at me, the sun illuminating his green eyes. Real green eyes come one in a million, but Dallas really had them. His mother had them too, and so did Kenny. I hadn’t looked at his dad’s eyes up close.
“Yeah? Spit it out, Dally.”
He took a deep breath and leaned his head back, looking up at the cloudless blue sky. “I love you, Laura.”
The words rolled off his tongue with just as much ease as they settled into my mind. I’d heard those three little words before, with other guys, but this was the most real they had ever sounded.
He didn’t look at me, begging me to return the words. He continued staring up at the sky, his face saying: “I don’t care if you don’t love me too, cause I’m man enough to say my feelings and get rejected without feeling bad.”
Without thinking, my lips acted on their own. “I love you too, Dallas Heutmaker.” I put a hand on the side of his face, turning it towards mine. We leaned in towards each other, and our lips met.
That was not our first kiss. We’d been kissing for over a year, but this was different. It was not fueled by lust, but rather love. All of the stories I had heard from others were true: when you kiss a guy you really fancy, the kiss is a thousand times better.
It only lasted for another minute, and then we were left to silence, watching the smooth flow of the river. The shadows of the maple trees were longer than ever; Dallas and I were almost in shadow ourselves.
A sound interrupted our solace, a loud ringing, one of those annoying free ring tones. Dallas pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up to his ear.
“Hello? Momma? Could you call me back later- I’m a little busy.” There was a pause. Dallas looked at me and rolled his eyes. “What? I thought that was next week! Shit! Alright, be up in a bit.” He closed his flip-phone. “Sorry, Laura. I’ve gotta go to the Kaizers tonight. Up in Seattle. For this airplane thing. I’m really sorry. I’ll give you a ride back up to my place and Kenny’ll give you a ride home.” He stood up and starting walking back towards the road. He was really into flying and building airplanes, but this was the first time he had ever had to ditch me for “some airplane thing.”
“It’s alright.” I mumbled under my breath, following him back up to the trail.
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Back at his house, he kissed me goodbye. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
I shook my head. “I’m not working tomorrow. It’s Saturday.”
“I’ll come and pick you up anyway, from your place. See you later.” He hugged me, then jogged across his lawn to the Mustang. He had purchased the Mustang a couple months before and had devoted much of the last month to fixing it up and making it drivable.
He drove away, waving to me as he left. I did not wave back. I did not attempt to hide how annoyed I was. I knew I was being selfish, but this stupid airplane thing had ruined one of the best moments of my life.
Kenny came out of the house a couple minutes later. “Did Dally take the ‘Stang?”
“Yeah.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Weird. I didn’t think he had it fixed up yet. Guess we’ll have to take the stupid Subaru.”
I followed him over to the Subaru and he drove me back to my house, about ten miles away. We did not talk much; we never did. He knew that I was his brother’s girl, and he never tried to get in between us. I could not help but think of Dallas for the next couple of hours that night. My heart was filled to the brim with a concoction of anticipation and adoration.
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Dallas and I met during my freshman year of high school. He was a junior, and I instantly moved up a couple of popularity notches for merely being associated with him. We met through a couple of mutual friends and hit it off instantly. I think we were always meant to be best friends. Even in our small, country valley, we were considered two of the most country kids in the entire school.
We went hunting together. We went shooting together. I helped him burry his dog, Rookie, when she died, even though I cried harder than Dallas did. Most of his jeans had my name written on the behind in Sharpie, and his Facebook status had been “Dallas Heutmaker loves Laura Eddy” for the past six months.
He always had my back, I knew that much. He knew an abundance of kids that had already graduated through his brother, and with that he provided me access to some of the best parties in the valley. At fifteen, I was getting drunk with kids who were about eight years older than me. I knew I was safe, though. He was always watching me, making sure I did not have too many drinks, watching the wandering eyes of his brother’s friends.
Dallas himself refused to drink. I used to say that it was because he thought he was too good for that sort of thing. But after I really knew him, I realized that maybe he was too good for alcohol. He had no need for it; even without alcohol in his system he was the most charismatic person I had ever met. It did not make him any happier. For some reason, that small characteristic really drew me to him. All the other boys at school got drunk every weekend, but Dallas was different. He was noble.
He was there to beat up every boy who broke my heart, to yell at every girl who backstabbed me, to burn my failed math tests. Dallas Heutmaker was the epitome of a best friend.
Of course, like with all things, there were the sorry times in our friendship. He slept with a girl in the grade above me, and it went around the entire school. Almost in an attempt to prove I was not bothered, I slept with a senior, and it went around the entire school. After a couple yelling matches and several tears trickled down my cheeks, we reconciled.
At that point, I am sure we knew that we loved each other, and not just in a friendly way. Perhaps we were both too weak to admit it. Or perhaps we did not see it at all. I cannot really remember, but I believe that we were both too smart to allow our feeling to leak out that soon. The best things come with time, and patience is a virtue.
At any rate, he was possibly the biggest factor in my high confidence during my freshman year. I had always suffered from a poor self-image, but Dallas made me more assured of myself. Self-assurance should never come from boys, but when Dallas called me beautiful, I do not feel that he was just saying it. When Dallas looked at me, he did not see the pale, round-faced, dull-eyed girl with a flat butt. He saw Laura Eddy who was, as far as he was concerned, the most beautiful girl in the world.
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That night, I lay on the couch, watching King of the Hill. I was tired after working all day, and even though it was before nine-thirty, I felt my eyelids begin to fall. The world around me faded to black and just as I was nodding off to sleep, I heard my phone vibrating on the foot of the couch.
I moaned, opening my eyes, waiting for the noise to leave. If the phone only vibrated once, I had received a text message. Continuous vibrating indicated a call.
After the initial ring, the phone continued ringing. Swearing under my breath, I reached over and opened it up, holding the phone up to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you up?” I immediately recognized Kenny’s voice.
“Yeah, kinda. Do you need something?”
I could hear him breathing quickly on the other side of the line. “Listen, I’m on my way down the road. It’s Dallas… You need to come down here.”
Without another word, I hung up the phone, slipped on my Romeos, and ran out the door.
We drove all the way out to Bellevue, to Overlake hospital. Kenny was silent, but I could feel his tenseness even without him saying anything. He was not usually one to be nervous; he was so crazy that he made Dallas look tame.
“Do you know what happened? Do you know how bad it is?”
He shook his head. “Yeah, he crashed. But I dunno. Momma just got the call, and I knew to call you. They said he was at Overlake.”
I did not say anything back. My stomach was wretched with anxiousness and fear. The world around me was spinning. The bright lights from the cityscape of Bellevue were blurring about my vision as I felt the tears well up. Deep inside, I prayed for Dallas to be fine. I could not bear to see my best friend in pain.
Around ten o’clock we arrived at the hospital. We found Dallas and Kenny’s mother, Donna, sitting in the waiting room with her head in her hands.
“What’s going on?” asked Kenny, running over to his mother.
She lifted her head. Her makeup was smeared about her green eyes, which were now swollen and red. “They think he’ll be fine. But there’ll definitely be some permanent damage; he’ll have scars on his face for life… Oh my baby!” She began sobbing. It was amazing that she had any more tears left to shed, but they were flowing down her face quicker than the river had flowed downstream just hours earlier.
Neither Kenny nor I said anything; we waited for her tears to subside. Once she was calmer, Kenny took no time in asking when we could see him.
“I don’t know… He’s in the operating room right now…”
It was my turn to cry. I felt the tears leak from my eyes and down my cheeks. I sat down in the chair next to Donna and hugged her. She wrapped a thin, shaking arm around me, squeezing me tight.
Four hours later, I felt my phone ring, and realized I’d forgotten to tell my mother I had left. Running out of the room and into the restroom, I answered my phone.
“Hello?”
“Laura! Where the hell are you?”
I forced my voice to stop quivering. “I’m sorry, Momma, I’m sorry.” I started sobbing into the phone. “It’s Dally… He crashed the Mustang in Bellevue…”
My mother waited a couple seconds until my bawling diminished. “Well, is he okay? Do you need me to come pick you up?”
My silly little habit kicked in as I shook my head into the phone. “No, Kenny or Donna’ll give me a ride home tomorrow. I wanna stay here and make sure he’s okay. I need to see his face.”
“Okay.” She paused. “I love you, Laura.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
It was another hour and a half until we were able to see Dallas. It was a strange feeling, walking into his hospital room. For the entire night I had been itching with anticipation to see his beautiful face, but as I walked towards his room, I began to wonder as to whether or not I actually wanted to see him. I had no idea what he would look like, and I wanted to remember him as he had been before. I wanted to remember his face the way it looked at the river, with the last rays of light shining on his tan face.
But it was too late. Dallas lay in the bed, looking positively overwhelmed by all the tubes and monitors in the room. Dallas was not a small boy by any means, but at that moment in time, he looked small, and even pathetic. It was a horrible sight to behold. He was asleep, his eyes completely closed, but he still looked relatively peaceful. There was a huge cut on his forehead, covered with crude stitches.
Donna began to sob as she ran over to her son and knelt by his side, clutching the blankets on his bed. I was too shocked to do anything. I stood near the doorway, a single tear running out of my eye, my mouth hanging open. The rest of the world stood in slow motion, at a fixed position, even. Kenny stood by his brother’s bed, watching him with a solemn expression.
I was in a trance, and I do not remember how long we stood by Dallas’ bedside. I was suspended above the world, almost in a state of denial, unable to face the fact that my love was laying on his bed, near death.
The doctor eventually came and told us to go back to the waiting room, as there was one final and simple procedure. He wanted to reset the Dallas’ right leg, which was broken. The left leg was shattered, but would eventually heal. He would be able to run again sometime in the near future. But the Mustang was totalled. It had been the least of our worries. His initial crash was caused by the fact that the steering had quit working while he was driving on the freeway. It was horrible to think that his crash was so easily preventable.
“Do you want me to take you home?” asked Kenny after the doctor left.
I considered. “Could I just spend the night at your house?”
“Sure, anything for Dally’s girl.”
As soon as we got back to the house, the house phone rang. It was Donna, calling to tell us how Dallas’ situation was. I was already preparing myself for the inevitable: facing the rest of the world with the love of my life as a cripple.
Kenny listened to his mother on the phone, not saying a world. Fear clutched me yet again, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. The phone conversation lasted almost ten minutes, and then Kenny ended it with a simple “Bye, Momma. I love you.”
His face was more grave than I had ever seen it, even more so than at the hospital. Calmly, he gestured for me to sit down next to him. He explained to me that Dallas’ break was not as clean as the doctor had supposed, and it was much more difficult to reset. And, as they were setting it, Dallas’ heart simply quit working. Somehow, the marrow had leaked into his bloodstream, poisoning him. It was a one in a million case. The doctor had never even seen anything like it.
I felt my own heart stop, poisoned by its own sadness. He was gone. Just hours before, he had been as alive as I had ever seen him, laughing in front of me, even kissing me. And now he was dead. Never again would he laugh. I would never feel his soft lips again.
Even now, I must constantly remind myself that Dallas is alive, in me. We were in love. Somewhere, in me, that love still thrives. And one is not truly dead until he is no longer loved by any. Dallas will never die, as he will always be loved by all. He is timeless. He was one in a million, in life and in death.
So sad. But so good! 
You are really good. Have you ever considered writing a longer romantic fiction? Have you already? If you haven't, please do! That was just...so...beautiful! (I begin crying.) It made me so sad when Dallas died. I always love happy endings. When the couples stay together forever, but when a sad one is well written, it is even better! Keep writing!
