Chapter One of an untitled romantic fiction piece

I drove alone and in silence.

I supposed that the pain was over. The relationship was finished and my crying had run its course. There was only a slight ache when I thought of him, and I knew that even that would pass eventually. When one has been forced to live without someone for so long, the words that make it final seem to lose their impact.

My escapade that night was a type of personal diversion, to be honest. I’d never been much of a social being. Sometimes the feeling that everyone else was on a completely different wavelength than me was overwhelming.

Two houses down, on the left, don’t hit the ditch.

I turned into the driveway, dimming my lights.

“October!”

I had to admit to myself that having someone excited to see me was a welcome feeling.

“You’re never going to believe what we had to go through to get this fire going. My God, I thought we’d be here all night lighting the damn thing.”

I laughed. It felt weird, and sounded fake. I hoped no one noticed.

I walked up to the fire and held my hands out. It was cold, even for November. My light jacket may as well have been made of mesh for all the help it was giving me. I believe my body lacks the essential ingredient that enables it to create heat.

I suddenly felt arms wrap around my waist and sneaky hands insert themselves into my jacket pockets.

“What the hell?”

“I’m stealing your warmth.”

I laughed again, this time doing a better job.

“Better look elsewhere, pal. I have none.”

Jacob took his hands out of my pockets and stood beside me. He didn’t say anything about Thursday and I was glad. I wanted to forget it, but the scene played out so vividly in my mind that tears threatened my composure.

Jacob, sitting across from me in the counselor’s office after I’d received the break-up e-mail and arrived at school sobbing. His name had blurted from my mouth after the counselor asked me to tell her a friend I could talk to. Odd, because we weren’t extremely close. He was just the type of person who knew when to speak and when to sit quietly and listen. Perhaps that was why our often distanced friendship had lasted since third grade.

What was it he had said that day? Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. It sounded like a Myspace quote, but had meant a lot more coming from him.

“So where is Sarah?” I asked, keeping the conversation from turning to me. They’d been dating for about nine months.

He looked at the fire with a blank stare, managing a small smile.

“Oh she’s off somewhere. I don’t know.” He glanced at the ground, then shifted his body and turned towards me.

“Glad you made it, though. You never get out.” His smile turned genuine.

“Yeah….”

I moved slightly away from him, feigning interest in a pile of paper shavings that were being used to fuel the fire.

“Music! I need music. Does anyone know how to have a bonfire anymore?”

This proclamation, issued by Azelia, was followed by her promptly leaving to turn on the radio. I walked around the small fire pit and sat on a bench, pulling my legs up to save any warmth I could.

“Hey, Jacob, come help me with this mattress.”

He turned away from the fire, in search of the voice that had seemed to generate from the darkness beside the house. I abandoned the idea that I would somehow be warm, embraced the shivering, and got up to get more paper shavings to put on the fire. Azelia followed me, having completed her mission of finding an adequate station.

“So… how have you been? I mean… well you know.”

Hearing her trip over her words reminded me precisely of why I was not a social creature. The questions meant to open conversations were never ones that I had any interest in answering.

“I’m… good. It was right, you know?”

And she nodded, although I knew very well that she didn’t know at all. But that was the end of the conversation and my goal was accomplished. We fished in a big trash bag for paper scraps, and pulled them out to carry to our tiny fire. Most of it fell on the ground, and the rest we added to the dwindling pile.

Jacob and Adrian returned from the woods, carrying an old mattress. They dragged it close to the fire and threw a couple of blankets on top before Jacob and Azelia hopped on. Adrian just shrugged and sat in a chair.

I returned to my lonely bench. It was a nice bench though. Hard and uncomfortable, but I felt the need to sit on it for some reason. Alone. Again.

I feared that this pattern was never going to break. The word alone seemed to define my very existence. In my family, in my relationship, in my circle of friends. I had the titles, but not the substance.

We talked for awhile before I was dragged in the house to make macaroni and cheese. I didn’t even like macaroni and cheese enough to leave my bench to cook it, but sometimes we do things for no reason other than to shut up the person that asks.

The pantry eluded me. There were fifty boxes of nothing, and behind them hid the macaroni, which I grabbed and set on the counter. Lydia handed me a small pot, and I looked at her for a moment before she rolled her eyes and filled it with water. She then placed the pot on the stove and went outside. I watched the water come to a boil.

The macaroni cooked and cheese added, I filled two small bowls and took them outside. I handed one to Lydia and took one for myself, simple because I felt it a waste of time to spend ten minutes of your life making something to let someone else enjoy it while you sit on a cold bench.

I sat on the bench sideways and once again pulled my legs up, cradling the bowl between my chest and knees. It was warm, and tasted pretty good to my surprise.

The fire was beginning to make me feel sleepy. We’d accomplished nothing other than sitting around making small talk, but I somehow felt more complete than when I’d arrived. Not like I belonged, but a little more complete. Kind of like watching a good movie in the theater when you are still in the after daze of believing that what you just witnessed had actually happened. When you get up to leave, you think of yourself as having gained something from the experience, even though you didn’t actually take part in the events.

I got up and took the bowl in the house, tempted to stay in the warmth. But for the first time in a long time, I felt the need to be around people, and not miss anything. I felt the excitement that inevitably rushes through someone when they realize that anything is possible. And I wasn’t exactly sure why I was feeling this way. Perhaps from my newly detached strings that had been binding my allegiance to a guy who was so far away. Anyone is bound to feel free after that, right?

When I walked outside, I didn’t want to sit on the bench anymore. I walked to the mattress and lay beside Jacob, who was facing the other direction. The blanket was warm from the heat of the other two bodies, and I snuggled into it.

More small talk. Then Jacob turned and faced his body towards me.

I wanted to act natural. I wanted to be like Azelia, we could face her attractive friend of the opposite sex lying down and think nothing of it. But I couldn’t, because this was Jacob and he was attractive, and I was single though he was not, and his face and body were suddenly extremely close to mine….

He didn’t say anything, and I had nothing to say. So we just lay there in silence.

“God, Jacob, move the hell over!”

Azelia pushed against Jacob’s back and he was suddenly closer to me than I believe any boy had ever been. His arm wrapped around my torso and his hand was resting against my back. His breathing was slow and even, closer than ever to my face. Our noses were touching, and I looked into his perfectly blue eyes. Then I closed mine, and tried to think of myself as being in a normal situation with someone I had known since third grade and who happened to be one of my best friends who I felt I could talk to about anything and who I actually confided in and cried to when I’d been broken up with and… Oh, God.

A song was playing on the radio, one that I liked. I decided to focus on the words, and the beautiful fall atmosphere. The stars were brilliant that night. Intro, verse one, chorus….

Jacob and I began humming together when the chorus came on, causing us both to laugh.

I tried to give myself a little pep talk about the importance of friends and how this would be considered very natural to someone other than me. But I was lost in his scent, in everything about the boy I’d known almost my entire life and yet never seen more clearly that on that November night when our noses were touching and his hand was pressed against my back.

October! Shut up. No thoughts like that.

That kind of worked. But it also kind of didn’t. So I kept my eyes closed and listened to the conversations around me.

“If we were any closer, we’d be kissing.”

Did I really just say that?!

He laughed quietly and then we were silent again. But there was a new tension; a knowing between the two of us that something was mutual. Something was happening. Or was I imagining it?

Then the tension became too much. His scent was too intoxicating, the feeling of hi hand on my back and his arm wrapped around me was too sensitive. I was about to cross that two centimeter gap….

“Aw! You two look like a couple! How funny.”

But as Jacob and I laughed to break the tension, we couldn’t quite agree with Azelia that it was “funny.”