Fly alone
I had another post in mind until I happened upon this in one of my folders today. It's a short fantasy I wrote to explore my feelings about dating in high school. When I wrote it I was thinking about whether to tackle a sequel to my childhood memoir, Reversible Skirt. After I began working on the sequel, I forgot all about this fictional tidbit.
It might be a fun blog project for writers to share short pieces they've written and forgotten about. Maybe I should start something like that up by tagging a few writers, asking them to post a forgotten pieces from their handwritten journals or computer archives, and then tag a few more writers.
Fly Alone
By Laura McHale Holland
Toby and I were a new couple, strolling the halls between classes, but then slime began oozing from his hands, leaving oily streaks on his notebook and on his corduroy Levis when he tried to wipe them off. Next passing period, he came to my classroom door. I dashed to the girl’s bathroom where I stood at the mirror and brushed my hair until the bell rang, and I sprinted to class without him.
I sipped strawberry milk at the lunch table; Cliff sat beside me, eating a hamburger as thin as a poker chip in a Wonder Bread bun. He smiled, said I was the cutest girl. I slid a little closer to him on the bench. Then he let out a belch so loud and potent all the kids in the cafeteria stopped eating, looked around for the culprit. I shrank away from the awful smell.
I danced with Graham at the youth center as a garage band did a good imitation of the Beatles’ If I Fell. His bangs draped across his forehead in a most enchanting way. I thought I could fall for him until Marissa whispered in my ear, “Don’t you know? Graham is so stupid he almost choked himself trying to knot his tie before church last week.”
I was drawn to Jordan’s puppy dog ways: love notes passed in class, a single red rose at my locker, hugs whenever he found me in the halls. But on our first and only date at the movies, he panted and yipped and growled all the way through Goldfinger. Later, he tried to lick me goodnight. I turned my face away. His tongue grazed my temple before I slipped in the door.
Then I met Carlos: tall, thin, straight teeth, sandy hair, olive skin, and a megawatt smile wrestling with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Carlos. Perfection splashed with Brut aftershave. I thought I’d met someone who would understand. He took me to a penthouse party in the city. Shadows lurked below. He leaned me against the balcony, bit my lips, then pushed me over the railing. I thought I would end with a splat, but lived to learn I could fly alone.