Hey everyone!
I just realized that I told everyone that I had written a second story, but I had never actually shown it to anyone. My bad. Here's the second one. I did use "to be" in this one, though it was still rather difficult to write. I wrote this in the hours before our meeting.
And, just because I know you were all very concerned, I went out and bought a map of Minneapolis. I carry it with me wherever I go, so I cannot get lost again. =)
And just for the record--my roommates boyfriend was NOT drunk. However, substance abuse was one of the requirements, so I sort of implied that he was.
I'm not really looking for feedback for this one, as it's rather terrible, but it's done, and that's all that matters.
“My feet hurt.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Pause.
“Can I have my feet back, please?”
“No.”
Kaillyn attempted to lift her feet out of her boyfriend’s grasp and found him too strong. He tightened his grip on her feet and ankles, causing her to topple over onto the floor with a giant bang.
“Ow. Get off of me!”
“No.”
“Stupid boys and their stupid stupidness!”
Kaillyn and Race continued their little wrestling match while her roommate, Heather, attempted to concentrate on the book she was reading. Not until she heard a particularly loud crash did Heather look up, immediately wishing she hadn’t. Race was lying on the floor with Kaillyn straddling his waist. He was holding her so tightly that she couldn’t move. Had it not been for the smile on Kaillyn’s face, Heather might have been concerned. She looked away again as the two kissed.
“Come on, I don’t think Heather really wants to see this,” said Kaillyn, attempting to separate herself from Race. He ignored her and tried to kiss her again.
“Seriously,” said Kaillyn, succeeding in standing up.
“What time would you like me back?” asked Heather, half-serious.
“You don’t have to leave,” said Kaillyn. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him today. He’s never been this…frisky before.”
“How much did he have to drink?”
“Not that much,” said Kaillyn. “We just finished up what was left over from last weekend. It shouldn’t have been enough to turn him into this.”
“I’m not drunk,” protested Race; “I’m just high on life.”
Rolling her eyes at the complete lack of originality in that sentence, Kaillyn turned her back on Race and sat down at her desk. “Were you abducted by aliens over winter break or something?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” answered Race. “Is there any cheese left?”
“Cheesehead,” said Kaillyn fondly, reaching for the cheese sampler she had given him for Christmas. “Sorry—all out.”
“Damn it. We could go down to the C-Store and get some more.”
“You’re not going anywhere like that,” she told him.
“Like what? I’m telling you—I’m not drunk. Can’t a guy just be happy spending time with his girlfriend?”
“You’re never this happy,” Kaillyn pointed out.
“Fine. You stay here, then. I’m going to get some more cheese.”
“Race—”
“Not from the C-Store. I have some up in my room. Not as good, mind you, although it’ll have to do.”
“Fine.”
Kaillyn waited until Race had walked out the door and up the stairs before turning to Heather and saying, “Never date anyone from Wisconsin.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Heather, getting up and walking over to her laptop. “Thanks for the advice.”
Heather and Kaillyn surfed the Internet for a few moments before they heard Race bounding down the stairs.
“I’ve got it all figured out,” he said as if they had just been in the middle of a conversation. “All you have to do is take a bunch of entrepreneurial classes from Carlson and take all the martial arts classes you can, and you basically have a degree in ninja.”
Heather didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or laugh. The two of them had been having some sort of on-going battle between ninjas and pirates since they first started dating. Heather fully expected Kaillyn to come back with some reason why pirates were better. And, sure enough—
“Yeah, well, all I have to do is sit around and drink all day, and I’ve basically got my degree in piratism.”
“You’d have to rape and pillage, too,” Race pointed out.
“I’d have to pillage,” conceded Kaillyn, “but I wouldn’t have to rape. Only male pirates rape.”
Heather tuned out the rest of their ninja-pirate debate and tried to focus on writing her French essay. This proved more difficult than she imagined, however. She had always marveled over how writing in a foreign language never failed to remind her of just how many words she didn’t know how to say. Plus, listening to two people in love kissing and teasing (verbally, not physically—thank the gods) each other was rather distracting, particularly when one is trying to write about the doomed future.
“Don’t touch me!”
Heather looked up from her miserable attempt at an essay to see Race once again on the floor with Kaillyn standing above him. He lifted himself up and started to tickle her.
“Stop it! Stop touching me. G—gj—oh, damn it! How do you say ‘don’t touch me’ in Norwegian?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Race asked. “You’re the one in the class.”
“I know that,” she told him, stepping away from him and over to her bookshelf. She grabbed her Norwegian dictionary and started flipping through the pages. Race waited, surprisingly patient, on the floor.
“Damn it—it’s not in here!” complained Kaillyn, putting the book back on the shelf.
Remembering that she was in the middle of writing an essay in a foreign language (which requires having a free, online translation dictionary open in another window), Heather switched back over to the Internet and clicked on the drop-down button to see what languages they offered. She clicked on the “English to Norwegian” button and typed in “touch.”
“Is that it?” she asked.
Kaillyn walked over to her. “Berøring,” she mumbled. “No; verbs don’t end in ‘ing.’”
“Hmmm.” Deciding to try another tactic, Heather switched the setting to “English to French” and typed in “to touch.” The dictionary gave her “pour toucher.”
“Okay, I know what you have to do,” she told Kaillyn, switching the setting back to Norwegian. “I typed ‘to touch,’ which means it will give you ‘to’ in Norwegian and the verb ‘to touch.’”
Kaillyn looked at the “til å berøre” that was displayed on the screen. “You’re right,” she said. “That a means ‘to.’” She turned to Race. “Ikke berør meg.”
“Whatever,” he said. “Want to go up to my room and watch ‘South Park’?”
“Sure,” she said, giving him a quick kiss before turning to shut down her computer. Next, she shoved her feet into her once-fluffy slippers, grabbed her keys, and turned to leave.
“I’ll be back at some point in time,” she said. “Probably.”
“Have fun,” said Heather, turning back to the computer.
For the next hour, she tried to keep her attention focused on the essay she was supposed to be writing. She soon, however, gave up completely and decided to watch “Lost” reruns instead. She watched so many episodes that she started to pick up on some of the Korean spoken between Sun and Jin. She was pretty sure “anyo” meant “soon.”
Around three in the morning, she decided to go to bed. Deciding that if Kaillyn weren’t back by now she wasn’t coming back, Heather moved to turn out the lights. Before she reached the light switch, however, a picture on the floor caught her eye. She picked it up and smiled sadly. It was a picture of her dog, T.J. She hadn’t seen him since she went away to college, and she missed him. Placing the picture in a more secure location on the shelf, Heather turned off the light and went to bed.
Heather and her friends Suzanne and Danielle were in the grocery store. They were seated at a table located in the dairy section. Danielle was holding up a green tortilla.
“Want some?”
“No, thanks,” said Heather.
Suzanne, on the other hand, grabbed a piece and shoved it in her mouth. It wasn’t until after she had swallowed it that she realized she didn’t like it. “I thought it was going to be pineapple,” she said.
The three at in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly Heather was in the car with her mother, going home. Dogs were all over the road, tiny puppies that looked like they were going to be hit any second. Although Heather was afraid that her mother would hit one of them, none of the dogs were hurt.
When Heather got home, she remembered that she had left her dog in the grocery store. Worried that he would end up one of the numerous dogs about to be killed on the street, she called up Danielle to ask her to pick him up. However by the time she had gotten her phone out of her pocket, Danielle was standing right in front of her. They were standing in the gym at the St. Paul campus. Heather called her anyway. As soon as Danielle picked up, Heather realized the stupidity of what she was doing and hung up.
“Did you see T.J. before you left?”
“Yeah, he was sitting on the side of the road,” she said.
Heather left and started walking back over to the grocery store. There he was, sitting on the sidewalk. He saw Heather and stood up, walking towards her. He stepped into traffic. Heather hurried forward, intent on getting the dog out of the street before he got hit by a car like his namesake had years before, and she tripped. She was falling, falling—
Heather jerked awake. Her heart was pounding as if she had just fallen off a cliff. Shaking her head, she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. She was just about to fall asleep, however, when the door burst open, and Kaillyn walked in.
“Hi,” mumbled Heather, letting Kaillyn know that it was okay to turn on the light.
“Hey,” said Kaillyn. “Race’s roommate has a few friends staying over. Is it alright if Race and I stay here tonight?”
“Sure,” answered Heather, knowing that the two would most likely be gone by the time she got up in the morning.
“Thanks,” said Kaillyn, turning on the closet light. Heather heard her fumbling around for something before the door opened and Race walked in. They climbed into the loft above Heather’s head and shifted until they were both comfortable. They started kissing again. Heather put a pillow over her head to muffle the sound.
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*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
NaNo 2007: Quixotic Hope (win!)
Screnzy 2008: Degeneration
Keep your friends close...and your family as far away from you as possible.
