Picking Petals

Old Tapes: One-Shot

A/N: Hey, it's Kiana. This is my one-shot entry for Old Tapes by bibliophile--. For those of you that haven't read it, I would really recommend it--it's an emotional roller coaster. I think you can still understand the one-shot and get the message I was trying to convey with them even without having read it before. With that, I hope you enjoy :) 

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09/04/'89

"Uh, hi Lock--"

There's coughing in the background, as someone clears their throat. A pause, and then nervous laughter bubbles out of his throat.

"It's funny, isn't it? You were the one who was always stuttering and stammering as if you were deaf, grasping for a language that your ears have never heard. Silence was your refuge, while it was a dark abyss for me--I needed noise to quiet the whispers on the inside, you needed the stillness to pretend that time had stopped. But now, it seems I'm the one at a loss for words."

His speech breaks at the end--softer, frail like a child afraid of the monsters that hide under the bed. He exhales shakily.

"Almost like both of our voices were buried with you."

11/04/'89

"Hi."

There's the sound of metal against cement, a chair being pulled.

"There's a meteor shower tonight. It reminded me of us--the stargazer and the astronomer we were. I could never connect the dots into constellations, but it was okay because the dreams the shooting stars gave me were grander than any kids' puzzle could conjure. Look, there's one!"

He points at the night sky lit up by a thousand suns, whispering. 

"I wish you would have answered that phone, instead of the static of a dead end. I wish you would have poured your heart out to me instead of leaving me in the dark. I wish we could have beat it together instead of fighting the battle alone."

There's a smothering silence that accompanies this burst of hope. 

"I wish you were here sitting next to me--that your sun didn't fall out of the constellation of friendship we drew, crashing and burning into the ground."

16/04/'89

"Lock--"

He gasps for air, as if he's drowning in sorrow. 

"Like always, you were right."

There's a pause, as he tries to formulate his thoughts.

"You knew me so well, sometimes better than I knew myself. It was selfish, but I was lonely. So, I blamed you. I directed all of my anger on your shoulders--for dying, for lying to me, and for leaving me to this hell, damning me to a world without you in it.

"It's okay though.  It's a give-and-take. Maybe we were stolen from each other, but in return we were gifted the memories." 

He shuts his eyes closed, turning the world off. 

"I miss you too, by the way."

04/05/'89

"You're not the only one who can't breathe, Lock. The air is too thin, too weightless with no gravity to bound it to without you--you, the force that grounds you to a solid, tangible place you can always find your roots." 

 There's the sound of a foot being kicked into the wall in frustration. 

"Your funeral was suffocating, I almost choked on the buzzing static of the murmurs full of misplaced apologies. My lungs were constricting, too many butterflies beating their wings inside with the weight of remembering. 

"The thing is, Lock, I always needed you. So much, that I never realized how much you needed me also until we were both gasping for air from holding our breaths for too long." 

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Lol it feels so weird writing in this book after forever. I'm sorry about the pretty much nonexistant updates, but if you want to read a work of mine that actually gets updated (about every couple of days), then you should check Lilies, my poetry book. 

I hope I did Old Tapes and it's characters justice, I'm sorry if anything was portrayed differently than how you envisioned it. I purposefully didn't choose climax chapters, since I didn't really want to touch or try to change the beauty of them. Also, I didn't really know how much dialogue can be fit in thirty seconds, so forgive me if it's long. 

Anyway, what did you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

 Don't forget to vote, comment, and follow, okay? Don't be a silent reader :)   

Thank you so much for reading! 

Love, 

Kiana