Excerpts From Books that I'll Never Write

Excerpt Twenty-Two

     Although their facades worked on everyone else, they knew each other too well to get away with lying. They had tried to avoid the topic, but, as I'm sure you either already know or will find out as you go through life, you're going to have to talk about the avoided subject eventually. When it finally came up, they were both reluctant to answer because you were always expected to be okay. 

"How are you doing?" he asked first. 

"I've been better. I miss you. It's been worse since you left; I don't really have anybody I can actually talk to anymore.  Plus, there's just no you. But I'm okay, or I will be, at least."

     There was a pause before she added quietly. "How are you?"

"I could be better."

"I think we both could." 

     There was another slight pause before he spoke up again.

"Eh. It's all eh. Like, life doesn't completely suck, but it's not very good either. It's just kinda...eh. I can deal with it, but I want to do more. I want to enjoy it. Feel me?" He asked her as they stared into each others eyes. A smile lit up his face as he continued talking. "But you make it better than eh."

     A smile lit up her face for about a minute before it slowly faded away. "You have to leave again, don't you?" 

     He let out a sigh before answering. "Yes, I do."

"And you might not come back this time?"

     He sighed once more and muttered, "Yeah."

     His voice broke the silence a couple minutes later with words that neither of them expected to hear. 

"Come with me."

"What?"

"I said come with me," he repeated, preparing to go into detail and spill out the thoughts that had arranged themselves with this idea. "It can be us. We can be together. We're better together, and we both know it. You know you want to, and I really have thought about this a lot. We can be together and get the future we wanted without being stuck apart."

"You know I can't leave. I really, really wish I could just go with you and not look back, but I can't do that, at least not right now, and you know that."

     An emotionless cloud slid over his eyes, and he quietly replied, "I know. But what if you could?"