3.4 Cliché
But the next day, Rose didn’t take the bus. She must have been sick—possibly of me.
In any case, I’d decided never to sit in her corner again. I sat facing the beach that morning after, and Lily magnetized to me. I didn’t say hello. I was too busy exhibiting my disconsolation by resting my elbow on the window-ledge, propping my head up with my hand on my jaw, and sulking at the bay, which was green under a mocking bright sky.
Show some respect, world, I thought. I’ve just been rejected by the girl I love. The least you could do is rain.
Lily basked in my silence, eyes closed in a morning doze, half-smiling. She was feeling for my movements’ echo in the seat-springs, listening for the chafe of my jacket against my shirt as I turned to her, as she thought I inevitably must, to puncture her infuriating air of contentment with a spike of outrage. But I had out-thought her, and declined to speak. Then the bus passed over a hillside that blocked the strand from view, and I could no longer gaze longingly at the sea as though it were Rose.
“Don’t be such a mopey bitch,” said Lily.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because,” and she leaned onto my shoulder to say it low, as though this were a secret only for me, “Rose isn’t worth it.”
“Who says this has anything to do with Rose?”
“Rose does. She called to tell me she was skipping school so she wouldn’t have to face you. I told her not to be such a loser, but she can be as awkward as you.”
I frowned.
“Okay,” she said, “maybe not so awkward as you. What’s wrong with you two? Don’t be ridiculous, Josh. She’s just a girl. You only want to fuck her.”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“It’s only ever like that.”
“Then you don’t know me.”
“Oh, deep down you’re the same as every other guy. You just don’t know it yet.”
“I’m more than every other guy.”
“Are you? What makes you so special?”
“I have a destiny.”
“Everybody has a destiny. Yours may not be to become a carpenter and spend your life down here building kitchens for retirees, but even that’s a destiny all the same. You’re not special. Not in that way, anyway.”
“What if I told you I’d seen it?” I said. “My destiny, that is.”
She sneered. “Do tell.”
“Hold the sarcasm, would you? Okay, so … Hey, actually, you’re in this story.”
“It was the day I met you. I’d been feeling sick all day, and …”
“So you gave me the flu that year. You bastard!” She shoved me against the wall of the bus, and laughed. “Just kidding. I don’t get sick.”
“Everybody gets sick.”
“I don’t. I refuse. Now,” and she flapped the back of her hand at me dismissively, “continue.”
I continued. “By the end of that day we met I was shaking with fever. I went straight to bed when I got home, which is unusual, because I don’t like to sleep.”
“Me neither.”
“And when I slept, I had a dream. Maybe that’s the wrong word. It was a vision. I could see myself standing in a kitchen at the back of an old house, and it was like a catalog of possible futures, cutting between these scenes where I saw all the women I could marry. And there was this one woman who I know is the one, the one woman who …”
“You’re shitting me. Your think you’re special because you dreamed of the perfect girl for you? What a fucking cliché!”
“Do you want to hear this story, or not?”
“Now, I’m not so sure.”
“Too bad,” I said. “I didn’t want to talk about this. You started it.”
“Telling you not to be a mopey bitch is not an invitation to start in on what may be one of the most pathetic tales ever told.”
“You can be such a cow.”
“Way to charm a girl, Josh. Tell me, then.”
“So, there’s this one woman who I know is the one, the bringer of my best happiness, the fulfillment of my purpose in life, or the reward for it. I know she’s a writer’s wife, and I’m a writer.”
“Is that what you want to be?” she asked, suddenly full of interest. “What do you want to write?”
“Novels. Now, shh … She’s wearing a new coat, turning on the spot to show me how she looks in it. She’s shorter than me, and blond, and kind of soft-looking all over, like Rose …”
“You think Rose is this woman?”
“… and I have this expression on my face like I’ve been sad for a really long time, but that it’s all better now.”
“With Rose? Holy fuck, didn’t I tell you? She isn’t worth it. She’s just an ordinary girl. You think she’s some kind of special muse for you? Stranger things have happened, but it won’t ever be because of her. Do you know she wants to be an accountant?”
“I did not know that.”
“It’s not even because she has any passion for business. She just thinks it’s safe. I don’t think she even knows what an accountant does. Why waste your desire on her? You hardly know her. You didn’t even know she had a boyfriend, and you’ve been talking to her all year. Ohhh— Oh, ho ho. Wait. You haven’t really been talking. You haven’t really been getting to know Rose because, evidently, you’re petrified of her. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Love’s very important to me. I want to get things right. It makes me nervous.”
“Love? Ain’t nothing to it, Josh. Ain’t nothing at all. Fucking, and friendship if you’re lucky. Get over it. And get over Rose. Whatever you want, it isn’t her.”
And that was all of consequence we said to each other that day. When I’d told her she was in the story, all she caught was that I had my dream the day I met her, as I’d said. She put me off so badly that I didn’t tell her she’d been in the dream, too. But anyway, I never knew for sure that it was her until she started wearing the t-shirt with the dove.
YOU ARE READING
Kiss Me, Genius Boy (No More Dreams #1)
Teen Fiction"In that moment, there arose all the resolve I hoped would be with me when I finally met her, and my vertigo turned to exultation. So what if she was married? I had contemplated that long ago, and decided I'd have her anyway." Joshua Rivers was born...
