Strawberry Jello
1825 Words
Ethan Davidson
“Are you okay?” I haven’t noticed her staring at me when she talked. Or maybe I have and I’m just too nervous to look up.
“What? Yeah, I’m good. Why?”
“Well it’s just you haven’t said anything this whole car ride and now that we’re here you’re still pretty quiet over there.” Entranced I guess, she talks so fluently it’s like watching butter melt onto a frying pan.
“I like hearing you talk, I don’t want to interrupt with my awkwardness.”
“Don’t do that.” Harsh, first time her voice hasn’t sounded warm.
“Don’t do what?”
“Put me on a pedestal and tear yourself down.” I think she has tears in her eyes, if she cries I won’t know what to do. Anytime my mom cries I just ignore it since it’s either because I have a tumor or I did something to make her proud.
“I’m not…”
“Yes, you are and I will not sit here if you’re going to do that because if you think so low of yourself then you don’t deserve me. Got it?” Some guy must have ruined her before, her glow is thousands of miles away and she feels cold.
“Yeah, I was just…”
“No excuses. Just tell me about you without thinking you’re garbage.”
“Okay then, well you know about the tumors already so I guess you want to hear about my family?”
“That would be a good choice for this moment.” The glow and warmth are back. I wonder if it’s like a switch for her. Off and on, off and on, off and on.
“Okay so, my mom used to be a lawyer and now she stays at home all because she’s afraid to leave me alone. Umm my dad isn’t as worried about me, he’s someone who works in one of those little cubicle things, not sure what he does. Kate is my older sister who hates me but if I died I seriously have no idea if she would cry or celebrate.”
“I’m sure she would cry, you’re a pretty cool bean if I do say so myself.” Why does she talk like that, so many things to learn from this girl.
“Cool bean? Chicken nuggets? Are you obsessed with replacing curse words with food?”
“No, I just think they have a better meaning. Honey bunches of oats sounds better than oh shit.”
“It’s longer though? How could you like spending that much time on something so meaning less?”
“Because if I don’t use swears all the time then when I really need it I can and it’ll be better than someone who says f**k all the time.” Love does mean something to me I guess. I barely say it so I could understand why these mean something to her.
“I guess that’s true.”
“I know it’s true.” Her smile gets brighter and she looks perfect right now. How could I not put the sun on a pedestal when the whole solar system revolves around it.
“Could I kiss you?”
“What?” f**k! s**t! What the f**k did you just ask her? Goddammit Ethan you i***t!
“What?”
“Did you ask to…”
“No, no I didn’t. Well maybe but let’s pretend I didn’t so I can skip this embarrass…”
“Yes.” s**t.
“What?”
“I said yes.” f**k.
“Okay then. Should I move in now or like wait for a moment or…” she took my face in her hands and brought me in. Her lips tasted like strawberry jello, not very romantic to say but it’s the truth. You know those balls you can squish and it’s in a net but the ball changes color when you squish it? Soft. Kind of like that.
“So how was…” I needed more. As I wrapped my hand to her cheek, I could feel her warmth, the glow, I could feel Samantha Type. “okay well, I guess that answers my question.”
“Sorry I just needed more.”
“It’s okay I needed more too.” I have no idea what I’m doing with this date anymore. I had a stupid plan in my head and now. Well it’s gone out the window. I should have made que cards for stuff to talk about or fun facts. What am I thinking? She’d love the freaking stupid cards and facts. f**k sakes Ethan.
“So, what now?”
“Favorite color?” Maybe she had que cards, because that question came out pretty quick.
“Umm, I don’t know.” Liar, your bedroom is green, all your good shirts are green, you even have all your school binders as green. Why didn’t you just say it?
“Then I guess it’s parakeet green.” I am in love with this girl.
“That’s a color?”
“It’s a shade of green and I think your personality suits it.” It does suit me. Any type of green suits me.
“Parakeet green?”
“Definitely parakeet green. So, what do you think mine would be?”
“Purple.” Not just plain old purple but the kind of purple you see in a sunset, it makes you re think everything and wonder how the hell did purple get mixed into such a bright thing. But your purple is bright Samantha, you own that sunset.
“Just purple?” Nope.
“I don’t know any fancy colors like you do.”
“It was a good try, I’d say more like Gainesboro”
“What the hell, is that color?”
“It’s like a light grey with an undertone of lilac.”
“So grey and purple mixed together.”
“I guess that’s a simplified version sure.”
“I didn’t expect you to be a grey. More like a bright purple not grey purple.” Sunsets aren’t grey, you aren’t grey, you are not a rock.
“It’s more complex than just light grey purple. It has a specific amount of purple tint, and a certain amount of shade and white and… what?” Sunsets are complex screw f*****g Gainesboro, you’re Moderate Magenta.
“Nothing.”
“No, your eyes looked glazed over, are you bored because you can tell me to be quiet or if you don’t like the topic I can change it.” I’m having an argument in my head about you being a sunset. I’m not glazed or dazed I’m just lost in you.
“You look like a strawberry when you talk.” Well I guess she does. Sort of, not really what the f**k, why’d you say strawberry? That’s probably the stupidest thing you could’ve said.
“Is that a compliment?”
“The highest weirdest compliment I’ve said. Sorry I just couldn’t think of another word.”
“I like it. It’s kind of cute.”
“You’re welcome.” Well that worked.
“So, what were you thinking about while I was talking?” Never mind.
“Nothing, just the strawberry thing.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what, I won’t judge you.” Her simple smile is welcoming, warm and welcoming.
“Moderate Magenta.” i***t.
“What?”
“Gains-borrowed or whatever it is, it’s not your color.”
“Gainesboro.” You’re even messing up her favourite colour? God could this date get any worse?
“It’s the purple in a sunset.”
“Gainesboro?”
“No, moderate magenta.”
“OH, so why a sunset?”
“Because when you think of a sunset you think of orange’s and yellow’s and red’s. You never automatically think of Moderate Magenta being a part of a sunset. Even though it makes it better, it makes it even more beautiful and breath taking. It makes the sunset memorable. You never know when you’ll see it again so you hold onto it. You take everything from the sunset and you just lock it away because you never want to forget how you feel.”
“You want to lock me away?” f**k. Ethan why can’t you just talk like a normal human being?
“No that’s not what I mean. I just want to feel this way for the rest of my life or whatever I have left of it.”
“What do you mean what you have left?”
“I told you about the tumors.”
“I thought you were exaggerating about the you ‘may die’ part.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I-I don’t know, you wanted to make a joke or I just thought you made jokes about death and stuff but it would never happen.”
“No, no I don’t joke about death or the whole tumor thing. I used to but I started getting them regularly and now I don’t really talk about it at all.”
“I’m sorry.” F.U.C.K!!!!
“Don’t be it’s not your fault, you didn’t know.”
“No, I’m sorry I can’t do this.” See you’ve f****d up this whole thing and now even the weird girl doesn’t like you! Ethan the tumor boy is going to die alone.
“What?”
“I have to go.” And off she went. Practically sprinting out of the restaurant. Everyone is looking at me, well the two waitresses and the two sets of couples over there. How is she even going to get home? This is in the middle of no where and she wasn’t even paying attention to which streets we were going down. Do I go after her? Should I go after her? Does she really want a guy destined to die driving after her? It’s not like it’s going to be raining and then I stop her in the middle of the road and we confess all our problems and kiss in the rain. This isn’t a romantic comedy movie. This is life and it’s my life so it makes it a million times worse. f**k it go after her. I get up and throw a twenty on the table.
As I walk out I feel wet. It’s f*****g raining. Are you f*****g serious right now? I get in the car and start to drive down the road. What if she went the other way? What if she stopped at someone’s house on the side of the road and asked to use the phone? The people around here are small town people. They’re helpful, f**k! I keep driving when I notice a girl on the side of the road with a car slowly following beside her. I pull over and get out.
“Samantha wait! Please?!” Oh. My. f*****g. God! I’m playing out the scene in the f*****g rom com.
“Just leave me alone!”
“Sam please! Talk to me or at least let me drive you home? We’re in the middle of no-where and its cold and raining.” As I’m following her the car keeps going with her too. She turns her head every couple steps as if she’s responding to the guy in there. “Samantha Type!” She stops and turns around. s**t, she’s coming towards me.
“I can’t do this Ethan.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m complicated, you’re complicated! What does that have to do with anything?!”
“It has to do with everything!” I could tell that there weren’t just rain drops on her face anymore, it was tears. They were flowing like a river and I think the clouds felt her pain too because it started raining harder.
“Explain it to me then! Don’t just run out of the restaurant in the freezing f*****g rain!” She comes closer and she looks angry. Not just a little frustrated, anger. Full out rage and then, she kisses me. She kisses me and I am not longer wet or cold. I am warm and glowing and happy.
“You felt that?”
“The warmth?”
“That’s why I can’t do this. That’s why me and you are never going to happen!”
“Because it feels like fireworks when we kiss? Because you feel it too? Because I think I could fall in love with you if you just smile at me? That’s why we can’t work? Because we actually work?!”
“Because I can’t lose another love!”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t want you or love you because I don’t want to lose another piece of myself. I can’t go through what happened last year! I can’t do it!” She needed to be kissed. She needed to be held. So that’s exactly what I did. I felt her get smaller in my arms. I’m not really good at comforting people. You think I would because all I do is get tumors and people cry around me all the time. But this is different, this her being sad about her, this is her own pain.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“But what if it’s not.”
- Writer
