Holly's Bad Day
Fiction! A 'shorty short' as Chris likes to say. OK maybe part revenge fantasy? Even though there is very little revenge here. Also unedited!
Holly had a bad day. First it was the coffee, spilled all over the counter, then it was the allergies, then the lack of hot water for her shower. She wanted to just give up and go back to bed but not today, she could not today. There were things she had to do and it was her only day off this week. She strapped on her big girl pants and made it out the door. Only to run into him two and a half blocks past her house, she was so close to the post office - it was almost some kind of cosmic joke - she had just been ranting to her friend the other day how happy she was she would never have to see him again - he lived in the East Bay after all, a world away from the Richmond district in San Francisco. But by some weird coincidence here he was in HER neighborhood - with what appeared to be his new girlfriend. She didn’t stop when she saw him, his dusty red hair thinning even more than it had been three months ago, his pointy nose and overbite more prominent than when she had a massive crush on him. How did she not really see him before? How was her brain so transfixed by what she now recognized as an over inflated ego. He wrote songs but they were bad, almost equally as bad as his voice which sounded like a robot when he sang - a robot grasping for a melody that kept running away from it. They made eye contact and she gave a quick nod of her head. He sputtered out a half smile and a dismissive nod - as if to say - 'do not stop, do not make me awkwardly introduce you to my new fancy lady friend'. But if he could hear her mind he would have heard back ‘not in a million years pal, and how the hell did I ever find you attractive enough to sleep with?’ She didn’t exactly regret it - the physical part - it was decent, sure his dick was weird, she didn’t mind an uncut dick but there was just too much skin, and his body looked like craters had fallen on it and than quickly vacated. It was soft and felt like it was missing essential parts. What she regretted were the minutes, hours, days she had wasted thinking of him, pining over him, so new out of a long marriage, so out of dating practice that it was as if she didn’t even know how to let a crush just be a crush - no she fell right back into old patterns and convinced herself she was in love with him. He gave her breadcrumbs and she confused them for freshly baked bread so bountiful it would feed an army. When in reality her fish wouldn’t even get full from the leftovers he offered up. She knew she shouldn’t be so hard on herself but even her therapist rolled her eyes at her. Holly had a bad day but seeing him made it even worse. She closed her eyes as her therapist instructed her to do when she got these feelings in her body, she pictured her younger self, gave that young self a hug and talked to her - but it wasn’t working - and someone slammed into her just as she was telling her young self it would all be ok - making her lose her grip on the packages she was heading to the post office with - ‘OH sorry he said’ bending over to pick them up. If this was a meet cute he would smile at her with his pretty green eyes, hand her the packages and ask if she wanted a coffee because it looked like she was having a hard day and he could use some company. But it wasn’t and his almost black eyes looked more annoyed at her for walking in the middle of the sidewalk than apologetic for ramming into her in the first place. She turned the corner and entered the post office - stuck in time somewhere between 1989 and 1995 - the walls covered in browning posters with stamps long out of print, Keith Haring looking hearts, rose bushes, and an astronaut landing on the moon. The carpet was pulled up and threadbare in spots, but Norm was behind the counter and greeted her with a warm hello that felt like just the giant hug she needed today. Could she hide in here all day? Hang out by the post boxes and pretend it was 1991 again? Norm would let her.
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