09 Mar A Short Story: Reality

*The following story is entirely fictional.”

We were in a room with an atmosphere environment that seemed to mimic her current temperament; sweet like a lullaby, yet dangerously flirtatious like a surprisingly good arranged date.

She initially had her hair up, but she let it down and carefully moved some of her hair behind her left ear, then she looked up at me and started to speak, but I wasn’t paying much attention, as in that moment I was admiring how beautiful she looked. So I said to her, “Sorry, what did you say?” I made sure to say it with the utmost sincerity.

She lightheartedly sighed then said, “Look… Avi Jay, you can’t just treat me like I’m one of your science experiments…”  

She had one of those noticeable smiles upon completing her sentence, a certain type of smile… a real smile, where I could see her eyes slightly squint simultaneously with a dimple formation. I like to consider myself an observant person, but I wasn’t sure if she was being obviously flirty, or somewhat serious… so I decided to go with the latter and said to her, “What do you mean?”

She sat back in her chair, folded her arms and gave me an aroused, yet skeptical look and said, “I don’t know… it’s just weird… you seem to know exactly how I’m feeling without me having to say anything…” She then started to tap one of her fingers on the table: in a way that showed she’s being slightly impatient and is expecting a good answer from me.

I began to speak slowly, in such a way that I wanted to make sure she could feel, not hear, the breaths in the pauses of my voice, “I… uh, I like the way you say my name.”

I then started to write a few words on the notepad I had in front of me, but stopped and reached into the left pocket of the plaid fleece shirt I was wearing and then continued writing. I could tell in her change of demeanor that she was interested and curious as to why I switched pens.

After writing several words, I took my hat off and placed it over the notepad so she couldn’t see what I had written. I could sense this only made her more amicably annoyed. I then placed my hands on the table, in a concentrated fashion and looked deeply into her eyes (like I was looking through her) and with the same sort of longevity of vernacular, I said to her, “Has anyone ever told you that you have eyes that glow in the dark? I mean, it’s quite remarkable how you can have pupil hue with the absence of light, however, in the light, your retinae illuminates your whole physique…”

Her reaction carried a look of sentimental surprise, a slight shock that she kinetically moved into a mannerism of slamming the table while saying, “Damn it Avi Jay… how do you do that?”

I nonchalantly took both of the pens off of the table and placed them back into my shirt pocket, waited a few moments and then responded, “Do what?”

She laughed in a way that I could tell she was both amused and not amused at the same time; clearly a feeling that she was not used to.  I remained silent, so she started speaking with an endearing aggression, “I don’t get it… it’s like… it’s impossible to even be annoyed with you… you just always know exactly what to say, you just always say the right stuff.”

With a sense of calmness and smoothness, I unbuttoned the first button on my shirt, looked in another direction and then said, “So… should I just stop talking then?”

She sat upright and firmly responded, “Yes.” She then bit the bottom of her lip, I suppose it was from a subtle excitement, but she continued to speak, “No… I mean… yes and no. Can you just answer my question?”

I put my hat back on, with the brim low, purposefully, so she couldn’t really see my eyes and then I said, very linearly (if I might add), “Well… you didn’t really ask me a question… you mostly just gave me a statement with the expectations of a response from me that you would want. That’s not very fair, is it?”

 She looked down and whispered without much lip movement, “No… it’s not.” I couldn’t help but notice that she really did have the type of eyes that don’t hide how she’s actually feeling… I’ve always found that really attractive. I also spent a few moments pondering if other people thought the same thing.

I then stood up, not in a way that showed I was hastily leaving, but in a way that confirmed it was probably time I should go. Then I said to her, as soft as possible, “I guess I should go then… you know, I don’t want you to think that I’m experimenting on you, or distorting your reality in anyway.”

She looked a bit surprised, I could tell because she quickly put her hair back up. I noticed that she does that a lot when she feels nervous…maybe not nervous in the normal sense, but definitely a bit anxious.

I then saw her point to the notepad on the table.  I hypothesized that that was her way of telling me she wanted to read what I had written.  

I quickly ripped the top sheet off of the notepad and very slowly slid it across the table to her using two fingers.

She quickly picked up the paper from the table, using two hands (which I found kind of odd) and read that it said, “I’m getting hungry.”