Communication - Part 2

 Hello again!

And here we are. Back with the last of this random story. Like I said, it's not a great story, but hopefully it's not terrible either. But it's something you can read if you want.

Communication

Part 2

    Shelby yanked up another stubborn weed from beside her steps. She really should do some sort of landscaping or something. After all she worked at a flower shop. Shouldn’t that be an indication of her love of plants and an extension of her lovely gardens at home?
    She gave a snort at the thought and stepped up on the edge of her steps to grab her water bottle off the porch.
    Right then two things happened. Someone with a voice very much like Bradley Mullins said her name, and her foot slipped off the side of the step.
    With a startled cry she fell. Pain shot up her leg and her wrist began throbbing from her effort to catch herself.
    “Shelby! Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    She looked up. It was Bradley. He was crouched down beside her, his face concerned. Was this a dream? No, the pain was too real for it to be a dream. But what was he doing there? How did he know where she lived?
    “Shelby?”
    She blinked and focused. “Hi.”
    “Hi.” His dimples came out with his grin. “Do you have a first-aid kit somewhere?”
    “Why?”
    “Uh, you really scraped your leg on the step.”
    “Oh.” Is that why her leg hurt so much? She looked down and instantly felt faint. She didn’t do well with blood.
    “Don’t look at it. I don’t think it’s bad. First-Aid kit?” Bradley positioned his body so her leg was harder to see.
    “Under the kitchen sink.”
    “Right. Just close your eyes and catch your breath.” Then he was gone.
    Had he really been there? Trying not to look at her leg, Shelby slowly pulled her gloves off and rubbed her aching wrist. Why did she have to be so clumsy? It was a good thing tomorrow was Sunday so she could lay around the house all afternoon and get over this wild fancy that the man she had secretly loved for the last four years had come to see her.
    “Ouch!” The exclamation came involuntarily as she pressed on her wrist. “I need to get up,” she said. But she didn’t.
    The thud of her screen door made her start and her heart began to pound.
    “I grabbed an ice pack from your freezer.” Bradley knelt beside her. “Here, let me see your wrist.” His fingers were gentle as he felt it. “I’m not a doctor or even an EMT, but I don’t think it’s broken; it’s probably just strained.” In another moment he had the ice pack wrapped around her wrist. “There, hold that on and I’ll wash this scrape on your leg. No, don’t look at it!”
    She turned her face and squeezed her eyes shut.
    “It’s going to sting when I wash it,” Bradley said. “But it’s appears just a surface scrape.”
    Sucking in her breath as the antiseptic hit her injury, Shelby’s hand tightened on the ice pack on her wrist. “I don’t have flower beds,” she blurted out.
    “That’s all right.” Bradley’s voice was calm and conversational. “Not everyone has flower beds. My new house doesn’t have any.”
    “Your wife might want some.”
    “I’m not married. not even engaged. I took my cousin shopping for flowers for her garden the other day. She’s blind and can’t see the colors, but she can smell the flowers. Her husband will plant them for her.”
    “You’re cousin?” Shelby felt her heart skip a beat.
    “Yes.” His voice was quiet and his hands careful as he wrapped a light bandage around her leg. “That should do it. Want to sit on the steps?”
    Shelby nodded and let him help her up and over to the steps. He sat down on a lower step and looked up at her.
    “I got something in the mail that I don’t think I was supposed to get. I read it because I wasn’t sure at first and then I just didn’t stop.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket. “The envelope was addressed to me, but I’m not sure how you knew where my new address was.”
    Shelby’s eyes widened. “I . . . That . . . How . . .”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “I did address an envelope to you,” she found herself admitting. “I didn’t know you had moved back here when I did it. It was just my favorite house and I had already written your name thinking I’d write to you maybe. Someday . . .” Her voice trailed off as she stared at the envelope in his hands. “I was going to throw it way. But I didn’t mail it. I didn’t mail anything! I--” A low moan escaped her and she closed her eyes. She hadn’t done that, had she?
    “Shelby? Are you okay?” Concern etched Bradly’s voice. “Does something else hurt?”
    “My pride,” she whimpered. A soft sort of chuckle made her eyes pop open.
    “Did you perhaps write a letter to Hayley and maybe put it in the wrong envelope by accident?”
    “I think so.”
    “I’m glad you did.”
    Shelby stared. “What?”
    “I’m glad you did because I thought you ignored my letter to you and that you didn’t like me.”
    “Your what?” Shelby winced. She was starting to sound like a broken record.
    “I wrote to you after I moved asking if you’d be interested in writing to me while I was away. I never heard back so I assumed your answer was no. I think now my letter must have gotten lost in the mail. I should have written again, but I didn’t want to annoy you.” He looked up at her. “I’m sorry for reading what wasn’t mine, but at the same time I’m not sorry I did.”
    “Is that why you came over?” Shelby whispered.
    “Yes. After reading this letter I prayed and felt like I should come and talk to you in person. There was some miscommunication, or lack of any at all, that needed cleared up. I hope we can be friends now and see where that takes us.”
    She nodded not trusting herself to speak.
    Bradley gave a slight chuckle. “You know, Shel, I think I liked you the first time I ran into you in the cafeteria and knocked your tray of food out of your hands. I was really sorry about your food, but I noticed you. You didn’t get all mad at me.”
    “I was too shy to get mad,” Shelby admitted feeling the heat creep into her cheeks at the memory.
    “But you let me get you a new tray of food even if you never said a word.”
    There was a long silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable. A bird sang in the neighbor’s tree and a dog barked somewhere. The distant hum of traffic sounded like a white noise machine.
    “I liked you that day too,” Shelby admitted at last in a low whisper.
    “Would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow after church?”
    “Where?”
    “My parent’s house.”
    Shelby nodded.

What do you think happens next?
Why does Shelby call Hayley "B"?
And does Hayley come for a visit?

Communication - Part 1

Good morning!

 I have a story! It's a short story that I don't think is worth much. After not writing at all in April, and then editing and rewriting and such on another story, I needed something to just write because all my other stories were stuck. 

They are still stuck, come to think of it.

Anyway, I just grabbed the first words that came and started dumping them on NEO. And this is what came out. Well, here's the first part anyway. The last part will come next week.

Enjoy!

Or don't. I'm just tossing this story here because I wrote something.

 

Communication

Dear B,
    It’s all a mistake, you know. I’m not married. Probably never will be. Bradley never loved me. I know he didn’t. It’s a shame it took me five years to figure it out. I should have noticed the signs, paid attention to the things he said. He left, you know. Went to New Orleans with his uncle two years ago. I never heard from him since.
    I know, I know. You’re asking why on earth I didn’t tell you about all of this sooner. Well, I was still convinced he would come back. That he would write to me. Somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to admit the hard truth that Bradley Mullins and I would never say “I do.”
    Well, it’s time I admitted it and moved on with life.
    Oh, HayleyBee, I wish you weren’t living in far away Alaska! I know that’s still the U.S. but it might as well be China or South Africa for all the good it does me. I need to go get coffee with you and talk for about five hours straight. I know you are doing what you are supposed to be doing and of course that’s where your husband is anyway, so ignore my wishful thinking and pitiful selfishness and keep doing what God has called you to do.
    I’ll keep working here at Gardenia's Garden planting, watering, selling flowers for other people’s homes and gardens and try not to imagine what I would plant at that cute house on the corner with the red door and shutters. And don’t tell me I should buy the house even if it was for sale. That was supposed to be the house that Bradley and I shared. I don’t think I could live in it alone. Besides, it’s been sold. I’ve stopped driving by it. I take the other way to work.
    Just ignore me. I’m tired and miserable. Self-pity does make one feel so blue. And it’s dreary outside. Cold, wet, drizzly, and windy. If it would downright storm it would be better.
    What a pathetic and melancholy letter! I’m tempted to just rip it up and throw it away. I might after I finish it. Maybe it’s good to get the truth out in black and white. It finally forces me to face facts. There’s an alliteration for you, oh lover of words. Or almost one. Can it still be an alliteration if there are two small words between?
    I suppose I haven’t told you how I know Bradley and I were never meant to be together. It’s quite anti climatic, really. No, I didn’t hear he was married, or get invited to his wedding. I didn’t hear anything from or about him since he left. Until yesterday.
    I was working. The sun was shining yesterday and it was lovely. A perfect day to shop for flowers and plants for your garden or yard. I was watering the rose bushes when I saw him. Yes, Hayley, Bradley Mullins was shopping at my store. I would have recognized him anywhere. Besides, I heard him and I think I’ll always remember his voice. He was talking to a girl who wasn’t his sister.
    They were laughing about something, and picking out flowers. She asked his advice about plants around the porch. I don’t remember what he answered. No, I didn’t go up and say hi. I finished watering and then stayed away. But she had a ring on her finger and walked with her hand tucked in his arm. I don’t know if he had a ring, so they might have just been engaged and not married. Well, I’m not going to their wedding.
    What a dreary letter this is. You probably don’t even want to read it. If you are reading it, you are probably laughing at me. Go ahead. At least someone should be able to laugh even if I can’t yet. Perhaps some day I’ll laugh with you about this. Right now my heart is too sore and the hurt is too fresh. You’d think I’d have been smart enough to figure out that; that I was chasing a daydream, a figment of my imagination, a mirage. Hayley, I don’t think I’ll ever be smart enough to figure out life. Not like you have.
    Other than my life shattering news, life goes on as normal. I still live in my little duplex and ride my bike to work if it’s over thirty-five degrees and not raining. I still go to the nursing home twice a week and visit anyone who needs a visitor. Church is the same. No new families, no one even remotely close to my age has come since you left. Now quit telling me I need to make friends with people who aren’t my age! I’ve tried. I don’t belong. One, I don’t have kids. Two, I don’t have a boyfriend. Three, I don’t have any family to hang out with. Four, everyone else seems to be in one of those first three categories or they are kids.
    And now I’m going to make a box of mac and cheese and watch a movie. Such a stimulating evening lies ahead of me!
    Kiss those babies for me.
    Much love,
    ShelbyDoo

*

    Brad sat down on the front steps in the sunshine. His mind was spinning and he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it all. He looked down at the letter in his hand. The envelope had his name and his new address on it. It was stamped and the return address was just a few streets from his new home. But the letter was not for him.
    He hadn’t intended to read it, but on catching sight of his name he was pulled in until he’d reached the end. The question now was, had Shelby meant to send that letter to him? Or had it been a mistake? He couldn’t imagine quiet, shy, Shelby mailing such a letter as that to him.
    “But why does she have my name and my new address on the envelope?” He studied the address again. Yes, they were in the same handwriting as the letter.
    Suddenly he frowned and looked back at the house behind him. Was this house the corner house with the red door she had mentioned in her letter? He wouldn’t call the door red. It was more of a dusty crimson.
    “What if I should walk over and talk to her?” he mused. “I should explain a few things while I’m at it. If she’d talk to me.”
    He continued to sit, his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him and prayed.
    At last he rose, locked his front door, tucked the letter into his pocket, and strode down the street. It was time to make amends for the years of silence.

Well? How bad was it?
How has your writing been coming?
Ever want to write and can't?