Shaped Like Rolling’
Ball was red and shaped like rolling. I played with Ball by trying to keep her under my paw. She was fun, but hard to bite. Thomas knew I was enamored with her and it made him happy. He laughed and smiled.
Thomas was a good boy.
That’s why it surprised me when he took her from me. He took her from me and threw her. I remember being upset and confused. I ran after her. She was rolling, but I was able to stop her. I remember thinking that if I didn’t stop Ball, that she would roll forever and I’d never see her again.
I tried gripping her in my mouth again, but failed and would fail many times before I could. I pushed at her with my nose. I was playing with Ball when Thomas called for me. I rebelled. I didn’t go to him until he called a second or third time. I didn’t want to leave Ball. I guessed that to be a good boy I would have to, but when I stepped away from Ball, Thomas pointed and shouted her name.
I nudged her with my head trying to roll her to Thomas, and I did eventually. He called me a good boy. He called me that and scratched behind my ears how I like and rubbed my tummy like I love. He held up Ball and I gave her a lick. Thomas laughed and gave me a little tap on my nose with Ball. He threw her again, and this would go on. Him throwing Ball, me fetching Ball, and then Thomas giving me all the love I wanted.
Thomas and I would get tired, but Ball never did.
Ball is older, like me, but she’s still shaped like rolling. I can’t roll anymore. It hurts me to try and it hurts Thomas to see me try. We play with Ball on days that I don’t hurt, but Thomas hasn’t thrown Ball far in a long time.
I’m with her now and I hold her under my paw, close to my nose, so I can smell my youth on her: the smell of grass, Thomas, and Ball, herself.
It is the last thing I smell.
Rough Draft
He started the book with the ending planned out. He always had the ending. A few days later, he had some good sentences and a straight line from the start to the end. He wrote. The straight line became longer and twisted in the process. He became attached. He fell in love with the idea more than the words. Soon the words weren’t good enough. How could any words be good enough for her?
She was based on a woman he knew. They would talk at night while she smoked. They did this every night for a week. He would walk around the grounds of his complex when he didn’t want to sleep. He saw her two nights, smoking at the table near the apartment’s playground, before she motioned him to come to her.
She lit another cigarette and he could see her face was beautiful. She used matches.
“Can’t sleep?”
“I could, I just don’t want it.”
“Are you a night owl?”
“Aren’t all owls, ‘night owls?’”
She smiled while sucking in the night air through her smoke.
“You can sit down.”
He liked standing. He liked pacing. He did not like sitting. He did not like lying down. He did not like stillness.
He sat down and they talked until she was out of matches.
Every night, except for the last, her cadence was calm and only the speed of her voice varied. Her words were exact. She took as much time as needed to make sure of that.
He told himself he was trying to get her words right. He was trying to make them as exact as she would have made them. He would let the book be finished, he would write the ending, when he got her words right.
The woman’s name was Lilly and he named her character Luna. He loved Lilly, but the late night conversations would end with her matches and never with either of their mattresses.
Lilly moved. She told him she was. He said he wanted to keep up with her and she said the same. Information was exchanged and kept. They never kept up like they both wanted. They both waited until Luna was all he had left of her.
He wasn’t going to let go of Luna. Luna was perfect. She always had something more to say and she never ran out of matches because she used a lighter. Their first time was when she brought a bottle of whiskey to the playground table. They kissed, like drunks, on the equipment. They found a slide and crawled into it to feel each other’s bodies get warm. They finished the bottle and each other in her bed, a simple mattress on the floor.
He moved his mattress onto the floor.
Luna was afraid of falling to the floor during her sleep. Her sleep was as restless as his mind. That’s why she smoked at night. She did it to calm herself.
He would fall asleep with his writing pad. He would fall asleep with Luna’s new words and wake up with them on the floor.
He did this for months, but the words started to come to him slow and less exact than they should be. Less exact than what Lilly would have said.
This is why he didn’t keep up with Lilly. The last night at the table her words were slow and not exact. He thought she was bored. He thought he had started to be a chore for her like he had for everyone else. That last night at the table, when she was out of matches, she couldn’t find a way to ask him to walk her to her place and stay.
He felt Luna was leaving him. She had been with him for over a year. He had memories with her. He had a life planned with her. She would be his greatest accomplishment. He would let others love her like he loved her, but she would only be his.
He sat still and tried to type. He always had the ending. He had known it from the beginning.
He couldn’t write it and Luna left him because of it. He woke up one day and she was gone.
He moved his mattress off the ground.
Luna had changed him when she left. Every girl that left him had. The other girls left him with movie ticket stubs and photos.
She wasn’t real and she had hurt him the most.
Luna left him with a book he couldn’t finish and a relationship he couldn’t tell anyone about. He still knew the ending, but the words weren’t right. They couldn’t be right because neither Lilly nor Luna told him goodbye.
Nice Guys Aren’t: Why You’re the Asshole and She’s Only Your Friend
You say you’re a nice guy. You respect women and would never cheat. You would never talk to a girl the way most other guys do. You’re special. That guy that any girl would be lucky to have. Yet, no girl seems to want you. That’s a little odd. Girls should like you. I bet you have a special someone in mind. I bet she’s a friend— maybe even a best friend. She tells you all her fears, all her problems, and even sometimes cries on your shoulder after she fights with her boyfriend. What an asshole he is. You would treat her so much better. You would cherish her. You would be the best boyfriend in the world.
I bet you’ve told her how you felt. If not this girl, the girl you were obsessed with before. I bet she’s acting weird now. Of course she is acting weird. She thought she had someone to talk to, someone to confide in, someone who cared about her as a person. You betrayed her. Everyone has been lying to you; you’ve been lying to yourself. You’re not a nice guy. You’re a guy who’s been letting a girl trust you, letting a girl take a little bit of the weight off her shoulders and give it to you. She trusted you with her problems and her emotions. No matter how many times she has told you: you’re a great friend, showed no interest in you, or scooted away for more personal space, you decided to try and guilt her into being your girlfriend. Don’t say you didn’t. That’s exactly what you did. You tried to take one connection and turn it into something else. She was sure about the connection. It was something stable. You ruined that for her by telling her how you feel.
Not only have you done that, but you’ve probably undermined her relationship. She can’t trust your good advice now. It could have been self-serving and probably was. You told her you would treat her better. She loves a guy and all you have done is insult him and say he’s not good enough. You’ve made her feel broken and you made her question her taste. Yet you think a guy that called her some name is the asshole? He may have called her something you wouldn’t have, but you played with her mind, her emotions, her trust, and left her in a strained relationship with someone she actually likes.
Do you even know this girl? You have no idea how she is romantically and you only have one side of the story. You’re in love with your own imagination. Take girls off the pedestal. All people are equal. Women burnt their bras and marched in the streets for equality. They don’t need a boyfriend to feed them compliments all day and tell them how perfect they are. They have friends for that, friends like you. Friends they’ll never date. They need an anchor to reality in a boyfriend and you can’t be that until you admit that they have faults. They need someone who knows them, and you simply do not. You may know the secrets and you may know the fears, but you don’t know her.
What can you do? You can start asking girls out and stop waiting for the right moment to do so. If they say no, move on to the next one. You don’t need more friends to pine for, and I’m sure she doesn’t need another guy waiting to tie her down. If you want tips and tricks on how to turn a friend into a girlfriend, you’re looking for ways to manipulate someone, which is just another way to be an asshole. Stop being an asshole and ask a girl out.