Flat Soda

Soda pop, pop, pop. Nose hairs dance. It's hot! Sweat falls down the sides of her curly auburn hair, kissed by the summer sun. Wide, white grin–blue tongues from melted popsicles. She sparkled in the sun like refracted glass. Rainbows dance on the ground. She had that look about her, a fascinating spectacle of chance.

The spokes, the wheels, grey–they had lost their luster from heavy use, she spun the pedal slowly on her sky-blue bicycle. "I'm glad we did this!" Sasha said, cooly. 

"Me too." 

“How long has it been since you've ridden?” Ryan pulled on the threads of his ripped jeans exposing his knees. A lumpy pink line ran across it, he rubbed his rough guitar-calloused fingers over it. 

"A bike? Ages! But it feels good." Her cheeks were full and bright dotted with perpetual child-like charm. Her freckles speckled in the most perfect places. Ryan pulled his golden brown hair back behind his ears. His brown skin and Middle Eastern nose glistened with drops of sweat.

“I wasn’t sure if you were into this kind of thing. Cause your profile– you just didn’t seem like you’d be into bike rides and sitting by the beach fully clothed, you know?” Ryan stared at the crisscrossing of his white laces, smudged with city dirt. Wait, is it bad to suggest I've seen her in a bikini, he thought. His confidence rode on top of his insecurities like sea foam on a wave. He needed a reminder of how confident he could be. His shoes told stories of his courage and his adventures. Drops of blood from skinned elbows and inattentive drivers dribbled over the white threading of his flat shoes. He was bold then.  

Sasha studied his face and averted eyes, big, brown, fully lashed, then stared out into the low tide and the apricot glow of the setting sun. Boats docked across the bay, their hulls reflecting the coral hue of the sky. "You might be a nerd, that's for sure.” She chuckled then leaned back onto her elbows exposing the firm youthfulness of her chest. "But I like nerds." The chill of the ocean breeze ripened the tender fruits beneath her checkered crop top. 

“I’m a nerd?! How?” Ryan smiled, his teeth naturally straight except for one tooth slightly ajar at the bottom, tiny imperfections.

“Yea, I mean come on you asked me if I could have any superpower what would it be?”

“That’s not a nerd question!” He laughed, spitting a little. He recoiled, hoping that she had not noticed. Seafoam plunged beneath the folding of water. Sasha had seen it but the little speck of innocence was endearing. 

“But you probably like comics right?” Sasha incited, she looked at him endearingly as if watching a puppy trip on a rug.

“Comics are great! I like the Japanese kind though!” Ryan picked at his laces, scraping off the mud with his fingernail.

“See, nerd! BIG nerd!” She giggled. Ryan joined her. 

“Everybody is a nerd about something,” he accidentally locked eyes with her– goose flesh. Blood rushed to his cheeks and hands. He felt warmer against the salt air, cooling his hair. The dimming light of day kissed his face with its subtle glow. Sasha too felt the balming warmth flood her body. She hadn’t indulged that side of herself in some time. Her ethnic ambiguity, her freckles, and her ample bosoms had always been a topic of conversation. She had always been the cool, attractive girl-ethereal and “breath-taking” as many men had said before, including creepy uncles and gas station attendants. Men smiled at her in a mesmerizing sort of way that made her nerves stand on end, not because it was annoying, but because it made her nervous. Like she was expected to be something she didn't ask to be. But Ryan was different. His eyes were honest and genuine. “I guess we’re all nerds huh?... I’m a nerd about animals. Growing up I wanted to be a veterinarian. I used to pretend my stuffed animals were my patients.” shyly she looked out at the rolling hills across the bay. Her eyes followed a patch of seaweed surfing up and down the water– aimless. 

“What happened?”

“When I turned 15, I was scouted for this modeling agency. I made really good money so there was never any need for me to pursue it. But I don’t know. Now, I work in fashion and I love it–” her tone was too high as if she were trying to convince herself more than him. 

He noticed. 

It was like watching a small child who doesn't know what or who they want to play with so they just follow whatever the other kids are doing.

“What if you go back to school?”

“Ha! What, are you kidding? No way! I would piss off so many people. Besides, I'd have to go to college and it's just too much work, too much money, and I barely finished high school."

“I get that."

“Yeah…I bet. You probably did well in school. Did you go to college and stuff?” her nervous laughter and clutched knees had something to lose, something to fear. 

"I did." He said simply. Her fears radiated against his skin like heat from a lamp with no shade. 

"I studied chemistry for a bit, then switched to physics."

"Wow! That's amazing!" Ryan was used to this generic reaction and the feelings after. The damp cold recoil of self-doubt, the reaction that was placid and musty, the kind that ended conversations with a sudden pause for reflection.

“Tell me the coolest fact you know.” he interrupted her disquieted contemplation.

“About what?”

“I don’t know…a dolphin.”

"Oh…okay!” Escaping into the fantasy of her younger self she vacillated between indulging and rejecting her true fascinations. She searched her mind through the catalogs of unused information.

“Well, there are different kinds of dolphins, the orca, the bottlenose, they all communicate through squeaks and whistles, they’re mammals.” She sat up more erect, her hands guiding her through her memory. Her thin legs rested on either side forming a diamond shape, her posture erect like a dancer of many years, talented and informed.

“Yeah, that’s stuff we all know! Give me something people don’t know.” egged Ryan.

She giggled, searching with her eyes for the kind of fact that made her interesting. “They have an amazing memory and can remember communicating with another dolphin that they haven’t seen in over a decade. Oh, Oh, also–” She touched Ryan's open kneecap, eyes bright and eager. Goose flesh pimpled across his arms, tingles ran across his toes. “An orca will eat a great white shark if food is scarce.” she laughed a genuine laugh.

“What! I guess Free Willy should have been a lot scarier!” Ryan was surprised, not just by her knowledge of the subject, but her bubbling joy for talking about it. He ignored all other scientific notions that would interrupt their flow. 

“Haha, yeah, but they're only scary to sharks.” She corrected him.

“Tell me another one!” Ryan studied her bright brown irises jumping about as she sifted through the inert facts of her forgotten past. Maybe it was her childish excitement or how her freckles formed constellations when she smiled. “Oh! Oh! Here’s one. There is a microscopic animal called the tardigrade or a water pig. It can live in some of the most extreme environments, including outer space. Isn't that crazy?!” Her lip gloss shimmered in the fading light. Her ear-to-ear grin diminished once she recognized her overzealous enthusiasm. She brought her knees back together to its cocoon of protection, it was subtle. She rested her chin upon them soothing herself for a rejection that would never come. The sky was dappled with iris-colored clouds and peek-a-boo stars. They had barely noticed the sunset. “It’s getting late,” Sasha spoke like the soothing pulse of the sea, a reflection of sadness lingering at the edge of her words. 

“Yeah it is.” he pulled at the strings of his frayed jeans. His eyes focused on the lumps and bumps on his rough kneecaps. His face grew serious, furrowed eyebrows and tightened face. Ryan grew weary of the dance they were doing. The game they were playing. How long could their masks stay glued to their faces? 

Reject before you get rejected. 

Or just dance and see what happens.

“I wanted to be a comic book artist once, but I quit because it doesn't make any money. I wish I hadn't…" he paused, waiting, hoping the words they used would lead to the closeness he– no, she– no, they yearned for. 

"Do you think we ever actually achieve our dreams?!” Sasha asked suddenly. The jump into lost passions was abrupt, but vibing to a different frequency would at least keep them around. At least to see what made their blood move in the first place.

“I mean yea, people do! Look at everyone that made it just because they kept going.” He joined his seriousness.

“I don't know. I think you have to be lucky sometimes.”

“I don’t get what you mean.” Ryan stared blankly back, innocent and attentive.

Sasha shook her head in protest, tossing her loose curls about her face making her more alluring than when relaxed.

“I mean sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time."

"Like fate?"

"Yeah, like fate. I mean sometimes you can do everything right and still not get where you want to be. Fate makes sure that you get there. Maybe it wasn't your fate to be a comic book artist or else you'd be one. Maybe what you are doing right now is exactly where you are meant to be."

There was a long quiet between them. Ryan sighed and stared out into the ocean like a tired cat. He blinked slowly as if knowing a future he had once loved before.

“Yeah, I guess…It's getting late. I should get you home. You don’t want to be out after dark around here." He smiled. It was dishonest but well-meaning.

Sasha leaned in close to him, her hair touching his cheek. He kissed her forehead. Her nose turned up to his chin. With her lips, she touched him there. They moved their bodies, adjusting awkwardly, excited for the brail that would run across their arms, or the bursts of light that would flash beneath their chest. Soft lips and hints of something blue, a kind of berry or bubble gum. For a moment in time, they were one, breathing the same breath. Ryan accepted her impulse, but he could not return his lips to hers with enthusiasm. He had hoped for the jumping fizzy feeling, the one that lights up the eyes. In her saliva and the bristles of her tongue he felt cold and placid.

 He felt the emptiness in her heart as she placed her hand perfectly on his chest. She’d practiced it before. She stared deeply into his eyes and combed through his hair with her fingers. They stared out into the water. It was black. The ships were docked. The crowd thickened and neon lights hummed.

Flat cola is the worst when thirsty. 

Ryan knew it and so did she. She would lock her heart away for another day, for another man, maybe. A confusing rejection. A stillbirth of what could have been.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

“Okay,” he replied.