The Story that was Never Yours

She was a pretty thing, you thought, but sometimes you thought it hard to know what pretty was. You only had a small range of knowledge and descriptive words. You only had the words she gave you. You had intoxicating blue eyes; which didn’t make sense because your friend was often getting intoxicated with alcohol. Eyes don’t drink alcohol, so how could they be intoxicating.

Her eyes were brown, and you’re not sure what that meant. Brown wasn't a common colour, blue and green turned up a lot though. Maybe they were stimulating brown eyes, that’s another word she had used for something else. The only words you knew were the ones she had used in her story. In your story too, except you were only a character who followed along with what she said.

It was interesting sometimes, when there were new words and you learnt what they meant. She had mentioned hallucinating the other day, which you thought meant seeing things which weren’t there. Luckily that wasn’t your character that was doing that, it was the friend that drunk a lot. They were an odd one, with too much hair on their chin. That’s what you had been told to think of them at least, so that’s what you thought. A little part of you thought they were actually rather cute, but you weren’t going to admit that.

“Hi Mallory.”

Sebastian walked in.

People were always appearing suddenly when you were doing something else, but you didn’t get to choose when they appeared. They just turned up and all you could do was follow along.

“Hi Sebastian.” You always said hi too, sometimes you might say hello, or start with a curt nod if you didn’t like them. The hi was starting to become a bit typical you thought, but you couldn’t change what you said.

“Me and David are going to the pub later, want to join us?” He flicked his suave blonde hair back behind his ear and smiled with a glint in his teeth. It was probably an old piece of food, but it glinted.

“Um, maybe.” David needed to stop drinking, you thought that a lot, but you never told him. Maybe tonight you would, if she would just let you say that. Sometimes you wanted to beg her to make you say things, to stop the intoxication, to not embarrass yourself, to not fall in love with the one you’re not in love with. You really wished you didn’t have to do that.

“I’ll come, why not. One drink should be fun, and we can keep an eye on David.” For the first time you took a chance, maybe this would lead to something more.

“Why would we keep an eye on David?”

You bite your lip and grit your teeth. Sebastian and David had always been good friends, though there was a rumour floating around about something in the past. You didn’t really have a past, on little bits here and there. Sometimes there was a vague mention of a sister, and you had broken your ankle when you were ten though you didn’t remember any pain. She gave you all the memories, and the ones she didn’t give you you couldn’t imagine.

“You know, sometimes he just…” You trail, pause, falter. You just want to say it. “He just gets a little loud.” You couldn’t admit to the one you were meant to fall in love with that his friend was an alcoholic. That was no way to woo a man.

“He’s just having a bit of fun.” He shrugged his shoulder and gave you a jostle on the arm.

It sent a tingle down your spine. You wondered how tingles could go down a bit of bone.

“If you say so, you know him more than me. I’ll see you tonight.” You gave him a half-hearted smile as he walked away.

You wished you could help David, and you had thought that maybe helping his friend see it would help him a bit more. It was appearing useless though.

When you entered the pub, the evening had grown dark. The outside air was described as a light wind blowing in from the sea, but to you it was more like a reverent breeze. You couldn’t even remember anymore what else had been described as reverent, but it was a word you knew now thought the night seemed like it.

“Hi Mallory.”

Another hi.

“Hey David, how’s it going?”

“Good.” He smiled. Just smiled. Yet to you it was a smile that sent a wave of warmth into your body. It was more than just a nonsense tingle down the spine, it was a feeling that that smile meant something. You weren’t meant to fall in love with him.

“You want a drink?”

“Sure.” You were not a heavy drinker, though for some reason you did get intoxicated when you looked into Sebastian’s eyes. You wished you didn’t though.

“David, can I ask you something?” Maybe you were going to be candid, maybe you would actually say it straight to his face. You took a deep breath.

“How do you think my hair looks tonight, I want to look nice for Sebastian?” You stringy hair was really far from your mind, and the way you had earlier crimped it into waves was not the most appealing. Apparently it was the fashion though and all the rage to get the guys swarming on you. It made you feel like an idiot.

“It looks nice.” He smiled again and inside you sighed.

This is all the story was going to be, you foolishly following after a man you were never going to love. Yet it wasn’t something you could control, she controlled it. She was the storyteller, the one that decided each little movement of the arm and each intoxicating feeling or thing or whatever she was up to today. If you had more descriptive words you might use them to describe how you felt, but didn’t know any that could explain this.

All you wanted was help the man you loved, but it was hard to make things right when you’re not the one controlling the story.