If you haven't checked out the TLS Angst Contest entries because you just aren't sure which ones you really want to read and don't have time to read all of them... no worries. I've got a teaser from each entry for you and I'll be posting two a day, everyday until public voting opens on August 14th! This way, you can read all of them or just the ones that grab you! There are SO MANY excellent entries in this one contest that I'd hate for you all to miss out on this, so you can find me here, each day... hooking you up with some angsty teasers!
Let's go:
The canned, cooled desert air hits the damp material and pulls my nipples into stiff little points that will not go away.
On the bright side, I make double my normal amount of take home tips.
On the bright side, my husband just posted a new song. Apparently he misses the brown featureless hills of some mythological desert.
Is this about me?
God, I hope so.
I look at my watch. It's after three in the morning where I am. That means it's after four where he is.
If he's still in Colorado. I have no idea.
I wonder if he still drives the pickup. Probably.
I wonder why I'm so hesitant to just ask him. I used to ask him whatever the fuck I felt like asking him. He used to answer honestly.
Now the only things I ask him are when I silently scream at my computer screen.
"Who is she?"
"Where are you?"
Then I silently scream at myself.
"Why do you care?"
Duh.
I will always care.
Maybe these songs aren't about me. Maybe he won't sign the divorce papers because he worries about alimony. I don't want any alimony. Maybe I should make that clear somehow.
Maybe I will email him tomorrow.
Maybe if he signed the fucking things I would move on.
Sounds awful. I'd rather wallow.
I would have to give up all this hope that he will come back.
Maybe he thinks I'm the one that should come crawling.
Maybe I am the one who should come crawling.
Maybe I should come clean.
I didn't actually sleep with that guy. That night. Two years ago. I let him believe it. I let him believe I had cheated. I let him believe that a random fuck defiled his temple. I let him think it, to set him free.
Because, "I love you, Belle. But I hate my life." Well, it's not what I wanted for him. Not ever.
I never wanted to see that tightly wound tolerance. That bleak short-distance vision that only saw all our acquired things burdening him with their permanence. I never wanted to trap and hold him still against his will. I never wanted that. I wanted to fly with him. But that isn't what our marriage became.
I broke his wings, burdened him with a load too heavy to lift off.
MORE FERARUM - Read more here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9509255/1/More-Ferarum
The first time I kissed him, I felt like I ruined everything. His head snapped backward as if I'd punched him instead, eyes wide and jaw slack. I stared at him, a litany of apologies hovering on my tongue but unable to find their way past my lips, and his saucer-sized green eyes stared at me as if he'd never seen me before. I dropped my gaze, staring unseeingly at the rows of text outlining the steps of the cell cycle on the sheet of notebook paper in front of me, trying to steel myself for the moment he kicked me out of his room.
When I felt like my only course of action was to gather my books and stumble from the room, apologizing profusely, I felt his hand cover mine on the bedspread between us. The second time he'd ever touched me, and I could feel my heart take flight.
The first time I kissed him, I felt like I ruined everything.
As it turns out, in the long run, I was right.
. . . .
The room is unfailingly tidy, books neatly aligned on the bookshelf, surfaces relatively clear of clutter. There's a dog-eared paperback on the nightstand, and I recognize the title from the AP English syllabus. It occurs to me that the top drawer of Edward's nightstand might be a place he wouldn't want his parents to look, if they haven't already, but when I slide it open, all that stares back at me is a pack of cinnamon gum, an array of pens, a black leather notebook, and a ball of rubber bands. Without thinking, I take out the gum and slide it into my pocket; after only a brief hesitation, I lift the notebook from the drawer and lower myself to sit on the edge of his bed. Running my hand over the cover, I try to steel myself for whatever might be inside: the disappointment of page after page of mathematical equations, the unexpected anguish-slash-elation of lines of Edward's private thoughts. I swallow, tracing a single finger over the spine of the book, trying to imagine Edward sitting here, hunched over, hair falling into his face as he scribbled away.
I take a breath and open the cover; printed inside, on the very first page, in massive, black letters are two words.
PLEASE DON'T.
I close the book and gently return it to its place, feeling as though he's further away than ever. Wondering, as the gap opens, what there is – was – that he never told me. Missing him, with a desperation and an ache and an anger and a pain that feels like it's hollowing me out.
You can't go wrong with either of these excellent entries... please read them and show them some love.
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