The Sweet
What on earth was it still doing in her coat pocket? It must have been in there for well over a month by now… maybe longer.
-
She sat at her desk trying not to look at the couple below her office window. Kissing, she thought, in public. Why? She wasn’t sure if she was asking this question to herself or merely in general, but the disgust that rose in the tone of her mind’s voice spoke for itself. She detested public displays of affection. She had never felt comfortable with them, even from family. Her mind trickled away from the item in her pocket and the night (at least a month ago?) when he’d given to her; drifted away too from the lovers outside; to a moment (maybe seventeen, eighteen?) when she’d actively avoided an incoming hug from her mother.
It had been during a Christmas meal several days before the actual day because “everyone is so busy and have so many people to visit, love, that we have to book in a date months in advance”; the secret message here being that she (I) could’ve rocked up any day of the calendar with no cancellations or hasty rescheduling needed. The end of the night had loomed over her like an approaching iceberg, its icy juts and crevices now stretching towards her in the shape of her mother’s arms, its cold floating powder swirling into the gin-tinged breath of her mother’s mouth as she closed in for an inevitable goodbye grab. She had dodged and darted for her scarf (any scarf!) and wrapped it around herself in such a demented fashion that, by the time she’d left the house - and with several family members equally affronted and amused by her bizarre avoidance of contact farewell and general conversation throughout the night – that she looked like a badly wrapped mummy.
But the truth of it was… despite that comic vision of herself stumbling over a snowy path back to her car, and despite feeling a flittering of a smile at the thought of it… she just didn’t really like people.
Didn’t. Really. Like. People.
What a thing to think.
Again, she wasn’t certain if this was a statement to herself or a question that she wanted answered. It seemed timely (maybe ironic? I’ve never quite understood the definition) that these musings and concerns, if that’s what they were, about people and physical contact should arise when trying not to look at a couple kissing and canoodling outside her office window. Their hands touched and entwined, their feet slipped and crossed over other. Leaves, as though embracing the romantic aura shining out from the lovers, fell and littered the grassy path around them in an autumnal palette: red, orange, yellow; all the shades of passion, curling and twirling around their oblivious bodies. She rolled her eyes. She turned back to her computer screen.
Line after line of letters and numbers stood in front of her. For a moment they made almost no sense anymore, looking like a foreign language or symbols from somewhere she had never been to. Her mind’s eye continued to segue back into the couple below, images and visions of their lips now moving within the rows of words on the screen, paragraphs kissing each other and melting into one another like tongues and teenagers and first dates and second base.
Second base? What on earth am I doing wasting my time thinking about this stuff for? What is second base, anyway?
And then… she couldn’t ignore it for much longer… that awful thought she’d had just hours earlier. She’d almost wished it… why? She had no idea. Surely, when most people find out or even worry that this might be happening to them, their first reaction would be to cry or be angry or investigate: to call a friend or at least do a little stalking online.
Not her.
The shortness of the thought caught her breath. “Not her.” Had she just spoken that aloud? Those two words echoed and chased each other around her head like a fox after a hare. But they don’t chase each other, do they? Did she think this question herself or was it her inner voice telling her; reprimanding her?
She stopped. She pushed back into her chair and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. She started the slow counting that she had been taught to do. She imagined writing in her journal, which she would do that evening like every other evening at home. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. Words, words, words. They looped and wrapped around her the way jellyfish entangle themselves around tourists’ legs and arms, ruining any previous sense of enjoyment and false sense of security.
She’d been like this for years now. Anxieties and worrisome thoughts could and would pop up at almost any moment: from behind a ketchup bottle on the dinner table; from under her pillow at night and first thing in the morning; in the suds of a shower; in between the words of a computer screen. When she caught herself at it she tried her hardest to make herself stop.
To just, stop.
“Listen, I need to tell you something. I have worried and thought about it for days now but I just need to let you know.”
Her colleague had come over that morning, face full of concern and agitation. Immediately she rushed through possible worse case scenarios such as:
- I’m getting fired
- I’m getting a pay cut
- I’m having to move departments
- We’re not getting a bonus this year
- Someone is dying
- I’m dying
This tick list method calmed her slightly. She had looked up at her co-worker and put her hand out to try to and soothe whatever inner turmoil this person was trying to handle and explain. She always comforted others first.
“Ok. God, he’d kill me if I told you… but it’s his own doing. I just don’t want you to feel like a fool. I think you need to know.”
The notepaper inside her mind, which had had the previous worse case scenarios scribbled all over it, was quickly scrunched up and replaced with:
- He’s leaving me
- He’s cheating on me
- He’s got someone else pregnant
- He’s going to propose
- Oh fuck he’s going to propose
- He’s going to say he wants children
- Oh fuck he’s going to say he wants children
“I just don’t want you to feel like a fool. I think you need to know.”
She’s said that twice now. The pencil in her mind crossed out several previous scenarios and left:
and then added:
“He’s not going to propose tonight. God he’ll kill me if he ever finds out I’m telling you this! It’s just… I know there have been a few engagements and things in the office lately and… I didn’t want you to get your hopes up and assume… Valentine’s Day and all… and a romantic meal… that trip to Paris next month for your birthday he’s booked… well, as your friend I wanted to give you the heads up. He’s not proposing. Not tonight or when you’re away. Ask me though… he’s an idiot.”
She snapped back to the present.
A pencil was in her hand: line after line of grey covered the piece of paper that the minutes from last night’s meeting had been printed on. She tried to read a few of the words through the lead scratches to calm her mind back down: late, move, alter, up for, AOB. The rest was illegible now.
He’s cheating on me. Thank fuck. Oh fuck he’s going to say he wants children.
Why had those been her first responses? Her instant responses?
She stared back out of her office window. The lovers had gone. Around where they had been sat were now a ring of the leaves that had fallen. The presumably chilly breeze had moved them, causing gaps to form; the circle of crisp colour now appeared like a mosaic… returned to its original shattered form.
What did it say about her that her first thoughts when someone came to speak to her at work were that she was either being fired, a colleague had died, that her relationship was breaking down, and paralysing fear of a possible engagement? What if she just wasn’t mean to be in love?
What if she just wasn’t mean to be in love.
The phrase, at once thought and voiced and made real, looped and wrapped and formed the jellyfish’s tentacles once again. She needed to go for a walk.
-
The elevator doors opened slowly. No one else was inside. That suited her just fine. She buttoned her coat and tied her scarf. A walking mummy who avoids contact with family. She closed her eyes and counted. She put her hands into her coat’s pockets. She’d forgotten what she’d found in one of them just moments earlier back at her desk. She’d been fiddling in her coat’s pockets to try and distract herself from the bars of writing on her computer screen, or the couple outside, or what her co-worker had told her, or… all of it.
She shook her head, realising she was letting her mind spiral again. She focussed on the object she’d rediscovered. What on earth is it still doing in here? It must’ve been in here for over a month. God, probably longer. It was just a mint. A sweet in a transparent wrapper. He’d given it to her after a cinema date. Not a date really, they’d been together (somehow) for long enough to not call nights out ‘dates’ anymore. They’d shared the packet of sweets during the film and he’d offered her the last one on the walk home. She’d kept in her pocket. She didn’t know why. She rolled it around in her palm; then held it between her thumb and forefinger. The elevator made a ringing sound to signal that it was starting to descend.
It’s probably sticky and off by now, she thought. She took off the wrapper and popped it into her mouth.
The elevator juddered. It made her trip forward and swallow the sweet whole. The sweet lodged itself in the back of her throat. Her eyes widened. The elevator stopped between floors. She couldn’t breathe properly. Her mouth was doing all sorts of shapes and contortions. Her hands moved up and down her throat trying to coax and shift the sweet back up into her mouth. She tried to cough. Her eyes were watering. The elevator stayed still. The elevator was stuck between floors two and one. She walked in a tight, tiny circle. She pushed her stomach onto the hand railings attached to the elevator’s walls. She punched her chest. She punched her throat. She ran into the side railings with one hand on her stomach and the other holding her throat just below where the sweet was stuck. She heard herself making awful noises. She waved her hand up toward where a camera might be. Her inner voice came through the melee as clear as day:
- I’m getting fired
- I’m getting a pay cut
- I’m having to move departments
- We’re not getting a bonus this year
- Someone is dying
- I’m dying
- He’s leaving me
- He’s cheating on me
- He’s got someone else pregnant
- He’s going to propose
- Oh fuck he’s going to propose
- He’s going to say he wants children
- Oh fuck he’s going to say he wants children
The words seemed to appear before her now; they dripped down the walls of the elevator like slowly melting ice. And within the rows of imaginary and watery letters, she also saw his face starting to take form.
She coughed once more, violently, and the sweet shot out. It shattered into several pieces and clanged onto the metallic floor.
Out of nowhere, the elevator sprang into life: before she could start to get her breath back or gather her thoughts… the doors parted.
She walked out into the lobby of her office building. She was struggling to breath calmly. Her throat was sore. People were milling around but no one looked her way. Sounds of chatter and the scent coffee filled the air as usual. She walked over to the rotating entrance door and waited for the next empty section.
-
Outside, the air felt cool and fresh. Her breathing had started to calm. Opposite her, she could see the bench where the lovers had been sat not ten minutes earlier. The leaves were now scattered all over the square but were still there, dancing to the breeze in reds and oranges and yellows.
She sat down on the bench; reached into her bag for her phone. She called him.
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