Untitled

Inspiration? No idea. Meaning? No clue. True story? Nope.
Title? It was "The Night" but I don't like that name...

The girl got in her car, shaking, not knowing what to do. She was crying, something she wasn’t used to. She was supposed to be strong and brave. This was the life she had wanted, how could she be so unhappy?
Her shaking hand could barely hold the cell phone as she tried to dial Chase’s number, not knowing whether or not this would end up being a mistake. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen with their relationship and was confused why she had decided to let the relationship continue while she was at college in the first place. She’d decided that he was a low life going nowhere, but couldn’t find it in her heart to break up with him.
“Hello?” Chase’s cool, relaxing voice answered the phone.
“I don’t know what I am doing,” she was hysterical, tears running down her face, “I can’t do this anymore, I don’t have a place to go, I can’t stay here. I don’t know what to do, Chase.”
“Hey, calm down. You can stay here if you need to, you know that. You going to be okay?”
Are you, she thought. He was the only person in the world she didn’t correct though. She let his grammatical errors slide though they felt like nails on a chalkboard to her. It made her a hypocrite because she knew her grammar was horrible, but she didn’t bug herself with bad grammar. Other people bugged her.
“Yeah, are you sure I can stay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She made the 102 mile drive until she reached his apartment complex, stealing the one remaining “Guest Parking Spot,” well, spot from the dimly lit parking lot. She was afraid to leave her 2008 Beamer, a graduation present, in such a dingy lot. This place always gave her the creeps, always seemed really shady, but it was the cheapest rent and when you are living paycheck to paycheck on a minimum wage job, it is the only way. She was just spoiled and would probably never live that way.
He was sitting on the stairs on the outside of his building, smoking a cigarette, when he saw her. He put the cigarette out and went over to greet her.
“Hey, kid, you sure you’re okay?” He asked, though her tear-stained cheeks couldn’t hide what she was really feeling.
“Ya, I just, I don’t think I am college material.”
“It’s okay,” he said, putting an arm around her and leading her to his apartment, “you don’t have to be.”
He was the only one that could understand that. Her whole life she had parents who had told her she was going to go to college. They didn’t offer any other options. They used to point out the people waving signs on the side of the road and say, “See, that’s why you are going to college.” They didn’t understand that ambition didn’t necessarily equate to a college degree. Chase wasn’t going to college.
“It’s just, what am I going to do without college?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t you always have the dream of being a phlebotomist?”
She’d forgotten about her dream. She was too focused on the dream of others to remember that she had had a dream, but she had. She was planning on going to vocational school to become a phlebotomist, but when she told her parents, they gave her a look that said, “if you do, we’ll disown you.”
“It’s just, everyone is going to be so disappointed.”
“I won’t be,” he said, unlocking the door to his apartment. He didn’t tell her that he really was disappointed. Here was a girl who had the whole world going for, tuition being paid for by her parents, never going to have to worry about debt or anything and she was throwing it away, while he was living paycheck to paycheck until he could get a second job to pay for community college since his parents had kicked him out for no reason other than he was now 18 and no longer had to be their responsibility.
She almost seemed to give his apartment a look of disgust when she answered. What did she expect? Buckingham Palace? He didn’t understand why they stayed together. He loved her, but she was a spoiled brat and he knew that he would never be able to provide the life she has always wanted for her. He was never going to be the millionaire, he was probably never going to leave their hometown, he was never going anywhere in life. College was only a maybe right now and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be financially stable enough for that. He definitely wasn’t her dream guy, but she would never say.
She sat on the couch.
“Can I get you anything?”
“What do you have?”
“Instant coffee and top ramen.”
“Um, no thanks.”
She was hoping that he would at least have real food. Wasn’t it the college students who lived off of coffee and ramen? People in the real world were supposed to have real food. She didn’t want to say she was disappointed.
He came over and sat down next to her. “You sure you’re okay, kid? You don’t look okay.”
That was another thing that bothered her. He called her “kid.” What kind of pet name was kid? It made her feel so little and beneath him, like he was in complete control of her, like she couldn’t make the decisions she wanted to make. Her life was in his hands.
“Ya, Chase, I’m fine. I just needed to get away for a night. I just, I don’t know if I could go back. I don’t think I can do it, this college thing.”
“You’ve only been there a month, give it time. I’m sure it will get better.”
A month to her had felt at least like three. Had it really only been a month? How was she ever going to make it through four years of this? She didn’t think she ever would.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“Calm down, of course you can.”
“No, Chase. I don’t think I can do this anymore, this long distance relationship thing.”
They’d been together for two years and now their relationship was on the line.
“Do you have a reason?”
“I just, I don’t know how to feel anymore. I don’t feel anything anymore. I don’t love you anymore and I can’t.”
It would have been better if she had another reason or had said she wanted to see other people, but to say she was breaking up with him because she was apathetic to life? It just wasn’t fair.
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to have one more night to be someone, anyone, in someone else’s eyes. One more night to be in love, to have someone care about me unconditionally.”
“You know, if we break up, I will still feel that way about you.”
They started to kiss and eventually moved into the bedroom, knowing that this would be the last time they would ever be together.
“I love you, kid.”
She never said it back that time. She was gone by the time he woke up the next day. He wondered how she could just leave like that. He loved her. That was that. They were so flawed that they were perfect together.
He never heard from her again.