The Lives We've Led

Two acquaintances admire their graffiti and talk about the lives they've led since high school.

Luke’s fingers very gently entwined Jackie’s as they stood staring at their graffiti. The gesture shocked her briefly, but holding Luke’s hand felt oddly right.

And then it felt really wrong. She hadn’t done something like this in years. Not since Mark.

“Too soon?” Luke asked, releasing her hand. It took Jackie a moment to get her bearings. 

“I just haven’t done this in a long time,” she finally said. The sentence felt like it needed a follow up and the pot was making her want to tell Luke everything. Telling him might ruin the whole night. She wondered if it was worth the risk. 

“Want to sit down?” Luke asked. Jackie nodded, profoundly embarrassed. The ground was still warm from the day despite the night air’s chill. Luke sat close enough to touch and Jackie reached for his hand, despite herself. His hand was comfortingly large in comparison to hers.

“Have you ever been married?” Jackie asked, her eyes serious and dark in the low light. For a moment, Jackie thought he might bolt, but then he leaned back against the sloping ground and looked up into the clear, night sky. 

“No. I’ve never seemed to settle long enough in one place to find anyone that made me want to quit traveling.” Luke replied, earnest and thoughtful. He turned back to her and asked, “What about you?”

Jackie nodded, her lips pursed. “Yeah- just the once, though. Mark and I met in grad school through a mutual friend. He was sharp- I always suspected he was smarter than me, but I didn’t mind.”

“How long were you married?” Luke asked. Jackie watched him for a minute, gauging his level of interest and decided he was genuine.

“A little over ten years. We were best friends the whole time. We fought, of course, but we always made up. I think we could have made it to 100, if we’d gotten more time.”

“How did he die?” Luke asked, compassion in his voice. Jackie was grateful she didn't have to say it out loud. Even after three years it was still hard.

“Car accident. He was coming home from work and I asked him to pick up some milk from the store. Just a small errand, you know? He got hit, head-on, by an elderly man who was having a heart attack…” Luke squeezed her hand as if offering a condolence and Jackie smiled at him in return. It was nice that they didn’t have to say anything. Luke was the first person she didn’t have to manage. People always seemed to treat her differently after she spoke about Mark and it was tiresome. It was why she didn’t talk about it much. “After that, I just buried myself in work. I read more transcripts now than I ever did when Mark was alive. It makes me good at what I do, but not very approachable.”

Luke nodded and they were silent for a few minutes. Jackie followed his gaze back to the graffiti she’d written, ‘Don’t go on blind dates’ and he smiled though she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. 

“Alex is my adopted daughter,” Luke said, from seemingly out of nowhere. Jackie raised an eyebrow, but gave him the space to continue. “I had some really great friends I met in South America- they were mountaineers who were committed to trekking the Andes in its entirety. At first they were just two guests at a hostel, but I kept seeing them every few months in different countries and we became friends. They lived in Lima, but they spent their weekends in the outdoors doing everything from base-jumping to hang-gliding. I even did some mountaineering with them a few times, but they were certified adrenaline junkies and I couldn’t keep up. Alex was their only child and when they asked me to be her godparent I thought, ‘Sure, I can be the cool guy that gets her the best birthday gift every year.’” Luke smiled and shrugged as if to say, ‘What? I was really naïve.’ Then he continued, “I actually felt honored, but I didn’t understand what they were really asking of me until they died.”

Jackie knew it was coming from the moment he’d said “adrenaline junkies.” She squeezed his hand the way he had a few minutes ago for her.

“Alex hadn’t even turned 1 yet and there I was with a baby girl and no experience at all. It was a really fast learning curve- mostly because it had to be.”

“How much does Alex know about her parents?” Jackie asked. Luke looked surprised.

“No one has gone straight into that question before. Normally people tend to look at me or Alex pitifully and say something stupid like, ‘That’s terrible.’ No f*****g s**t, Copernicus. Of course it’s terrible. Shall we now go into great length about how the earth revolves around the sun?” Jackie nodded knowingly. That was exactly why she had always been okay with leading a solitary life.

“Yeah, so to answer your question, I have a great picture of them on the peak of Aconcagua in Argentina. They're wind-burnt, but they have this fantastic look of achievement on their faces and they should- it’s the tallest peak in both the Western and Southern Hemispheres. It’s been in her room since the first day she came to live with me. We talk about them whenever she wants or if I remember a good story about them that I think she will like.”

They sat in a comfortable silence then. Jackie decided life was hard, but it wasn’t unbearable. She thought about Mark then- he would have really liked Luke. The heaviness that normally sat squarely on her chest when she thought of him wasn't there anymore. Maybe it was the pot. Maybe it wasn't, but for the first time in a very long time she relaxed and wondered what it would be like to kiss someone again. 

Author's Note

This is a follow-up to Daniel Maguire's story, "The Things we Know Now." Should you be interested in reading the story in its entirety, you should start with "The Reunion" on my page, but this is designed to be fairly self-contained, so it is not necessary to start at the very beginning.

Feel free to offer up both general opinions and critical reviews of the work. All educated suggestions are appreciated.

Reviews

[Astrid]

Good short story, well written and engaging. Usually I'll jot down notes as I go but this had me needing to finish it first since it caught my attention so much.
My only suggestion is condense paragraphs, not in the sense of taking anything out, just combining short sections that don't need to be separated by a change in dialogue. Maybe add a few more descriptors, maybe.

[icomeanon_13]

Thanks, Astrid! I'm so glad it held your interest.

This piece is actually part of a larger story that sprung up organically from a collaboration with Daniel Maguire (a person you should be able to find on my friend list). The story was written in segments by both of us and is now complete.

Since this piece is towards the end, it's shy on descriptors. Should you be interested in reading more or if you'd like to start from the beginning (it's not very long), hit me up via message and I'll fill you in on the order and where to go to read it all.