white teeth

a break up story

He wanted a cigarette.  This was the only thought that was clear as he looked into her eyes.  Even though she was trying to avert his gaze, he still could see the ambiance of the restaurant in her soft brown eyes.  She had called him earlier in the day to ask him to meet her there.  “I need to talk to you about something”. The conations of this statement had him on edge the entire day but he was able to complete his work day in relative ease.

“Do you want a drink”? Jack politely offered.

“Umm...no” she answered somewhat vacantly.

With this aloof response Jack started to feel uneasy.  As a matter of fact, Jack felt scared.  She was not dressed as nicely as usual.  No matter how casual their dates were she always dressed nicely.  Tonight though her brown hair was not as shiny and now that he thought about it, her eyes were somewhat moist maybe even swollen. She was beautiful though.  Not in the sense that she looked like a model posing in a magazine but a unique custom beauty built just for him. 

“How was your day or at least the rest of it since I talked to you”? Cary asked.

“It was typical I guess, nothing to interesting. Oh, on Friday do you want to get together with a few people from the hospital? Its Amy’s last day?” He asked this as if pleading for a pardon or a stay of execution at least.

There was a pause and she said yes even though everything else said no.  The small talk which ensued was painfully shallow.  Jack wanted to run out of the restaurant, to escape the proverbial s**t coming down the hall. Still, he persevered hoping for some shift in the mood.  He was slightly relieved when she had said yes to the date but it was short lived…she still remained distant. 

“I…” she stammered “wanted to talk to you about…”

The sentence was interrupted when the waiter, f*****g Carl, came with her salad.  Her house salad with honey mustard dressing oozing from the mountain of spinach was somewhat relieving.  This was her usual. Carl smiled showing his perfectly white teeth as if selling a car and asked if we needed anything else at this moment then he excused himself to carry on about his work.

“Maybe, I’m overthinking this.  Let’s see if she eats it, if she didn’t touch it bad, if she finished it bad.  She needed to pick off the cherry tomatoes, take no more than two bites and if he was luck she would feed him a cucumber”.

 He watched and waited intently.

Nothing was said for that next three minutes.  Jack was reluctantly in tune with all the peripheral activities going on in the restaurant.  Indistinct chatter, the sounds of cutlery on plates, laughter and all sorts of stimuli beckoned Jacks attention, yet all he could do is stare at Cary as if clinging to a rope dangling over a rocky demise.  She did not make eye contact as she worked through her salad.   Jack thought that this was the end of the relationship, however he was not going down without a fight.

“So…I want to take a break from seeing each other,” she revealed.  “I haven’t been able to think of to many reasons for staying together and simply put, I don’t think that I love you”.

Validation was the only thing that Jack could think at this moment. A bomb had just been detonated in a s**t factory and the exploding waste covered him, He could taste it, smell it. 

“I was right, I am no good”, he yelled at himself inaudibly. 

These feelings have always plagued him and he felt a sudden jolt of satisfaction in having “proof” with this belief.  He hated himself ever since he could remember.  He had no deeper hate for anybody or anything other than himself.

“Except,Carl. F*****g Carl and his white goddamn teeth,” he thought to himself laughing dejectedly.

Author's Note

grammar and structure are lacking.

Reviews

[Wolfwind]

Oooh... Been there, thought that, until a good female friend of mine said that, "It's never you, it's always them. You are you, if they can't love the entire you or accept the entire you for who you are, then who are they to you anyway?"

The last line has me laughing. I think i've seen a few that would fit that bill and I must admit, there was some angst that would bubble up at those seemingly, "perfect teeth," as it were.

You've got a good little story here. It carries a lot of emotion in the right places for helping getting the idea to progress from beginning to end.

Thanks for sharing!
Aaron - Wolfwind