assignment: short story

This one's old, and I was very never happy with it, but I came across it the other day and thought it might be fun to play with. Comments appreciated. =)

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Roses

The doorstep, when he stares at it for longer than five minutes, can almost take on the appearance of water, especially if he doesn’t blink.

He forces his eyes open and waits for the scratched, holey gray to fuse and blur and waver into his line of vision once again. He doesn’t think he’s ever stood in one place for so long in his life.

It’s been an hour and a half since he first arrived here. He knows she’s home; her light is on upstairs, third window from the right. The curtains are drawn, but a little yellow border frames the glass and he wonders what she is doing up there. There are no cars parked in the driveway; she’s alone.

He thought it would be easier than this to see her. First things first: knock. Wait. Just – knock. Lift up your hand, you idiot, he tells himself. One, two, three – goddamn, it’s not that hard.

He can’t do it. What’s wrong with me? He clenches his left fist in frustration. In his right he is carrying a rose, which is red. He’d read once that each color of roses meant something different. The florist confirmed this. “For your wife?” she had asked, smiling and deftly twisting paper around the single bud, and he had nodded. He was lying, of course, but she’d never know.

Red is romance. He had wanted blue, because it means new possibilities, the hope of a miracle. That seemed an appropriate addendum to his apology. Denise, he would say, his lip shaking just enough, I’m sorry – and he would hand her the blue rose. Slowly, symbolically.

Where on earth did you get a blue rose? she would ask him, and before he could answer she would be back in his arms. She’d cry a little, of course. Maybe he would too. Do you know what a blue rose is for? he’d ask her, and she’d shake her head. A new beginning, he would say, grinning, and she would laugh. She’d want to know how he knew that, but he’d just smile.

He shakes his head in disgust. There weren’t blue roses and he hasn’t even given her the red one. It would help if you could knock first, jackass. He lifts his hand again, a centimeter from the door.

A dog barks and he jerks backward, almost dropping the rose – so lost in his own reverie that the noise sounds unbearably harsh. His heart is racing. Oh, Christ. I can’t go in now – breathe. Just a dog. What is wrong with me?

He’s been practicing apologies for the past few days, every time he drives by himself or walks somewhere alone. They feel strange when he tries to mouth them – he can’t remember the last time he actually said “I’m sorry” to someone, or asked for forgiveness. Maybe I haven’t, he thinks. He’s never believed in that, really – that act of humbling oneself, that admission of guilt. It’s so awkward, so unnecessary, which is what he said to Denise the night she left.

“That’s great, Kyle, and why do you think I’m leaving?” she snapped back, her eyes squinting at him. “I’ve never once heard you say you were sorry. You think you’re so damn perfect all the time. And I’m done with that.”

It took her less than ten minutes to gather her things. He was still sitting alone in the den, wondering if he’d have to go upstairs to calm her, when he heard the front door slam. He waited for her to come back. She didn’t, so he's come to her.

Her parents’ home, twenty minutes away from his apartment, is tall and impressive. They’re well-off; Denise’s father is a lawyer and her mother a nurse, like Denise. She has two sisters, both older and out-of-state.

Maybe she missed being rich and coddled, he thinks. Denise has expensive tastes: fondue, BMWs, and weekly visits to the spa. He buys his furniture from Ikea and his furnishings from Target. She never liked that. In the year and a half she has lived with him, his apartment has become Deniseified – a high-definition television, patterned china to replace his thirty-dollar-sixty-piece kitchen set, floral decorations from Ralph Lauren everywhere, white rose designs in the bathroom and on the new bed sheets she made him buy.

She had always liked white roses. They used to walk the streets of downtown Los Gatos together on Saturday mornings, and she’d always drag him into the florist’s. “These,” she’d say, one hand in his and one pointing toward huge bouquets of virginal buds. “See? Those are my favorites.”

“They look like wedding flowers,” he always said.

She would smile – coyly or shyly, he could never decide – and look at the floor, then back up at him. He never bought her white roses; they did look like wedding flowers. There had been white roses everywhere at his mom’s second wedding. He remembers how quickly the petals browned, not even halfway through the ceremony.

He’d bought Denise irises when he’d been seeing her for a month, chrysanthemums and baby’s breath when it had been a year, a huge gathering of carnations when he asked her to move in with him, and lilies the last time he’d seen her. Later, he threw them out when she left because he didn’t want to look at them standing on the dining room table, on her fancy linen tablecloth, without her there.

He should’ve bought a white rose tonight, he thinks. At least he knows she likes them. Maybe he’ll ask her to marry him, even. Make the roses fit. He contemplates this as his shadow marks higher and higher points on the front door of her parents’ home. (He hadn’t realized moonlight made shadows like this.) His apartment is different without her – empty, quiet, cold. She likes it at seventy-eight degrees exactly, even in the middle of summer. It feels so huge now, with just him, and he can’t imagine it being like that forever. Yes. A ring, not a rose. Damn. You can’t ask a girl to marry you with a red rose, he thinks. He debates coming back later and asking. He could get down on one knee and hold a full bouquet of white rosebuds, just like she likes.

No, no. Better to apologize first. She’s still mad. She would’ve called if she wasn’t. (Then again, he hasn’t called, and he’s not mad – just scared. He doesn’t have her on speed-dial because he likes punching out all seven numbers. This is convenient now; he can hang up after the sixth when imagining the ice in her voice makes him too nervous.)

But he should’ve just called. Forget excuses. She told him once, after he’d snapped at her and she’d cried and he had explained that it had been a long – damn long – day at the office, “You can’t just give someone an excuse like that. That’s not the same as saying you’re sorry, Kyle.”

“Why bother?” he’d said. “At least that way they know it’s not them.” They were lying in bed, the lights out, fully clothed but tightly wrapped in each other’s arms and legs. She let go when he said that.

“Because,” she said. “It’s different. You’re not acknowledging that you actually hurt someone. You’re just complaining that you had a bad day or whatever else it is that made you yell at me.”

“I didn’t yell at you,” he said.

Silence. Then, “I’m not going through this all over again.”

“Denise–”

“Whatever.” She rolled over. It was dark, but he knew her expression exactly, and he was grateful that the lights were off.

“Look,” he sighed, finally, “I don’t – I’m not good with this, okay. I never know what to say when you’re mad like this.”

No answer. “You awake?” he asked. He knew she was – she always did this when she didn’t want to talk about something. Pretended she was sleeping, or didn’t hear him. “Denise?”

He waited. “Denise?” he said, again, a few moments later.

She sat up straight, abruptly, startling him. “Kyle,” she said, angrily, “I can’t talk to you if you don’t even realize when you’ve hurt me. Or if you keep blaming your job, or the terrible day you had, or your mom’s ten million failed marriages, or anything else, okay?”

“I’m not–”

“It wouldn’t kill you to admit that you were wrong,” she snapped. When she had sat up she had pulled the blankets up around her, making him shiver. “You apologize to let the other person know you still care. And to let them know that they mean more to you than your pride.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. When he woke up she was making breakfast, omelets with avocado, the way he liked them, and neither of them mentioned the previous night. He was careful not to raise his voice to her all day.

He should’ve apologized – shouldn’t have let things get this far. He stares now at her doorstep again, then looks back up at her window. Her light goes off while he is staring, and he blinks. It’s blurry.

It’s not even ten – is she sleeping? She used to wait up for him, long past midnight, until he finished typing or making calls. And then they’d talk, about everything, or just hold each other. She took afternoon naps the days she wasn’t working; she got cranky without enough sleep.
God, and she was beautiful in sleep, when he woke up first and she was still sprawled across their bed, unconscious, her lips parted, her eyelashes thick and black. He misses that – waking up next to her before she can see him. Sometimes when she had to go to work early she’d leave little heart-shaped notes taped to the bathroom mirror or the inside of the front door. He misses that too.

He has been here for over an hour now, trying to work up the nerve and hating himself for failing. He stands staring up at her window. He waits ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, but it doesn’t come back on. His rose is starting to wilt a little. Her light doesn’t come back on.
At ten-thirty he turns to go. What a pussy, he thinks, in disgust. He throws the rose into the shrubs on his way down the walkway. Maybe he’ll come back tomorrow.