Felt compelled lately to go back and write the stories I'd always meant to write, but never managed to. I used to love this show - I still do. This was inspired by the poem "Postcards from Her Alternate Lives," found in Best American Poetry 2011.
She moved into her city apartment on a late summer afternoon. Always too eager, she took her key and stacked up her boxes in the small rooms the day before her furniture arrived. Derek was her one helper, carrying her boxes from their two cars up the three flights of stairs. It was late in the evening when they sat with their backs against her bare white walls, eating takeout from the paper containers and watching the light fade outside her sliding glass door. She found her pillows in a box Derek left in the bathroom. They fell asleep on the carpet with towels for blankets and throw pillows under their heads.
She woke in the middle of the night with his arm draped over her waist. A street lamp cast a flickering square across the floor. Derek slept soundly. She didn't know if this moment was hers for the taking, or merely a dream. She covered his hand with hers and fell back asleep.
In the morning he stood in her kitchen eating cereal out of the box. "I think you should leave," she said, not quite meeting his eyes.
He didn't disagree.
.
One summer, years ago, their family had taken a driving vacation. They stayed at cheap hotels and ate continental breakfasts, while Casey dreamed of flying to Europe, wearing beautiful clothes, and drinking tea in fancy cafes.
At the end of the trip Derek kissed her for the first time.
They sat on the edge of the small pool, legs dangling in the chlorine-scented water. Casey was transfixed by the sky, orange and purple and red spread out above them, so terribly beautiful she was almost afraid. She looked over at Derek, and he kissed her slowly, deliberately. Her hand clasped his wrist. Her heart pounded in her ears.
"Derek," she said, pushing against his chest. His palms were still on her cheeks.
"Shut up, Casey," he said. He kissed her again. But it was too late; guilt ballooned between them. His hands fell away.
"Forget it," he said later, when she cornered him by the hotel vending machine. He punched in the numbers and grabbed for the soda can that fell out.
"I have," she said. He knew she was lying. Casey had a very selective memory, but as hard as she tried, this one never would be swept away.
.
He was always so bad at following the rules though, especially if the rules were hers. Another summer, maybe the year before or the year after they graduated college, they lay on separate bunks in the semi-dark cabin up by her grandmother's lake, avoiding the midday heat. Casey was half asleep when he asked, "Casey? What do you want out of life?"
She gave him a list of goals and aspirations. He said nothing, and her words sounded hollow to her own ears. "I just want to be happy," she said in a small voice.
Maybe he hadn't heard. He didn't say anything for a long time. Then, in a tone of voice she didn't understand, he asked, "How are you going to do that, Casey?"
She had the terrible feeling that the answer would be right in front of her if she were willing to look. She couldn't fall for that. Her mother used to believe in impossibilities, and it brought her a decade of heartache. Casey held her silence, instead, fighting off the tears threatening her perfect resolve.
.
Because everything was supposed to be perfect, and the harder she grasped at this, the less she ended up with. She had a family she too often forgot, a career trajectory that left her feeling parched and adrift, and a secret she kept so well from herself all those years. Her apartment was too small and empty and most of the time she didn't feel like herself at all.
Her job sent her to Europe where she wore beautiful clothes and drank tea in fancy cafes. She slipped away one afternoon to send a postcard, a generic landscape that nevertheless made her feel like each breath she took was too shallow—maybe it was the sunset glowing on the trees.
On it, she wrote: I'm sorry for all the things I couldn't face.
She made it to the post office and stood outside its doors. Eventually she placed the postcard into her purse and walked away.
.
She returned home eventually. Her old room was mostly the same. A white comforter was spread across the bed. A film of dust lay on the furniture. Her books and clothes and pictures were gone, and the room next door was now an office, and everything felt like a dream in the worst way, ready to morph into something unexpected and impossible. Casey sat down on the end of the bed and added up the years she'd already lost.
"You okay?" He filled up her doorway, at once everything she remembered and nothing she recognized. A breeze came in through the window and she shivered.
"Just remembering," she said. Her eyes flicked up to his, searching for some spark of understanding. Her heartbeat seemed to slow. She wanted to stand up and pull him close, but the evening breeze blew in the window and everything was just as she had left it years ago.
-
end.