A/N: God help me. I saw Atonement over the weekend (which was amazing, by the way, thanks for asking) and I just couldn't help myself. Was it worth posting?... I didn't have an answer to that, but perhaps you might. Granted, this will probably turn out nothing like Atonement if I continue, but isn't that the point of these fanfics? Tell me what you want to see! Enjoy.
He had bought a whole package of Christmas cards just for the occasion. Several of them were strewn about his bed with different renderings of what exactly he wanted to say to her, most of them written in fleeting moments of senselessness. He had even written on one all the fantasies he entertained of her when he was alone in his bed at night, his eyes shut tight in concentration as his hands supplemented his erotic imagination. As soon as he had put it on paper he scoffed and had thrown it across the bed.
Finally, he came to the last card, and so he began to write a culmination of everything else he had written on the eleven cards before this one, and he smiled to himself as he read it over. He was going to finally tell her how exactly he felt, and this was the perfect way to do it; he even had bonus gifts for her for God's sakes.
He was amazed no one had noticed his flop sweat during the reckless game of Yankee Swap they had played earlier; that card inside the box contained his deepest, darkest feelings for the curly-haired,engaged, receptionist, and he knew if anyone other than her had read it, he would have no choice but to move to Singapore. He didn't do well in warm climates—after all, he lived in Pennsylvania—so needless to say he was overjoyed when she later brought out the white box containing his teapot gift for her to show him how she had traded for it.
She explained something to him about how her ass-hat of a fiancée was getting her an iPod, but he could hardly hear her over his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Maybe this wasn't the best time to tell her how he felt… He reached for the envelope. But then again…To hell with it, he thought to himself. Let her read it. He walked away from her desk slowly and hesitantly, second-guessing himself about if he had made the right choice. The Christmas festivities went on as usual.
He drunkenly plopped himself down onto his bed, still littered with rough drafts of his letter. She hadn't said anything to him at Poor Richard's, which to him implied that she had yet to find it precariously perched on a wall of the box. He absent-mindedly opened one of his reject proclamations of undying love and devotion and began to read, but then found something particularly odd about this card. Namely, it was the one that was supposed to be inside the envelope.
Oh. Shit.
He frantically scrambled for the other cards, glancing at every one to see which drafts he hadn't accidentally given her, and by the time he had read all the other eleven in triplicate, he finally realized which one she had. As luck would have it, his cell phone began to vibrate in his pants as a faint melody played. The song grew louder as he pulled the device out and grimaced at the caller ID. He flipped open the phone like he was pulling a trigger.
"Hey.." he managed to stammer, knowing he'd have to get online to look for a plane ticket to Asia soon enough.
"Jim—um, hey. I have a question… Uh, along with the teapot—What was with the card you gave me?"
His cheeks were burning and his stomach was inside of his throat. How could he talk his way out of this one? "I'm sorry, you… weren't meant to see that. It was the wrong version."
"What—what was in the right one?" The question caught him completely off-guard. Surely she would be chastising him at this point for telling her all his corrupted thoughts, and he wondered if he was blacking out from too much hard liquor. Maybe, after all the years of pining and needing and dreaming of her, she would finally express those same feelings of him, and all he needed to do was read the correct letter to her. It was a very, "you show me yours, I'll show you mine" situation.
He struggled for any words to escape from his mouth, "It was—"
And then he was saved, both from having to say the words out loud and from the merciless tension that was ever looming over their torrid relationship. He was always impressed with her way of taking the edge off their conversations, and this one was no exception. As simply and as sharply as she could, she quipped, "Not so… anatomical?"
He rubbed his heavy eyelids and wondered if their exchanges would always steer clear of every awkward topic in the book.
Seriously, go see Atonement. It's ricockulous.