Word Count: 842
Inspired by the song "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" by Train.
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"Gene, you know I like you, but I just don't think it's ever going to work out." She gave me a smile that I was beginning to see as sinister. "But I still want to be your friend."
Ah, that's right. Rip my heart out and stomp on it for good measure.
I tried to give her my best smile back. I didn't know if I failed or not. "That's cool. I mean, if it's how you feel, then it's how it should be."
"I'm so glad you see what I mean," she said. She was a pretty blonde, we had started going out a few months back. She had been one of my first true crushes that I had actually asked to start going out with me. Now I see that I should have known better.
"See you around," she said, picking up her bag and starting away.
I can't believe that I was just dumped in front of a library. After I had helped her do her test.
So I started off to my place, trying not to drag my bag on the ground. Is this how being dumped feels? I thought it was supposed to be more heartbreaking. I feel more… ticked off. My own pride has been punctured, that's what.
"Hey, Gene," said a friend from school. I couldn't for the life of me place his name. "Where's your girl? You guys were all over each other yesterday."
The very thought of it made me do an involuntary shudder. "It was tragic. She got run over earlier by some old car." My schoolmate made a face as if I had just told him the world was ending. "I'll see you around."
And off I went.
It wasn't long before I was stopped again. "Hey, where's Stacy?" one of the guys said. I knew that he was hot for her, and was jealous that I got to her first.
"She fried. In her tanning bed."
"What? Is that possible?" he said, "What?"
"Apparently it is possible. She fell asleep and burned to a crisp. I'm recuperating now, so please leave me be."
The terrible thing to be in town on a Saturday. Everybody seemed to want to talk to you. Or want to know where your girlfriend was.
I turned on my heel and went into a store that I was only in yesterday. I pulled a small, flat jewelry box from my bag. The cashier eyed me. "Did she not like it?"
"I think she would have liked it," I said, setting it on the table with the receipt. "I was going to give it to her when she came home from the airport, but the plane that she was in went down. So now I don't have any more use for this, so I'm returning it."
The cashier looked a mixture of shocked, sorry, and horror that I was returning it so nonchalantly. "I'm so sorry about that," he finally managed to say.
He allowed the exchange to go on, and handed me back the money I had spent only yesterday. "It's okay," I told him, "I'm already over it."
I let him gnaw on that as I left the store.
I couldn't believe that I had been so infatuated. Was it the first dizzying signs of love? Or lust? Or what? Geez.
All I'll have to do is wait, right? I'll find someone who actually thinks I'm the greatest. Not just trying to get at my money. I probably should have listened to Noll when he had mentioned that to me the week I started dating her.
When I finally got home, I was so relieved. But that also meant that I'll have to tell everybody at dinner. Or maybe I could just hold it off and wait to see how long it takes before they notice that I don't have a girlfriend anymore.
Noll was on the couch, stretched out across it with his homework spread in front of and on the floor next to him.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and it rang a second later. Yeah, I always knew it would ring before it actually had yet.
"Hello?" I said.
"Gene? Did I hear that Stacy died? Are you okay?" It was my dear partner-in-crime when it came to sneaking in driving lessons. Which I had not been doing in the last few weeks. Mostly because I had seriously irritated Noll a little while before that, and I was concerned that he would snitch on me in payback. So I had forgone the whole thing entirely.
"Hm? Stacy?" I said, "Yeah, it was awful. We went to the zoo and the lion got out and ate her."
"…Seriously?"
"Do I have any reason to lie? I'll talk to you later."
I closed my phone, and Noll raised his eyebrows at me from the couch. "Did you get dumped?"
I narrowed my eyes at him. "No, she drowned in her hot tub. Of course I got dumped."
