stolen

She drinks her stolen soda out of a straw so as to not stain her teeth.

She doesn't really care about her teeth, actually. There was just a straw nearby. And so she thought, "That looks fun."

Straws and soda were just one (two?) way(s) to fill up some time (as if time was a large, empty box just sitting there smack dab in the middle of your mind, ready to not be so empty anymore). Stolen soda, though? Yeah. Just, you know, refilling when refills were not allowed or sneaking a can from her grandma's fridge in the garage. Little things like that. Nothing lightning's-gonna-strike you worthy. She figured she was just balancing out the universe a bit, seeing as she had been the victim once or twice in the past for this and that.

Sometimes she wondered what her father would think of her current crush. She wondered if all daughters sometimes thought about that, at least a little. She sometimes wanted to date someone just so her father would know that she was capable of having an adult relationship. But would dating someone in order to prove a point really be proving that point? Now she was confused. Confusion: According to her unfinished OkCupid profile, it was one of the things she couldn't live without.

Somewhere along the way, she began boldly claiming that she wants to be alone. Recently she started to suspect that her claim was simply a good old fashioned defense mechanism. If I can convince others that I enjoy being alone, maybe I can convince myself! Hey. Worth a shot. She took a sip of her ginger ale and was delighted to find out that the straw was a bendy straw. It's the small pleasures in life.

Somehow someone slipped into her life, even after her meticulous construction of walls and shields. This person drew her beautiful mountain scenes on her paper coffee cup. This person wrote her a heartfelt letter about roots and the desert and owls. This person pointed out Venus in the sky and told her what she already knew. She pretended she didn't know. She pretended she didn't know what was about to happen. She pretended to ignore that empty box that was quickly being filled with a future.

So she slipped away. She withdrew and withheld. She had seen the beauty of them, which bordered the eventual breakup. It was the same storyline that everyone that ever existed experienced and she was bored with it. Not with the person; not with them. She was bored of the box being filled with inevitable pain. She preferred the absolute meaninglessness of bendy straws and stolen sodas.

She still felt sorry. She bought little turquoise earrings to make her feel better, to make her feel pretty. She wondered why she had purchased the earrings and stolen the soda, seeing as the earrings were far more expensive than the soda. Perhaps certain things were worth paying for. Perhaps there was a cost for beauty.

Her dad would have thought the world of him.