“So what’s your story?” said Erica.
“It’s long,” he said. “Maybe it would be better to talk about aerobics or something.”
“You like aerobics?”
“No, I just think it would be better than talking about me.”
Erica smiled at him and ran her fingers through his hair. He quickly pushed her hand away.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s get something straight here. Don’t use me. If you already got a boyfriend, don’t waste your time stringing me around. Don’t buy me shoes, don’t call me at midnight, and don’t paint my living room walls. If you wanna touch my hair, you better be ready to walk down that church aisle with me. Got it?”
He watched as Erica shrank backward. He could see the awkwardness racing across her eyes as she looked at her friend with loosely clenched teeth. Soon, the image would freeze in his mind, and he would feel like a bigger idiot than he had in all his life. He figured it was prudent to get ahead of this before it turned into a fiasco, if it hadn’t done so already. Shawn confirmed by shaking his head.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Gary said. “I just got dumped by a girl today who never really dumped her last guy. I’m in a lot of pain right now.”
She looked at him with her eyebrows arched.
“Then why are you here with me tonight?”
“Shawn just needed a third wheel. I’m sorry, but this isn’t right. Shawn, I have to leave.”
Shawn glanced at Sharon and shrugged.
“Okay,” he said.
Gary and Shawn got up from the table. Shawn wiped a napkin across his face, set it down, and reached in his pocket to pull out fifty dollars. He handed the money to Sharon.
“Keep the change, baby.”
She set the money on the table and smiled.
“You gonna call me later?” she asked.
Shawn straightened his jacket as he stepped backward.
“In all honesty, you kinda bore me,” he said. “So, probably not.”
Shawn turned his back to her and left the table. Sharon’s nose wrinkled as she reached for her dinner fork in preparation to chuck it at him. Gary stood in the way.
“Don’t take it personally,” he said to her. “Shawn doesn’t have it all together if you know what I mean.”
He looked at Erica, trying to keep his eyes tougher than that of a puppy dog’s, but not so much as to lead her on the wrong way.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do this,” he said. “I hope you understand.”
Erica smiled at him.
“If you change your mind, I’ll go out with you again.”
Gary nodded. He wasn’t sure if he felt any better.
“See you around.”
Gary turned his back and followed after Shawn.
***
As Shawn sped down the highway in his black Mustang, Gary sat in the passenger seat, staring at buildings and lights passing him by. The Backstreet Boys song on the radio, the one about a girl and how she made the current singer feel, sickened him and made him want to rip his hair out from the roots. But he endured it because his night couldn’t have gotten any worse, and the only way to make it worse was to piss off the driver who apparently liked their music.
Shawn turned off the radio.
“I hate the Backstreet Boys,” he said. “They make me want to rip my hair out from the roots.”
He glanced at Gary, but he couldn’t for too long since he was the one driving.
“What’s wrong, Gary? Feel like you blew it twice in one night?”
“What am I doing here?” Gary asked. “Why do I have to have a woman in my life?”
“Because you’re not gay?”
“That’s not what I mean. The only time I was ever truly happy was when I was with a girl who was using me. There’s something wrong with that. I’m just wondering what it’s like to just not think about anyone anymore.”
“Besides the fact that it’s impossible?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“Well, for starters I would have to stop fixing you up with the friends of my dates, and I don’t know if I can handle that. But if that’s what you want, you’re crazy, but it might work for you.”
That wasn’t exactly the answer he wanted. But then again, Shawn never gave him the answer he wanted.
The reality was that Nikki was gone, and he couldn’t change it. Sooner or later he would have to let her go, even if it was next to impossible. But then, once upon a time he had to make the same decision about Victoria. Even though her motivation was different, Victoria had broken his heart just the same. Once upon a time he had been knocked into the mud by a girl, and a new girl had stretched her hand and pulled him out. More than likely, another girl, maybe Erica, maybe someone else, would reach out and lift him from this new pit. Holding on to Nikki was just a way of keeping himself in the mud. He needed out. He needed to let go. Perhaps this was the time to start working toward that goal. Gary rolled down the window and stuck out his head, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Who needs you Nikki? Can’t you see I’m better off without you?”
He pulled his head back inside, breathing in and out heavily.
“Cold out there, isn’t it?” said Shawn.
“Pneumonia is a passing whim.”
Shawn laughed to himself.
“My boy is coming around. Feel better?”
Gary stared ahead at all the nightlife reaching out for him. Building after building drew ever so closely, blurring together in a mosaic of lights. The traffic signals were continuously green, except for that one annoying one that didn’t even need to be there. He crossed his arms and smiled.
“Maybe tomorrow,” he said.
Shawn slapped the steering wheel. He had glee in his smile.
“That’s right,” he said. “Tomorrow’s racquetball day. You gonna be there?”
“I think I will.”
***
When Gary finally got home, his eyes sagged with exhaustion. The night was too long, but he got in his driveway safely enough. As he stepped out of his car, he looked to the street. He noticed that his shoes had fallen off the power line. Contemplating the phenomenon for just a moment, he stuffed his keys into his pocket and approached the fallen footwear now in the road. He knelt down, scooped them up with both hands, and stared at each one for a moment, trying to figure out what to do with them. At first he wanted to toss them back onto the power line to further forget about them and Nikki, but then he remembered that they were a really good pair of shoes, and that it would’ve been a shame to lose them. So he decided to keep them. He brought them into the house and laid them with his other shoes.
***
The next evening, Gary was still stung from Nikki’s rejection, but not as much. He decided to give Erica a call, just to see what could happen. He knew that the date could’ve been a failure. They could’ve hit it off, spent a year together, and then one ditch the other for no apparent reason, or for lack of a good reason. Or, she could’ve rejected him right at the start. The night before at the seafood restaurant could’ve been nothing more to her than a drunken memory; Gary could’ve been the faint recollection of a blurry guy she had been staring at from across the room, even though she was sitting right next to him. Calling her could’ve led to anything. And even though he was terrified of dealing with the next heartbreak, he just knew there was a chance—as slim as it was—that Erica was the girl who would keep him.
When he called her, she seemed happy to hear from him. She asked him if he was over his last girlfriend now. He told her the truth. She told him she was available for dinner if he wanted to give it another shot. He told her he’d meet her at the restaurant at seven. They would eat Tex-Mex tonight. As soon as they hung up, Gary found his white tennis shoes with the black trim and slipped them on his feet. He was going to try having a nice night with the new girl, with or without his old memories.
Author’s Note
Thank you for downloading The Fallen Footwear. I ho
pe you enjoyed it. If you liked the story or got something valuable out of it, please leave a review for it on your preferred retailer’s website, and tell others what you thought, and let me know what you liked (or didn’t like) about it. I appreciate all feedback and support from readers. Thank you.
A Brief History: In February 1999, I wrote a short story for my fiction class at UCF about a young adult (roughly my age at the time) who had to get over a breakup. It was little more than an experiment in dialogue and just a touch of fantasy (I wondered what it would be like to intentionally blow a first date), but it was also an attempt to play with symbolism, hence the “fallen footwear” of the story. The original version never gave much background about Nikki, and we never really saw her in that version, either. The story was entirely about Gary trying and failing at a rebound, and coming to terms with the fact that he didn’t have to rush right back into the field.
I also wanted to evoke the personalities of characters I had created in a screenplay I’d written two years earlier called Job Hunt. In that story, Mike Wright is the hopeless romantic who just wants a chance with his dream girl, and his best friend, John Linson, is the well-meaning friend with the bad advice who happens to get it right at the worst time. The characters of Gary and Shawn (rhyme intended) gave me an opportunity to extend the voice of those previous characters. I had fun writing that old script, so I wanted to revive the archetypes long enough to see what more I could milk out of their personalities.
Anyone who has read my author’s notes for other releases knows by now that most of the stories I’ve posted since last May of last year have been revised at least once before, between 2004 and 2006, for an appearance in one of my three story collections under the title The Collection of Junk. “The Fallen Footwear” was part of 2004’s Nomadic Souls: The Collection of Junk, Volume 1, and was sparsely updated from its original 1999 college version. I probably just updated the grammar, to be honest.
But per the new mandate I’ve set for the current-era rewrites, I didn’t think the old version of the story was enough to sustain an ebook, so I gave it a complete backstory showing the general scope of Gary and Nikki’s relationship as a means to better connect with the problem he deals with when she abandons him. And given my preferred style, I had to drench a lot of their normality in a sea of weirdness. Well, no, I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. Weirdos are more fun than normal characters.
Anyhow, I know this story doesn’t keep to any particular structure, and perhaps it would’ve been nice to see how Gary copes with the breakup, or maybe even see more evidence of Nikki’s fading glory. But that was never the point. The message has always been about moving on in spite of the passion we feel for the person who rejected us, and I don’t think we need to see Nikki behaving badly, or Gary behaving ignorantly, for that to work. But, if you disagree, feel free to say so in a review at your favorite retailer.
Ebook Version
About the Author
Jeremy Bursey is the author of many short stories, essays, and poems, along with a modest number of novels and screenplays, each covering topics and genres that differ from what he had written previously. He hopes to bring many of these into the ebook generation over the course of the next few years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Central Florida and currently works at a local college as a writing tutor. He appreciates feedback for anything he offers to the public.
Other Books
Did you enjoy reading The Fallen Footwear? Then check out these other titles by Jeremy Bursey, available as an e-book at your favorite retailer.
Short Stories and Novelettes
Shell Out
Eleven Miles from Home
Amusement
When Cellphones Go Crazy
The Celebration of Johnny’s Yellow Rubber Ducky
The Fallen Footwear
Novellas
Lightstorm
Cards in the Cloak
Gutter Child
Novels
The Computer Nerd
Teenage American Dream (Coming June 2016)*
Sweat of the Nomad (Coming September 2016)*
Zipwood Studios (Coming December 2016)*
Collections
The Fountain of Truth
Zippywings 2015: A Short Story Collection
Waterfall Junction and The Narrow Bridge
A Modern-day Fantasy Annual Edition
Cannonball City: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year One
Superheroes Anonymous: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year Two (Coming May 2016)
*Dates subject to change. Consult Jeremy’s blog at Drinking Café Latte at 1pm for details and updates.
Contact and Questions
Want news about my upcoming books or check if you’ve got them all? Visit any of these links for more information.
Blog: https://zippywings.wordpress.com/
If you just want general news on upcoming releases, then click on my “Future Books” direct link: https://zippywings.wordpress.com/future-stories/
If you want additional info on my ebooks past, present, and future, then check the category marked “Published Ebooks” and it will find every post related to them. Or, check the right sidebar for icons of book covers to link you directly to that title’s description and retailers’ location page. You can also click on the main category “Fiction” for other blogs and sneak previews that focus on my fiction.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.bursey.3
If you want to ask me a question or offer me some feedback, then feel free to message me on Facebook, and I will respond as soon as possible.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremyBursey
E-mail: zippywings[at]hotmail[dot]com
If you would rather contact me through e-mail, please head your message with the name of the book(s) you are inquiring about so that I know to click on it. This is the best way to inform me of errors or issues you may find in this book.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14054852.Jeremy_Bursey
Here you can find out what books I like (or rate and review this one).
Coming Soon
What’s next? I am currently updating one of my earliest short stories, “Sweat of the Nomad,” into a full-length novel (or at least a hefty novella) for a summer 2016 release. It is about one man’s odyssey through a burning city on the hottest day on record to get back to the home he was once forced to leave and kick out the interloper who stole it from him. After that, I will be revamping my short story, “Zipwood Studios,” which is about a janitorial trainee who encounters occurrences beyond the ordinary with his once famous mentor at a secluded movie studio while on a quest to find out why the place is going nuts. My plan is to convert it into a novel. I hope to release it for immediate download sometime in August 2016. I am also drafting a third novel based on a short story from the 2006 era about a slacker high school student who must help his father win a bet with the principal by graduating with honors. That story, Teenage American Dream, will most likely come out before the other two, by April 2016.
All three novels are available for preorder. Click on their links for details.
For my shorter works, I’ve got one more ebook planned for release before Teenage American Dream comes out at the end of April. This will be a double pack featuring not one but two of my fantasy fables, “Waterfall Junction” and “The Narrow Bridge,” so check back soon. I expect to release the double pack Easter weekend.
Thanks again for your time.
###
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends