219B
#3 of Writing Prompt
This is short. It's a 1000 (ish) word story based on the prompt. This week's prompt was "A bully meets up with his victim years after high school."
I liked the idea, but I haaaaaated what I wrote. I like the premises, even if it's super cliche, but I just couldn't pull it off in such a short amount of words
I started up a telegram channel for writing! It's just for writing, brainstorming, or talking and shooting the shit, really. https://t.me/joinchat/CPoeZhclggenrOEh0yYwvg
We try to do weekly prompts just to keep things fresh.
I know it's a short read, but hey, let me know what you think! Or show your love in another way https://ko-fi.com/tayubw
Please go check out my gallery for full-length stories! Better stuff over there.
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I was very thankful that the last order of my night had me delivering at an apartment complex near my house and that it was only on the second floor so I didn't have to walk all the way up. I'm not a lazy guy or anything, but my right ankle was still wrapped tightly after spraining it a few days ago playing basketball with a friend. I had a noticeable limp as I managed up the stairs towards the apartment, taking in the decor.
It was a nicer complex and I had to get buzzed in through the front doors. Everything was clean, and it reminded me vaguely of a hotel without a receptionist lobby. As luck would have it, the guy's apartment was at the far end of the hall and I had to trudge all the way down past ten other doors before coming to 219B.
I knocked on the door, putting on as friendly a smile as I could while holding the pizza bag on my shoulder. When the door opened, I felt my insides twist into an uncomfortable knot of regret and embarrassment.
I'm twenty-three now, a bit more than five years since high school. I still look mostly like I did then; a black fox with broad shoulders, a half-head taller than everyone else, and ran through with lean muscle that gave me more speed than strength. In high school I kept my headfur in ridiculous dreads that were now gone and cut into an "untidy" faux-hawk that rose only an inch high. I was a Safety on the team in high school, and kept my physique by continuing in college, though it wasn't a scholarship, unfortunately; I was only okay.
Alex Parker was the kicker for our team, also playing varsity soccer. He was semi-open about being gay, and I'd tormented him in the locker room countless times after practicing. The wolf had been only a few inches above five foot at the time, and was small. Kind of scrawny, kind of effeminate, and easy to get worked up and angry. He'd gotten an erection in the showers after the first practice with the team, and I had picked on him for it non-stop. He never quit the team, though; he stuck with it and tried to talk back to me.
Alex Parker had grown.
He must have been a late-bloomer, because he was considerably taller than before. Not quite to six feet, but he came up to my shoulders now. He no longer looked effeminate, and definitely not scrawny. Not toned like I was, but he'd filled out and held himself with more surety than feigned confidence. If everything else looked different, his eyes remained the same. Swirls of glacial blues and greens that flickered with recognition and then indifference.
"Damien." He said it with such neutrality that it made it hard to read what he was feeling,
My ears flicked backwards and pinned against my head, my smile fading into a worried frown. "Uh, hey Alex. Here. Just sign and I'll go." I fumbled with the pizza bag and fished out the box before thrusting it towards him.
He eyed me suspiciously and took the box from me, holding it against one him as he waited for me to get his receipt. "Alright." His tone was measured, calculating, and lower than I remembered. What I perceived as effeminate back in high school was probably just his voice not having dropped.
I tore the receipt off the small printer on my hip and handed it over to him with a pen. Again, he hesitated before accepting it from me. He used the pizza box to scrawl his name before handing it back. "Anything else?" he asked.
I'm not normally a nervous person. Not even remotely. I'm outgoing, I like being the center of attention, and I can strike up a casual conversation with anyone on the street. Now, though, I felt horribly anxious, as if anything I said might set him off into a furious rage. I couldn't have blamed him if he did, but all the same.
I steeled myself and swallowed my fear. "I want to apologize. For... well, everything. I know that I was a huge t-"
Alex took a step back and shut the door without another word, locking it behind him and leaving me standing in the hallway like an idiot. I stared at the door for a few moments before sighing and turning away. I suppose I should have been glad that he didn't start yelling at me, but I still felt as if he should have.
I got to the end of the hall before tearing off a blank piece of paper from the receipt machine. I scrawled my phone number and a short note reading simply, "I'm sorry." I managed to wedge it beneath the placard on his front door before leaving.
I tried to put him out of my mind on the way home, but my own guilt gnawed at me until I managed to fall asleep. Damn me for being such a jackass in school. Damn him for turning out to be so damn hot. And damn me again for turning out to like guys in college; the universe had enough irony without me adding more to it. I hadn't been in denial, nothing that cliché. I just had gotten more and more open to the idea with less and less alcohol in my system, and that was that.
School and work were mercifully busy over the next week, and after a week passed I had all but forgotten about my encounter with Alex. I had just gotten into bed, ready to bum around online for thirty minutes or so before passing out, when my phone rang with an unknown number.
"Hello?"
"Bring beer tomorrow night. And a pizza. You can apologize then, and I'll probably listen."
It was unmistakably Alex's voice and my words caught in my throat for a moment. "Uh, I work until eleven."
"After, then. Beer, pizza, talk. Okay?"
"Y-yeah."
The line went dead right after, leaving me laying there dumbfounded.