Unrequited Love- Connor's Take

Never Listen to the Milk

by Connor Hammond

 

I promised myself I wouldn’t be put in this place again. The place where I’m willing to give anything, change anything, just to have you look at me for a second. I don’t know when that became a currency. I don’t know what other people have that they can get your attention so easily while the exchange rate is crushing me. I have waking dreams where my skin is the same color as that wallpaper you hate in the bathroom and I’ve almost tried to peel it off. I’m having that right now. Would you look at me with more than a passing glance if I started peeling my skin off while you sit perched next to the sink eating cereal? Instead of the cat!! I used to love that cat but now it is the easiest way for you to avoid me. All you do for the brief moments you are here is stare at that cat. ALL THE CAT DOES IS STARE AT THE WALLS!! If I stared at the walls would you watch me all day?

 

Of course none of this was articulated. John’s silent tirade was only outwardly represented by the occasional clenching of his jaw while he leaned, in what he hoped was a casual manner, against the refrigerator. He had chosen to lean against the fridge because while Alice ate cereal she always kept the milk next to her so that she could add small amounts from time to time. John knew that she would eventually have to put the milk back in the fridge and would be forced to ask him to move. He also knew that if he feigned distraction at just that moment Alice would simply nudge him out of the way.

 

He lived for those moments.

 

Alice finished her cereal, set the bowl down in the sink next to her, hopped off the counter, and reached to pick up the milk.

 

John prepared himself. The cat also prepared himself to go lap up whatever milk might remain in the bowl. As the cat jumped from the small dining table where it had been sitting, to the counter the animal stupidly misjudged the distance and instead crashed headfirst into the oven door and skittered into the next room.

 

Alice burst out laughing then followed after the cat making consolatory noises. The milk sat forgotten on the counter.

 

John took a long even breath, his jaw clenched and unclenched. Several moments passed between John and the milk. John still leaned, somewhat abjectly now, against the fridge looking at the milk. The milk sat on the counter looking at John; as if to say, “Sorry old pal, we did our best. What more can we do?”

 

Having perceived to have received his own consolation John answered the milk’s question by striding into the next room, taking the cat from Alice’s arms, continuing past her out onto the balcony, and decidedly dropping the cat over the railing.