AislingWeaver

Five Minute Fiction ~ Not Enough

The following is my submission to Leah Petersen‘s Five Minute Fiction Challenge.  The word prompt was concentration.

I knew if I tried hard enough I could get past this moment. You know, that one where your brain is blank of everything but the person across the table from you, the one meeting your gaze with earnest concentration, trying to make you see their way to logic.

But I couldn’t. Even as I watched those lips shape the words, “It’s me, not you,” my mind slithered away from the meaning behind it, refusing to acknowledge the truth of it. I shook my head, much like a horse trying to shoo away one of those nasty biting flies. And again when those familiar fingers twined with mine, patted the back of my hand, withdrew.

Because, again, I found I wasn’t enough. Never enough. Not hard enough, not soft enough, not nice enough, not enough of that elusive mix of ingredients that would make someone stay.

I found enough focus to concentrate on the knot in the floor between my feet, blocked out the steps retreating, the thud of the door, the rumble of the car on the other side of the windows. Round and round I followed the grain, drifting, refusing to recognize the pain that was my heart breaking. Again.

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