Silver Lining

“I don’t understand.” Her eyes weren’t watering, her nose wasn’t running. To anyone passing by, it wasn’t obvious what the pair were talking about.

“You can’t think this is working.” His eyes were steely and stared above her head, examining the bricks in the hallway beside the gymnasium of their high school.

She shook her head, wringing her scarf in her hands. “No, but it’s not completely torn.”

“Silver lining always was your forte,” he said, hiding his shock with sarcasm. “I don’t want to drag something on.” He sighed and leaned his shoulder against the bricks, avoiding her eyes as she thought.

Her face was blank as she tried to find a response. She needed this more than anything. “Cory.” His name was all she could make out.

“Laur, I can’t help anymore.”

A tear rolled out of her eye, down her cheek and onto her plain black pea coat. It was her first tear of the day, and she was upset. She told herself that today would be the day she stopped crying. She was wrong. “You said forever.”

“I thought it was something different.” Cory looked away and pulled her into a hug. “I thought that I could make you happy.”

Laur’s expression hardened as she pulled out of the hug from her now ex boyfriend. “You did. And you said I made you happy.”

“You fell apart, Laur. I still don’t know what happened.”

“And you think leaving will make it better?”

The bell signaling that all students should have exited the building rang. It gave Cory an excuse to hesitate. “Right now, you just need to find yourself. Start smiling again.”

“Can we ever be the same?” Laur’s voice remained calm, although on the inside, her voice was screaming.

“We might,” he answered without a smile.

“I hate liars,” she responded, looking away and finding fake interest in the wall art of basketball players from 1988. She started thinking about their lives, and wondered if any of them ever stood where she was standing and broke up with their girlfriends. It was natural for her to just make up stories in her head, even when she should be focusing on real life.

“Please, just start living again. Stop living in your stories.”

“But it’s all I know, Cory! And now that you’re leaving, it’s all I have now.” Writing was her escape, no matter how bad her life was, she could make her stories as bad, or good as she wanted.

“It’s not that bad.”

She looked up at him and sighed. “Silver lining always was your forte,” she retorted, biting her lip and half smiling. “I’m not giving up.”

“On me?”

“Or writing. You know that it’s my life, and if it means that I live in a story, then so be it. As long as you’ll at least be a character.”

“Laurie, please be careful. Don’t shy away from the world. And maybe when you’re the old, happy Laurie, I’ll be there for you.” Cory pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back and inhaling her scent for what would surely be the last time. He sighed and ran his hands down her arm to meet her hands and hold them for a moment. “Laureen, please, start smiling. I used to love you, now I just want you to be okay.”

Weeks later, Laureen was walking down the hallway, chatting with one of her friends. She wasn’t going her normal route to Chemistry, but a new, longer way. Her old path took her straight to Cory’s locker, so after the breakup, she risked being late in order to avoid seeing him. Even though it was what she wanted most, she would give him up, just in case she wasn’t happy enough for him.

But she really was happier. Her eyes lit up again, and her laugh was completely genuine.

Today, she passed Cory in the hall. He was at a girl’s locker. He was leaning on the locker next to hers and staring at her, with a quirky smile on his face. When she passed, he looked up, as if he caught a breath of her scent. When she saw him, she smiled and waved.

He smiled, looked at his new girl, and walked away.