Nine

The pile of notebooks and papers was mocking at them from Jeanie´s bed.

- There´s a huge field to cover here! – Ashley said with a moan – Why do we have to pick among all of them? Can´t you narrow it down to your favorites?

- Maybe my favorites are not public´s favorites! – Jeanie explained to her as if it was an extremely obvious thing – Just be a good and supportive friend and tell me which your favorites are!

- Let´s see – Ashley scratched her jaw trying to look thoughtful – I loved Cupid!

- Ok, there´s one I can put in the selection. Anything else?

- What about… Disguises?

- Ok. Now we have two from sixty five! You must give me something else!

- What´s this? – Ashley revolved the papers getting her hands on the forgotten notebook under the rest of them – Unnamed? – she hesitated – What´s this about? I can´t remember reading something called like that.

- It´s just a project – Jeanie justified herself – I haven´t even named it yet as you can see.

- Can I read it? – Ashley asked as a formality because her eyes were already sliding into the handwritten lines.

To you, because without a reason, I miss you.

“Love isn´t aged”, she thought as soon as she discovered he was a lot older. She never saw on him the adult he was supposed to be. She respected him, of course, but not over an age he never represented; only his behavior could achieve that. He was an interesting man, done for her to love his eyes until the end of days. But he saw a child, his girl maybe… but also someone he couldn´t love as much as he would love a woman. That was their thoughts´ cruel reality; and that unexpressed idea broke them apart.

They took different paths, but oblivion became impossible for both of them, like if they were part of each other.

Someone else came up to her, he was younger than him, but still older than her; and he thought he could be interesting and attractive because of that. “Age doesn´t make you mature”. His lack of humbleness easily disappointed her.

He loved a woman and he was happy; but he was abandoned when things got bad; and looking to the sky he aimed the girl´s presence, without knowing that with tears on her eyes, she was aiming for his glance.

- Ok – Ashley yearned – Now I know you poured your soul into this.

- I actually don´t think that´s so good – she hesitated – Although I love it a lot I just saw it as diary material, you know? Something to my personal use.

- Come on Jeanie! – she complained – You can´t be serious about it! This is great!

- Everything I write looks great at your eyes! You love me so much you can´t be partial.

- You know there are some of your stuffs I don´t like.

- Just a few of them.

- Well, call Hanna and ask her, but I´m sure she´ll agree with me! That´s the one! You need to send that one to the contest!

- I haven´t even named it yet! – she tried to object.

- We´ll find a name this weekend. I promise.

- You´re the best! – Jeanie smiled still hesitating about sending that to the contest.

- I know. I have to go, but I´ll be here tomorrow with potential names to that wonderful soul emptying story.

- It´s not wonderful and it´s not soul emptying! It´s just a story and I still think I have better ones.

- You asked me to choose and I´m choosing that one! Trust me! With the right title, it´ll be the winning story!

- Let us pray to find the right title!

- Just call Hanna and ask for her opinion. I´m sure she´ll say the same! Maybe she can also give you some other potential titles.

- Ok – Jeanie smiled – See you tomorrow.

Ashley took her bike and rode away under Jeanie´s glance. Her friend got lost in the distance while the idea of sending an unnamed story to her first writing contest messed with her head. Jeanie wrote that on a really bad moment. She was even lacking inspiration when in hit her. But as she said to Ashley, public´s opinion was what really mattered; and her audience was reduced to her friends until that moment, so she better trusted them on that. Seconds later her phone reminded her she was still standing at the door looking away, not really knowing where or what. She went back to her bedroom to pick everything and type the story so she could print it and send it to the “out cold world”, as she thought the contest environment will look like.