February Tale 2021

Hello! If you're new here, here's how this works: in the beginning of the month, I ask a question. I get answers from people, hopefully. I take one of those answers and write a short story based on it, then put it out at the end of the month. Sometimes they're actually pretty good, and sometimes they're a real mess (like this one. I have no idea what happened here.) But at least I put some words on paper.

Here you can find that story.

I also read it into an audio format, if audiobooks are more your thing than actual written words.

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If you could only use one word in February, what would that word be?

Yes (answer from Erika) 

You don’t know it’s coming. You’ve probably thought about it too, but I don’t think you have any idea he’s actively planning this now. He told me yesterday. I think you will say yes. I hope you will say yes. You should say yes. I know everything will change, and that’s uncomfortable, but sometimes change is good, and this is absolutely one of those times. I wish I could tell you about it. But I can’t. I promised. And even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t.

He’s really nervous, you know. I’m not, because I know you and I know him. And because whatever happens, it won’t be the end of the world. But I would be nervous too, if I were him. This is important to him, has been since long before you met, and sometimes you’re so hard to read. Though honestly, I don’t think this is one of those times. I’ve known both of you for a long time, and I know you’re going say yes. I’m pretty sure you’re going to say yes. See, the thing is, with you, even when I’m sure I know how you feel, when all the information points to the same thing, I’m still somehow not sure. I suppose that’s true of all people - you can never truly know what’s going on in someone else’s head - but it’s more true of you than most people.

I remember when he met you. He came home, and I asked him how it went, and he just shook his head.

“That bad?” I asked, already starting a mental list of things to make him feel better.

“I have no idea how it went,” he clarified.

“How do you not have any idea?” I asked.

“I think it went well?” he said.

“Is that a question?”

“The thing is,” he paused, clearly unsure how to phrase his thoughts. “I think it went well. But I have no idea if he thinks so too. He’s not cold, or distant or anything. Just hard to read. Like I’m suddenly not sure if the clearly genuine laugh he just gave actually means he thought what I said was funny or if it’s something completely different.”

You should have seen his face light up when he got the first message from you after that.

After the third date he floated through the door, crashed onto the couch, and announced you were it.

“You’ve been on three dates,” I said. “I think it might be a little too early for that.”

He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head.

“I know it in my gut. This is it.”

“You sure he hasn’t put a spell on you?”

Again, he thought about it for a moment.

“No,” he finally said, sounding confident. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“If you could recognise it, that would kind of defeat the point of the spell, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe. But remember Jen? I was with her for a while a few years back? Turns out when she realised I was going to dump her, she did put a spell on me. So I know what it feels like, and this isn’t it.”

I did remember. I had wondered why they hadn’t broken up sooner, but we weren’t that close back then, so I had never asked.

Anyway. I was talking about you and him. My point was that he knew. That early, he knew. You know why? Because you are perfect for each other. It’s clear to anyone who sees the two of you together. It wasn’t long after that that I met you for the first time, and while he had been right, after that first time, that you were hard to read, it was still obvious from the very first evening I spent with you that you were great for him.

It was in the way his face brightened every time you laughed, in the way you looked at him when you thought no one was looking. In the way you got each other excited about the dumbest, weirdest, most bizzarre things. I can’t tell how many times I secretly rolled my eyes at you, amused, just during that first evening we spent all together. I still do that, by the way. Because you still get each other excited about the dumbest, weirdest, most bizzarre things.

For a long time, I was jealous. If you’d asked me back then, I would have denied it. But I was. You two were so good together, and I wanted that too, so bad. I won’t say you were made for each other, because no one is made for anyone else. People just are, and sometimes, in this chaos that is life, two people happen to stumble into each other and find to their surprise that their shapes fit together more seamlessly than humans in all their wonderful imperfection should be able to fit together. It also always takes a lot of work and effort, of course. But some people simply go together in a way others don’t.

Despite it being obvious to anyone who happened to be in the same room with you two and had at least one working sense that you’d found something the rest of us barely dare to dream of, the fact that you seem so hard to read meant it took a long time until I felt like I knew you. For the longest time you were the guy my roommate was dating. Who was around a lot. Who left said roommate grinning stupidly to himself for hours after leaving.

The first time I really felt like I knew you was a year and a half after that first time you went out. He came to me, asking for help with a birthday gift for you. I told him I wouldn’t be any help, that he knew you better. But he wouldn’t let it go.

“I am terrible at gifts,” he reminded me. “You know I’m terrible at gifts. But you are great at gifts. You have to help me. I don’t know what to get, and I don’t want to screw it up.”

We stared at each other in silence for a moment. I broke before he did.

“Fine. Do you have any ideas?”

“Nothing good. A rose that never withers, for love, you know. Communication rings, so we can be together even when we’re not together,” he shrugged. “Everything I come up with is so cheesy it’s making me question all my other life decisions along with every gift I’ve ever given anyone.”

I thought about it for a long while, while he fidgeted next to me.

“You still working on that spell to get your satellite into orbit?” I finally asked.

“I wish. We worked so hard on it, and it was really important to him. But we needed some weeping bloom for it, and it’s simply too expensive for us to get.”

“Well, it is the seventh full moon of the year in a week and a half. It’d take you some hours to ge…”

“You’re a genius,” he cut me off mid-sentence, his eyes wide with excitement. “But he can’t know where I’ve gone. He can’t know I’m gone anywhere. He’ll guess. You have to help me.”

“How exactly could I help you with that? I’m pretty sure you two know where the other one is at all times, and it’s not like he’s not going to notice you’re not there.”

He paused for a few seconds.

“I’ll tell him I want you two to bond, or whatever. You know. Without me. Because it’s important to me that you two like each other and get along, because it’s not like you’ll stop spending time in the same place any time soon. So you’ll hang out with him, and the point of it will be it’s without me.”

“I don’t know,” I told him, my voice ringing with doubt. “I’ve never been alone with him. And I don’t really know him very well.”

“That just means the fake reason is actually a real reason for you two to spend time together,” he said cheerily. “And besides, you do know him. You just came up with the perfect gift for him in about thirty seconds.”

I know you remember that day. How horribly awkward it was at first. But it was the beginning of us, you and me, being friends outside of you and him. It may have been intended as a distraction to help get you a gift, but I think the distraction itself turned out to be a gift to us both. Also, he was right, I realised that day, about me knowing you better than I had thought I did. I’d simply gotten to know you so slowly and subtly I hadn’t realised it until I had a reason to look at it more closely.

I’ve been around for all of it. I’ve seen you two be together and grow together and build together something that it fills me with warmth to just think about. I’ve listened to both of you complain about the other when you’ve been fighting. I’ve listened to both of you tell me with a smile how you love the way the other runs his fingers through his hair when he thinks, or that there’s a light dimple on the other’s cheek you hadn’t noticed before, or how the other pronounces a word in a way that shouldn’t be possible and is definitely wrong, but also perfectly fits who he is and is so the best way to pronounce it.

There’s been a couple of times I’ve been worried you might break up. Because if you two can’t make it, how is there any hope for the rest of us? But you’ve always gotten through, and always been stronger after. The last of those worries disappeared when you got engaged.

They say opposites attract. And that’s true. When you're talking about magnets. People are way too complicated for something as simple as that. Sure, you’re grounded, and thorough, and like sticking to things you know work, you know to be good. He’s a dreamer, easily excited, but also easily feeling defeated, though that usually doesn’t last very long. And he’s always looking for something new.

And those things complement each other so well: he infects you with his excitement, gets you to try things you never would on your own, but usually find to be something you enjoy. You know how to harness that excitement into something more than it is. You recognise the good, prune out the bad, turn his enthusiasm from a flash to a strong, steadily burning flame that can create something truly wonderful.

But those aren’t the only things you are. You’re both kind, and smart, and brave, and you see the small things that are great about life, about other people and each other. You listen to someone and hear what they say. You bring out the best in each other. I didn’t know you before he met you, but he’s grown so much since then, and all for the better. Some of that I’m sure is simply about growing older, but I’d be a fool to not see that you have had a huge hand in shaping him into who he is today. I would imagine this goes both ways.

You’re ready. I’m not pretending to know what’s going on in your mind, but to an outside viewer it really seems like you’re ready. 

I think that’s why he talked to me first and not you. I thought it was weird. You two are normally so good at communication, and I wondered why he talked to me about it, even though he clearly should have been talking to you. But if I’ve understood correctly you haven’t talked about it since before getting married, and he’s nervous, because this is important to him. He just wanted someone to assure him it would go well.

You should say yes. You should do it. You’ll be great. I’m as sure about that as I’ve ever been about anything. You are my two best friends, and I know you better than anyone else, so you can trust me.

You will be great.