Stupid, Overthought, Unexpected Decisions of the Past - 1. Chapter 1

I typed up the last few sentences and moved the mouse icon over the “Submit” button. I stared at the button for several seconds before finally willing myself to click on it.

‘There,’ I thought to myself. ‘I finally did it.’

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, glad that I was finally done with all the pressure. No turning back from this now. Although I guess I could always email the site admin and say that my final draft wasn’t my final draft, and that he shouldn’t use it for the upcoming anthology…

“I don’t hear typing anymore,” came a voice from the other room.

Zack came walking in, looking at my computer screen sending the story to the site.

“I take it that means you finally submitted the thing?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Not like it didn’t take every fiber of my being to go through with it.”

“I don’t get it. You post under a penname and no one knows who you are in real life, so why are you so afraid? Do you think people won’t think your story’s good enough?”

“I don’t think it’s just that. I mean, this is the first time I’ve ever written anything, and not only that, but it’s the first time I’ve ever contributed anything to the internet. I’m exposing myself to millions of people. It’s a whole new chapter to my life and I don’t know if I’m prepared for it.”

“That sounds exactly like the story you were telling me about. So did you just end up making an autobiography for your entry, then?”

“Hell no. If you think I’m scared now, just think what I’d be like if I actually revealed personal information on the web.”

He laughed.

“Yeah, I can totally see you freaking out, breaking out into a cold sweat, claiming you have a fever, stammering…”

“It was my first time!” I retaliated, knowing what he was getting at.

“And you think I was an expert by that point?!” he countered.

“You knew what you were getting into before we went out.”

“And yet it was you who worked up the nerve to ask me out. That’s what I find so strange about you. You’re, like, the most withdrawn, anti-social guy I know, and yet when it really matters, you somehow work up the guts, and where they come from I don’t know, to brave the social world and speak up. Actually talk to people. It amazes me.”

“You make it sound like I’m some sort of hermit.”

“You ARE a hermit! This apartment complex is just one really big, fancy shell for you! That’s why I’m surprised that you even signed up for this website. You don’t even bother making a Facebook page or Twitter account. What made you want to sign up for a writing website, much less wanting to write some themed story for its anthology?”

“I thought the topic they chose was interesting. ‘Aftermath’ can be construed in so many ways.”

“I honestly thought you’d be writing about how we hooked up.”

“It’s supposed to be a short story.”

“You could’ve written it into a short story! How messy and complicated could it have been? There I was, minding my own business, eating my lunch, tuna casserole and breadsticks, mind you, because yes I still remember that day clearly, checking out hot guys, and who should meekly come along and ask if anyone was sitting here but the most timid guy I’ve ever seen.”

I was not pleased with the picture of me he was painting.

“Do you know how hard it was for me to come up to you and…”

“You were beet red,” he interrupted. “Of course I knew you were embarrassed. At the time I didn’t know why. I thought you were just so scared of human interaction that actually going up and talking to people would cause you to pass out.”

He chuckled at his little joke, but I remained not amused.

“Seriously man, you were sweating bullets.”

“I came up to you anyway…”

He interrupted again.

“And I guess that’s what immediately caught my attention,” he said, his eyes meeting mine, his stupid smirk hiding behind them. “It takes a lot of guts to do what you did, especially for someone so shy.”

I was somehow on the defensive now. That little bastard.

“All I did was introduce myself,” I murmured. “Not like I did anything special, like ask you out or anything.”

“Dude, you didn’t have to. All it took was that one little conversation for us to become friends and eventually start going out together. You just had to open up the possibility, and you did.”

There was a brief silence between us.

“I still think writing all that down would be longer than most of the entries,” I mumbled, defending my crumbling belief.

Zack seemed to be in deep thought.

“Now that I think about it, writing about that incident with your parents would’ve been a more gripping story…”

“NO!” I cried.

That was not something I wanted to share with the world.

“Why not? It’d certainly be different than anything else posted on there.”

“Then YOU type it up! Wait, no. Don’t do that. I’ll kill you.”

He laughed at my frustration.

“It’d be funny!” he joked. “C’mon, you know you’ll have everyone in stitches.”

“No, I’m not sharing that with the world.”

“Not like I haven’t told that story on Facebook.”

“You WHAT?!”

“I’m kidding!”

“You better be! Or else the next time you try to get into my pants, I’m snapping that dick in two!”

He visibly winced at the threat. Good.

“Jeez, someone’s in a pissy mood today.”

“I’d like to see you be so willing to tell everyone about an embarrassing story. Especially if it was as bad as my incident.”

“You make it sound like it was the end of the world.”

“It WAS the end of the world! God, I’m afraid to go back for Christmas. What’ll they think? What’ll they say? What if they told my relatives?!”

“It’ll be like the new family Christmas story they tell every Christmas gathering!” he offered, feigning excitement.

He tried to hold in his laughter, but he soon lost it and burst out laughing as I continued to give him an ineffectual death glare. Then the middle finger.

“At least…” he gasped out, still laughing, “at least you took the initiative and told them without me pestering you.”

“I told them something completely different and it just kinda devolved into…that.”

He managed to get himself under control and come up behind me while I had my back momentarily turned to him. He wrapped an arm around me.

“Don’t worry. If they say anything when we come over, I’ll defend you. I got your back.”

It was an incredibly sweet thing to say with just a hint of an apology thrown in there. My testosterone levels rose to defend my masculinity.

“Great, just what I need. A knight in shining armor,” I replied sarcastically.

I knew he knew I knew he could see right past my sarcasm wall.

“Uh huh. You say that now…” he said, leaving his sentence lingering.

He looked up at the computer screen.

“Why does the screen say ‘Item Not Sent’?”

My eyes widened and I swiveled around to look at the screen. Sure enough, there was an error screen, saying all my hard work was gone.

“GODDAMMIT!” I yelled. “I TYPED EVERYTHING IN THE TEXTBOX,TOO! Now I have to retype the whole thing ALL OVER AGAIN!”

Zack laughed again.

“I guess you can say that this is the aftermath of not saving your work!”

He dodged my initial blow. I was gonna hurt him so hard…

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