See The Beauty

I know it's ironic that I'm writing this on my phone.  I guess I could write it on paper, but the phone is so convenient.  I guess that's why I use it so much.

Convenient to look engaged elsewhere in awkward social situations and avoid talking to people.  My eyes are always glued to the screen. 

It was a typical Monday here in the Florida Keys.  I know you might think that this is a glamorous life I live, but it lost its glamor about two weeks, one sunburn, and hours of dad's boring fishing job into living here.  

I stayed up late Sunday night, snapping my friends, people I know don't actually care about me.  So, when I stumbled into class Monday morning I was completely unprepared.  But what we're a few more F's really?  What did it matter? I had two new followers on Instagram last night!  

My mom picked me up from class and had a full-blown discussion with my sister, but I didn't hear a word.   My earphones were in and I was checking an old acquaintance's story.  

" Did you hear anything I said?" My mom nudges me.  I stare at her blankly. "Yes." I lie not wanting to get in trouble again.  

She sees right through me." Ok, your taking Lucy to her dance performance tonight because your dad has to go out on the boat and I have a PTA meeting for your school."

I groan.

"Don't worry you can take your phone, just watch her performance please."

I work at a small eclectic coffeeshop as a barista, or at least I did until this afternoon.  

I bump into a man on my way in because I am liking my cousin's brother's dog-walker's post.  He spills his hot coffee all over my worn-out hoodie and I feel the heat sink into my skin.  If I were looking at her I would see my manager standing directly in front of me.

"That's the third time in two days you have run into a customer!  You confuse orders because your constantly glued to that stupid screen!  I'm sorry but I have to let you go!"

I stumble out to the worn-out picnic benches and about half a dozen tiny chickens claw about my feet searching for breadcrumbs as I sit there waiting to be picked up. Those chickens are everywhere in the Keys and they always seem like they are looking for something. My brain hurts from thinking about the chickens too much and I return to my phone and look for just the right depressing song to complain about being fired.

I begin nodding off to sleep on the picnic table, when I hear a truck horn.  I wake up and realize my boyfriend is there to pick me up.  

I climb into his old broken-down truck and I immediately turn back to my phone.  I hear a soft hum and realize later that it was his voice.  My phone is so entrancing that all I can give him is a subdued hi and hurried see ya in exchange for him going out of his way to pick me up.

A few hours later, in a different worn out hoodie, I sit on my phone in the theatre.  I plan to watch maybe part of my sister’s dance.  Suddenly I get a text from my boyfriend," You seem distant, maybe we should stop seeing each other."

I panic and forget I'm in a theatre, or that I'm supposed to be watching a dance.  My whole being so consumed with texting him and trying to keep him from breaking up with me.  I hear faint music in the distance, and at one point I hear sympathetic exclamations from the crowd, but I don't look up.

My boyfriend sends a text saying it's over and my heart cracks in half.

I walk backstage with my eyes stinging and get my sister. 

I stop to make a dramatic " He broke up with me" post and my sister runs back to pick something up.  

She raises a small orange flower over my screen and I look at her, really look at her for the first time in years.  There are tears pouring down her face.

Suddenly a swirl of emotion I had lost re-finds me.  A breeze blows through my hair and I hear a voice say," Elizabeth, look, and see the beauty of reality.  Of heartbreak, of the world, and most importantly of people."

I want to bend down and hug Lucy but realize I have no idea what's wrong.  

"What's wrong?"

"Didn't you see the dance?" She sobs.

"No, Dan broke up with me over text while you were dancing.  What happened?" I give her a side hug.  How long has it been since I've hugged someone? 

A wisp of her blond hair falls into her wet eyes. " I went to do my leap and tripped. I fell flat on my face."

Mind flashes back to the distant exclamations of pity I had heard while trying to keep a boyfriend.  

"I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry about your boyfriend."

We stare at each other for a moment.  It is one of those moments which defines a relationship for the long run.  

Suddenly we are crying in each other's arms and I realize why I had been so miserable here in the Keyes.  I had been just like all those chickens running around the Island, looking for something.  I had been looking for real friendship and human interaction in my phone, when people like my sister could have given it to me all along.

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed it, it's the first short story I've every written.  It was inspired by our family vacation to the keys, and behavior I observed.   However, some of it was complete fiction.  I wanted to write something based on this photo and it just started flowing.   Anyway, thanks for reading!