This is not something I wrote a long time ago. I actually wrote it last week at my writer’s group during a writing jam. My prompt was “nights filled with emptiness”, and this is what I came up with. I hope you like it! If you do, please leave me a comment and let me know. I live for your feedback!

A Sweet Little Love Story

If you are looking for a sad story, this is not it. If you’re looking for suspense or adventure, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. This is not a story of bad guys and good guys and full-speed ahead, swashbuckling action. This is a simple love story. It’s my story, and it goes like this.

I was alone. I had been alone for a while. It sometimes seems that I’ve always been alone. The odd man out for most of my life. For the sake of this story, though, I was recently left…abandoned if you will…by my wife. Her name is not important. She is less important than you would think a wife of nine and a half years would be to a story. Her presence wasn’t so much different than her absence. I was never very high on her priority list. So, she left,  and I was alone. Really alone. Without even the idea of a wife to keep me company. Long nights filled with emptiness. Days’ worth of events piled up with no one to tell them to. Loneliness—it’s all there was.

And then I met Lucy. Oh, my god…Lucy. She was everything I had ever wanted, and a lot of things I never thought to want or run away from. Five feet four inches of sass, long red hair, and freckles across her nose. She was loud. She was opinionated. She cussed like a sailor. She pissed me off on our very first date, and then turned around and made me fall in love with her on the second. She had so many layers; I was constantly learning something new about her. She was sweet and tender, and lived like a wild thing. She was as different from me as daylight from dark. We agreed on a few things, but were polar opposite on most. And I didn’t give a damn! When she walked in the room, my heart raced. When she touched my skin, I got goosebumps. When she laughed at my jokes, I felt like I had won every contest I had ever lost in my life. Lucy. My god, the girl is everything.

That’s it. That’s my little story. I used to be sad and alone, and now I’m not. I thought I would always be the runner up, but I’ve gone and won the whole damn thing. Whatever it is. Life, I guess. A sweet little love story.

©2015 Rachel Holbrook

You can read previous Flashback Friday stories here!