Joe Long, self-defeatist

Joe winced.

"You okay, Joe?"

"Yeah," the jumpy co-worker assured, despite Michelle's skeptical glance. Hands on her hips, she stepped toward him and grabbed his hand, tugging him forward. He blushed, away from her steely view. Once again, she seemed oblivious to the unrequited effects she had on him.

"Let me see." A red slit stretched across his finger. Michelle squeezed cautiously, which elicited a cry from Joe. She turned to look at him, but he had already quickly averted his face. "Crybaby."

He let out a hiss, "It hurts!"

"Here." The pretty brunette rummaged through a pocket. "I had one left from the fall Neil took."

Joe looked at the band-aid in her hand and sheepishly took it. He thanked his serious, stone-faced, heart-fluttering co-worker with side-cast eyes. She only said nothing. Nominally, they gathered their things and made for the exit. It was another wilting end to a noisy day in retail.

Conversation was as hit and miss as always, and he tried to keep his eyes from stumbling in her direction, over her top-notch, killer body, as they walked. Even as covered as it was, now, in a fashionable pair of tight jeans and a black shirt under a long, swishing cardigan. Her stellar figure was not easily disguised. Joe looked like Frankenstein in comparison.

He sighed once they were outside the mall plaza, splitting for their cars. The darkening sky complemented the chill of the night air, few vehicles left across the lot.

Suddenly, they stopped.

"Hey," began Michelle, as if about to say something. Joe stopped to turn to her, and felt something underneath his shoe. They both looked down at a gleaming ring, then at each other. When Joe picked it up after, he felt an odd heat tickle his fingertips. It faded away as quickly as it came.

"Shiny." His eyes were engrossed by it. It was childish, he knew. But he was fragile like that. And still one at heart.

"You should put it on." The verbal nudge that came from Michelle rendered him mousy as he held onto the ring uncertainly.

"Oh, I don't think--"

"It doesn't look anything real valuable. Just one of those knock-off imitations they throw in cereal boxes." Joe's stomach flipped at her meditative voice. Even if it was just an unassuming blink, a decent-bodied woman could throw him off in mere heartbeats. This was the longest for which they'd held an actual interaction out of the workplace since backroom's shortage. "It shouldn't hurt."

After a long pause, Joe relented.

"Fine."

Before he could second-guess himself, he found he had slipped the ring into his finger and was assessing it. It fit perfectly, and he rotated his appendage, slightly embarrassed both at his new look and how much he didn't seem to mind it.

"As I was saying," Michelle's voice rode on, "it's your last day, right?"

Oh, Joe looked up. Right. He deduced, That explains her being extra nice with me tonight.

"Sorry about before," he added, for some reason. He wasn't sure why. But this was the last time he'd be seeing Michelle, at least outside of coincidental meetings, and he couldn't quite sum up the will to complement her, or be poetic, or whatever people did when saying proper goodbyes. He internally chided himself. Go, Joe, he pushed. Go say something.

"What are you apologizing to me for?" The brunette patiently rolled her eyes, the cool breeze dressing the atmosphere in quiet calm as cars puttered in the distance. She gestured to his other hand, the one with the bandaged finger, as opposed to the bejeweled one. "You did it to yourself, genius."

Joe looked back down. "Yeah."

Michelle sighed. She turned to face him fully, and settled a hand against her hip.

"You know, that's your problem."

Joe looked back up hesitantly upon the wary change in tone. She wasn't irritated with him, it looked. But the expression on her face hearkened to that a big sister with nothing she could do.

"You constantly beat yourself up and set yourself up for failure before you even have the chance to see something through, Joe. The fact that you were let go because of your failure to meet deadlines is just one example." She sighed and shook her head, as if to keep herself from rambling. "Look, I hate this job as much as the next girl. But staying motivated, well... it helps. You know, I don't think you're always clumsy or forgetful because you're trying to make trouble. You just don't respect yourself enough to put in the extra energy. It's exactly how it was with my cousin, before he got over it and ended up on the board of a friggin' private research institution."

Joe folded an arm over his body, clasping it around his arm as she talked. He wasn't sure what to say. He was a little surprised Michelle cared enough to leave him some trade tips. What wasn't as surprising, however, were the tips themselves.

Be assertive. Be confident. Be less hard on yourself. He'd heard it. He'd heard it all before.

And he knew, deep down, it was all true, and it all applied. But his insecurities always got in the way.

Always.

"So, Joe," she said, wrapping up, "I guess what I'm trying to say is just..." Another awkward pause, before she collapsed into another sigh. "...good luck. You'll be alright. You just got to pull it together."

For a while, they just stood there, like palm trees waiting to be grazed. Joe still had yet to say something. Inside, he was surprised at his own mixture of emotions, and he wished he could say it wasn't like him to get his nerves so riled, but predictably, it was. Especially in front of a girl like Michelle, who he'd been holding certain feelings toward for almost the year since they'd known each other. He knew it was the wrong line of thinking to have, but he couldn't help feeling ashamed that she just pitied him instead of actually seeing him as an equal, even if her concerns were well-founded. And of course, he expressed this by pointing the ridicule at his self, despite meaning the rest of the unseen, formless world.

When he finally spoke, Michelle couldn't even catch a syllable. Scrunching her forehead, she looked around, then summoned the capacity to dally around a while longer.

"Sorry," she leaned forward, "could you repeat that?"

"...it's not like it would matter," came Joe's mumble. "My boss hates me -- er, hated me, my work ethic will always be a mess, and," he took a deep breath in, "you don't even like me, either."

He probably wouldn't have noticed it, normally. But the contrast of the cool air with the sudden warmth of the ring around his finger was eminent, and his neck twitched downward to look at it. What the--

"That's not true!" suddenly butted in Michelle, chopping the air. "Joe, how could you?"

She was looking at him again, but this time her voice actually carried emotion. In fact, he could've just been imagining it, but she nearly sounded... hurt. Her eyes also seemed brighter; more present, determined. For a second, Joe was taken aback. Collecting himself, he finally managed to shake his head.

"I... sorry, Michelle," he blathered, "I..."

Michelle stepped forward, and Joe gulped. They were about as close as they were earlier, when she had lent him the band-aid for his finger. "See?" she invoked. "You're doing it again. This is what you always do." Her voice, while still firm, sounded distinctly different this time around. Almost caring. "You say things you don't believe just to spite yourself. You're so negative because underneath it all, you already know what you gotta do, what you're capable of." She placed a hand on Joe's shoulder, and he almost flinched. "Trust me, I want to help you, Joe. Really."

Despite her words, and despite the sudden, genuine look in her eyes that accompanied them, Joe was already breaking into a pile of nerves at the attention. She was close. She smelled good. Her body was a foot or two away, and her modest cleavage was a scrape below.

Through his mixture of feelings, in the end only one emerged victorious, and that was a mild indignation; one perhaps pent up over the past year, over all the times he'd gotten to see her smile and chatter with every attractive customer, or flirt with the security guard, or go into that fitting room with that gym trainer 'needing help with the bottom folds'. Sure, she restrained herself in the end. The point was, others held her attention so easily compared to him, it sometimes felt like; and now, he felt frustrated that he needed to confront those feelings, tonight, of all times, while trying to refrain from confessing how he truly felt and making everything even worse.

So he blurted out something even stupider instead.

"Yeah, well, you know what? The fact is, no one loves me! I don't have a chance in anything I do and I always mess things up, just because!"

Michelle placed her hands against his arms, trying to settle him down as a pair of loaders passed by. She called his name, but Joe persisted, having already taken the dive.

"I can't read labels right, I'm always late--"

"Joe, quit it!"

"I can't even get people to say hi to me when I greet them--"

"Joe, stop!"

"I'll probably end up spending the whole time tomorrow just doing nothing useful and getting scorned by my family--"

"Joe!"

"And," he breathed one last chute of air as the two of them locked hands and stood at a rigid struggle of an entanglement, "you're just saying these things to hide the fact that you never cared about me in the first place! You never liked me the same way I liked you! You never loved me! You just think I'm a dog!"

As soon as the words left Joe's mouth, he chomped it down closed. What was he thinking?

Suddenly, Michelle's hand, which had been wrapped around his wrist in an attempt to restrain him, was whipped back down. The other as well. Her body looked like prey coiling from a sudden sound.

And this time, the ring's warmth failed to offset the simmering blood coursing through Joe, even now, as it waned.

"W-" The ever pretty brunette tried to speak, but the word got caught in her throat. Trying again, she said, barely above a whisper, "Well, then. That's what you think?"

She raised her face to look at him, and Joe was shocked at what he saw. It looked like she was barely holding on. Her usual self-assured, assertively composed self trembling under a red, slightly flushing face. Her eyes even seemed to flicker, a faint, watery glaze hanging over each pupil.

Okay. Now he felt like a dick.

"Michelle--" Stretching out a shaky hand, Joe tried to gather words to say, but none arrived. The cold air licked his brain dry. The woman of his current focus, however, seeming to be undergoing the opposite effect, as he tried to fix things. "Michelle, I... I am so..."

"S-so..." All her words but a bare thread above a whisper, once again, as her primly combed hair fell over an eye. "...th-that's... how you feel... huh..."

Before he could say any more, however, Michelle cast a quivering lip downward, pressed a hand against her mouth, and ran off into the night.

Eyes widening, Joe stepped after her. "Michelle!" He wasn't even sure if her car was in that direction.

But before he knew it, she was gone.

And he had just stood there the whole time.

He sighed, wallowing in that familiar feeling of self-defeat. But this time, with a well of confusion.

As he climbed into his car and shut the door, he just sat there, still and as motionless as a corpse.

What was that reaction all about? He knew that he could be an emotional mess sometimes, as much as he tried to contain it in most situations. He never pegged Michelle as the type, though. Not to mention, when she glanced up at him for that final second, it looked like she was actually crying.

"Damn it, Joe," he swung a fist onto the ceiling of his car. He spread out his hand, pushing against it with his fingers. "Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!" He closed his eyes shut tight. "You are so terrible with women. The things you say aren't the right ones, and the things you do make 'em like you even less! Why can't you just--arrgh!"

Re-opening his eyes, it was then he noticed the ring again. Out of despair, he grabbed it and slipped it out of his hand, and tossed it into the glove compartment.

"I was dumb to wear that anyway," he grumbled to himself.

After what seemed like hours, he started on the car and drove away. When he got back home, most of his folks were already asleep, including his 18-year-old sister, who was still as volatile as high schoolers went. On the other hand, he still wasn't sure how to tell them about the job, but he knew they were going to figure it out eventually, so it would be best to just get it over with.

Sighing, he crawled into his bed and turned off the lamp light. With a wince, he adjusted his position to alleviate the pressure against his cut finger. It was apparently of little help. He could barely sleep, fidgeting left and right as he played over the scenes in his mind. Despite himself, Michelle's tight butt appeared in his half-conscious dreams, and her pretty, smiling face, but he eventually waved them away in his guilty stupor and dreamt of generic green hills under blue skies instead.

Finally, after a fit of counting sheep jumping fences, he drifted off into black nothingness, the day behind him.

...and, perhaps in one way, new kinds of ones ahead.