The Speed Bump (R,C)

It was late afternoon when Aubrey woke up from her nap. It was hard to call it a nap at this point, it had lasted far longer than when she’d slept last night. But she was awake, and trying to orient herself. “Where am I?” She asked her boyfriend.

He was at a desk at the side of the room. Above him and the desk hung a painting of some coast line. Some book was out on the desk, open halfway. He turned away from it to look at her. “Morning. You passed out in the woods, so I brought you to my bedroom to recover. How are you feeling now?”

“Better. What time is it?” She’d blown all her money on tonight, it’d be awful to wait another week to get to show him after so long.

“It’s 7:12.” He quietly said, pointing to the alarm clock on the other side of the bed.

So they still had time. She sat up in bed. As she found her shoes, she looked up at Richard. “We still have time to get back to the grove, come on!”

But he didn’t get up. He just sat there, looking concerned. “Are you worried about the basket? One of us can get it in the morning, it’ll be fine.”

“I don’t care about the basket right now. Do you remember how I told you not to look behind the trees earlier? I’m ready to show you, but we need to get there soon so we actually have time to enjoy it” Seeing him still not get up to leave, she begged: “It’s been so long since our last surprise together. Please just trust me on this one.” She looked into his eyes, waiting for him to budge.

He sighed, reaching for his own shoes. “You know I can’t say no. Let’s see what you want to show me.” He led her out the bedroom door and they went past the bathroom. They went past the walk-in closet that was bigger than his congressional office, and past the locked door that he hadn’t been able to get into last night.

As they walked out, the sun hung lazily over the Trident and Arrow Cottages. The only sound left outside was the splash of the fountain. The two retraced their path from earlier that morning and were back to the bench at the bottom of the hill. Past the trees, he saw the same wooden building he’d been asked to ignore. She led him closer, and he saw a familiar neon sign.

Murphy’s

Just like he remembered, the lights on the letter P were out. But that was where the similarities ended. Murphy’s was a bar at the bottom floor of a skyscraper. This looked like an outhouse with a neon sign stapled on. Not even like a modern outhouse, but like an outhouse you’d see in some fairytale swamp. This was her big surprise? He turned to her, looking for some explanation.

She ignored his confusion and pulled on his arm, trying to get him to keep going. He was tempted to argue, but he went along to avoid disappointing her. He followed her into the dirty looking shack, waiting for the surprise.

They walked in and everything changed. They were in that old bar they’d spent half their weekends in. Which was impossible, for so many reasons. They had to be thousands of miles away from Murphy’s. The bar was bigger than the outhouse outside, and shouldn’t have fit between the trees if it was the same size. But yesterday he’d seen things that were even more obviously impossible, so he just decided to enjoy the moment. Still, he was curious how she did this. “Aubrey, how are we back at Murphy’s?

She looked around the room, then back at him. “We’re not really. But I had Genet make a copy for us. I spent all of the bonus points she and the audience gave me to have her make this.” She looked at him nervously, waiting for his approval.

“I can’t believe how detailed this is Aubrey. The band posters on the wall, the scratches on the floor. You’ve even got that light broken outside from when that Quantumcar’s brakes broke and crashed into us."

“Genet did most of the work, she just asked me what I needed it to be able to do.”

“Can it not do what the bar usually could? Like, you know, serve drinks?”

“It can serve a drink”

“A drink?”

‘Yes. It can make that hard cider you like.”

“You hate that cider”

“I don’t hate it.”

“You threw it into the cornfield last time you tried a bottle.”

“**** is supposed to be sweet.” She pouted, visibly getting annoyed. “Besides, that was three years ago.”

Richard dropped the issue. It wasn’t worth arguing about. “”What else did you guys decide to do?”

She brought him to the middle of the bar counter past a number of empty tables. He felt a little odd, being here under the dim lights of Murphy’s without anyone else. She sat down next to him and said. “You’re gonna love this.” She tapped on the table and said “Cheese”

A cheese pizza appeared on a plate at the counter in front of her. She snapped her fingers, and a bottle of hard cider was next to the plate. She took a swig and **** it down, failing to hide her disgust. This is worse than Tif’s everclear.

“That’s actual magic Aubrey!” He exclaimed. “We saw Genet do this, but that’s like a real wizard tricks. What else can you do here? Does the dartboard do something weird?”

“That’s just a dartboard, but Genet still charged me for the darts. I do have one more thing to show you.” She snapped her fingers in front of where he was sitting, and a drink appeared for him. Making sure that she could see his face, she tapped on the counter again and said “Master.”

He started to cringe before a meat lover’s pizza appeared on a plate in front of him. He’d skipped lunch to watch over her, and the smell of the sausage and pepperoni was drawing him in. He picked it up and took a big bite, jamming half a slice into his mouth. “Why’d the command have to be master?” He asked with his mouth full.

She smirked when she asked. Waiting until her mouth was clear from her own pizza. “Genet suggested it. It seemed fun, so I thought I’d see how you’d react. Too much?”

“It might be.”

“It’ll only come up if someone wants a meat lover’s pizza, so I doubt it’ll come up that often.” There was a lapse in conversation as they both ate their dinner. “I think you were telling me something when I fell asleep. What were you saying?”

Richard tried to think back. “I think I had been asking you what you’ve been up to outside of work.

“Well, I’ve had two or three friends I’ve been seeing when I’m not at school.”

Richard waited for her to keep going. But she went back to her pizza, satisfied by her answer. He tried to ask a few more times about her, but she kept pivoting. He’d notice a few minutes into the discussion of each question that they weren’t talking about her anymore. They were talking about him, or how he’d been doing with Dr.Petrov, or how things were at work. The most time he was able to get them to spend on her was when she’d been talking about her plans for the elective that she was supposed to be doing this semester. She kept drinking when it felt like she wasn’t sure how to pivot, and had gotten another bottle despite the fact that she clearly hated it. But no matter what the conversation started on, she’d bounce back to focus on just him.

The conversation and the pizza ran out. Aubrey had their plates vanished off to wherever the bar kept them. Remembering the dartboard that she’d mentioned that Genet had charged her for, Richard pointed a thumb over at the corner and asked “Should we play a few rounds to finish the night?”

“I’d like that.” Aubrey said. “Tonight’s been so nice. As scary as it was to wake up in the theater last night, I feel thankful for Genet. If not for her intervention, we never would’ve been able to become boyfriend and girlfriend again. I love you so much.”

Aubrey Conners, +4VP (Love Confession) (First Multiplier)

He’d messed up. All day, he’d either let himself enjoy the moment when he should’ve been more careful, or kept quiet to avoid disappointing her. Of course when she felt the walls drop, she thought it’d meant they were back together. He needed to make it clear, break up with her again without ever having gotten back together.

“They were right.” He muttered under his breath. Louder, he said. “Aubrey, you know we can’t be together.”

And just like that, the best night either of them had in over a year was over. Aubrey spun on the barstool and put her hand on his forearm, trying to anchor herself. “No, I don’t know that. I had a great time tonight. You had a great time tonight too, you can’t possibly deny that. What’s stopping us from forgetting that we took a break?” Her voice cracked as she spoke, as she struggled to not shout or cry at him.

“It’s not good for us. We both stopped caring about ourselves when we were together. You had to stay an extra semester at school because of classes you’d skipped that you’d told me would be fine. You lost both your scholarships from that. If I hadn’t been able to cover your extra semester, you would’ve had to give up your dreams of teaching. I can’t be the thing that holds you back from that”

“That was years ago.”

His voice was rising now. “Why did you go with my cider, if you could’ve done anything? There’s things I would’ve liked, that you would enjoy too. You’re still prioritizing me. It’s not good for you.”

Her voice was getting unsteadier, cracking more as she gripped his arm like she was hanging off a cliff. “You said they were right. Last year, when you broke up with me the first time and gave me this speech, who talked you into it?”

He felt increasingly guilty for doing this. “I can’t say.”

“Was it someone here?”

“Everyone I trust is here.”

“Richard, please. That’s not an answer. Who was it?”

“I can’t betray their trust.”

“Was it Luna?

“It was a lot of people Aubrey, I really can’t tell you.”

It was a lot of people. There wasn’t one person that had ruined her life. A group of people had all stepped in to talk Richard away from her. She was an open problem, one that Richard had been **** to cut off. She let go of Richard’s arm and tried to rub at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want to cry tonight, not in front of him. But the tears leaked anyways

Richard watched her cry, trying to be quiet as the sniffles leaked through. He’d pushed too far. He wished he could take the fight back. He could’ve told her that he loved her too. If only he had kissed her and taken her back. They could’ve been together again, in the way both of them had always wanted. But that wouldn’t have been good for her.

Instead, he just tried to gently check on her. “Aubrey?”

She didn't look up as she spoke. “Take me home.”

“I’m stuck here too, only Genet has the power to send us-”

“Not back there. Even if you don’t love me, Genet’s making us sleep in the same bed tonight. It’s getting late and we should get back.”

He took her shoulder, and walked her back to his house. It was the slowest, hardest walk of the day. He felt like he was carrying a heavier burden than when she’d merely been in his arms. So they walked up the hill and past the fountain. They passed his closet, the locked room, and both quietly started to get ready for bed. They found themselves in their pajamas, curled into each other as they had so many times a lifetime ago.

She was still quietly trying to contain his tears as he started to get tired. “Do you think we might ever get a second chance?” She asked, facing the wall as he had his arm wrapped around her stomach.

“I hope so.” He found himself saying as he grew increasing drowsy, and the room went dark as he fell asleep.