Coming Out On Top

Amanda clenched her eyes shut, throat burning and heart hammering.  She refused to watch him walk away, refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing the grief in her eyes.  She heard the truck door slam and the revving of his engine.  Wincing, she listened as gravel spewed up from his angry, spinning tires, clinking against the motel windows.

Amanda crumbled.

Opening her eyes, she found herself perched on the edge of the maroon polyester comforter.  She traced the geometric designs with her calloused fingertip, fighting back tears.  The past eight months had been tumultuous, to say the least, but the highs had been worth the lows.  She had bloomed in the midst of his tender affections and weathered the storms of his cold indifference.  Until tonight.

I've never found a way to say I love you, but if the chance came by, oh I, I would.
I fear that to fall in love with you is to fall from a great and gruesome height.
What is love, where did it get me?  Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine.

Amanda sensed her fingers instinctively fluttering as her heart poured out the agony of her disillusionment with love.  Her left hand chose chords, a mournful melody formed in her mind.  She slipped off the bed to the orange shag carpet, kneeling in front of her battered guitar case, hesitating a moment.  His final words echoed in the empty room, reverberating against her fragile heart.

"You'll never be anybody."

She swallowed hard and flipped the tarnished bronze latches of the case.  Amanda gripped the neck of her Fender and drew it to her chest, feeling a welcome familiarity and comfort in the burnished wood and metal strings.

"Maybe at least I'll get a song out of this miserable experience."  The neon vacancy sign flashed outside her motel window, blurred by the gray drizzle.  She smiled sadly, grateful to have the sky cry with her.

***

Eight months later, Amanda slams down the hotel telephone.  She wraps the luxuriously plush white robe tightly around her narrow shoulders, cinching the sash around her slender waist.  She rolls her eyes and picks a ripe, red strawberry off the silver platter from room service.  "And now he wants credit and a cut of the profit ... for creative inspiration!" she says incredulously to the empty penthouse.  "Dream on, Buddy!"

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Linking up with Red Writing Hood this week:  500 words to use the following inspirations:

Image courtesy of Nikozz via Flickr CC 2.0