"heaven help a fool who falls in love"

Penny Lane / 20 years wise / Aspiring journalist

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“Maybe I’ve just decided to have a vendetta against you, friend.” He grinned, not letting the word friend bother him. It didn’t feel as poisonous as he thought it might on his tongue. This was doable. They could get to know one another, and fall in love with other people, and there would be no pressure to have some unknowable thing drive them together.

This could be easy. As easy as Parker wanted it to be. One foot in front of the other, one moment of acceptance leading to a lifetime of understanding. Soulmates meant more than lovers. It could mean best friends.

Penny let her mouth fall open, exaggerating her shock at his words. “I can already tell you’re going to be a terrible friend.” She shook her head, raising her eyebrows at him, as if daring him to deny it. “Doesn’t like strawberries, gets a vendetta in the first 10 minutes of friendship, judges you for having sex outside. I’m not so sure this is going to work out- wait, what’s your name?”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

Another jab, but Parker didn’t let it phase him. There were more important things to worry about. There had to be more important things to worry about. He had a future to plan for, and maybe it was for the best. Relationships had always been messy and complicated. The few he had been in had never ended peacefully. If he wanted to be a surgeon, he had to focus solely on that goal. No distractions.

“I don’t see why I’ve got to do anything about the strawberry thing at all. Besides, I don’t hate all strawberries. Just the pulverized kind.”

It was an odd feeling knowing that a lifetimes worth of anticipation held an anti-climactic ending. That childlike wonder and hopefulness could be snuffed out, and then relit with something else. Parker was never the sort of person to give up, but he was also the kind of person that tried his hardest to respect boundaries. To understand that, while there were many things he could control, the world was just a bit of a disaster most of the time.

Penny lifted her chin, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “I don’t believe you. I think you’ve got a vendetta against strawberries.” 

As penny’s heart began to settle back into her chest, she decided this was a good thing; meeting him, her supposed soulmate, would at last let her prove it was all a load of nonsense. That people set too much store into the ridiculous notion of there only being one person made for you. That’s what her dad believed, and look where that got him. A dead wife he could never move on from, because what was the point when she was his soulmate. Penny had watched him let grief and then loneliness overwhelm him until he was barely recognisable. She would never let anything have a hold over her like that. 

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“Ah, right–boyfriend.” There it was, the impossibility of the impossible. She was right in front of him, the person that was supposed to be his soul mate–and it was already over. Already he could feel his heart shrinking with disappointed. All of those years waiting and wondering, and trying to forget, and in just a few brief moments in time, all of it was for nothing. But they could be friends, thought Parker. Soul mates didn’t always have to be romantic. They could be friends, and he could find out what made strawberries so special, and she could find out why he was shaky in every aspect of his life, except for when he was holding a scalpel. They could be friends.

“Does your boyfriend mind you having friends?”

Penny blinked up at him for just a moment before her chin jutted out slightly, a tiny edge of defiance lacing her tone. “No, he doesn’t mind. He knows it’s him I choose at the end of the day.” She frowned momentarily, eyes slipping back down to the counter. She usually wasn’t so rude, but the whole encounter had left her feeling shaken, for many reasons, but mostly because of how easy it had been to talk to him, how natural it felt to sit and laugh with him. That bothered her. And she could do friends, couldn’t she? What would be the harm? It wasn’t like she believed in any of that soulmate rubbish anyway. Now was the perfect chance to prove it was all nonsense; that she was free to choose and nothing was tugging her strings. And if it was all nonsense, what did it matter if she was friends with him? She shifted her expression, features neatening back out in to their usual friendly manner. “Friends would be... nice. But you’re gonna have to do something about that strawberry thing first.”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

Parker turned back around, his hands feeling shaky as he stuff them in his pants pockets. How in the world did you tell someone that they were your soul mate? So many of his friends had a tattoo, and yet none of them had met their other half yet. Meeting your soulmate these days seemed to be impossible, and most didn’t bother waiting for that one person. Even Parker wasn’t planning on waiting. But this right here, it felt like a punch to the gut, and somehow that punch was the most glorious feeling he had ever felt in his life. “Sex?” Parker questioned, forgetting the conversation they were having, and he was sure his voice rose a few octaves.

“In fields,” Penny said quickly, in a rush to move on from- whatever this was. In the back of her mind she knew, but she preferred to leave it an unanswered question, as much as she could for now. “I’ll let you dwell on it for a while, I should go see if there’s a table free outside. My boyfriend won’t want to sit in here.” Not strictly true, but her skin crawled, an improbable itch spreading over her skin she was certain scratching wouldn’t alleviate but distance might. And for some reason, she’d had the sudden urge to mention him; her boyfriend. He was real. He existed. She’d chosen him. 

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“Mud?” Parker repeated, entirely unconvinced but willing to let the issue slide. And then he realized something. What had she asked him for? He had only worked at this restaurant since the summer, and not a single person before her had ordered a strawberry milkshake. Not one. Mostly people were just getting ice cream anyway, and the phrase strawberry milkshake shouldn’t have meant anything to anyone except for a flavor and a dessert of choice. But Parker stepped back from the counter momentarily, turning around as if expecting to find some sort of alien behind him. She was strawberry milkshake.

Penny’s eyes narrowed at the sudden odd behaviour, a question burning at the tip of her tongue; yet, she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask it. Somewhere in her periphery, she felt like she was forgetting something, his change in demeanour startling her into remembering that fact, or half remembering in this case. It was a feeling akin to knowing you’ve left something off your shopping list but not being quite sure what, though in this case Penny wasn’t entirely convinced she wanted to remember. She felt disorientated, knocked off kilter by the recognition she suddenly and confusingly felt. As a distraction she chased a drop of condensation down the side of her glass with a finger, eyes making chase to so that she was looking anywhere but at him. A nervous cough, and then, “Yes, mud. But if that’s too hard for you to envision in a field of grass and mud, then fine, I was talking about sex.” As far as distractions went, that should be a good one, she thought to herself.

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“See, you seem like this sweet all-american girl, and then you go around talking about getting down and dirty, and who knows what else you’re thinking. It’s all devilish, really. My poor mother if she knew I was talking to someone with such foul thoughts as yourself.”

Penny scoffed audibly, wrinkling her nose up into a mock sneer; the smile that remained on her face cut into that sneer, rendering it largely pointless. “I was talking about the mud.”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“Well–yeah. I might be a man of science, but I think that might just be the first sign that you’re an alien. Everything else is just further evidence to back up that claim.”

“Everything else? What on earth else is there beyond the strawberry milkshake?”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“What, you don’t believe in aliens or something?”

“Is this about the strawberry milkshake?”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

Parker paused, momentarily taken aback by the crass comment. None of it took away from the fact that he felt like he knew her. With each word he could feel himself falling into a familiar yet foreign pattern.

“I’ve got no clue what or who you are, but consider me in.”

“What I am?”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“So you want to get down and dirty in the field? That’s admirable. Dangerous too if you go overseas. Not sure I have the guts for that sort of thing.”

“Uh huh, I love getting down and dirty in fields,” Penny replied sweetly, before innocently taking a sip of her strawberry milkshake for ironic effect.

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“Noted, then. You won’t have anyone following up with you about calling me a loser.”

“What sort of journalism are you looking to get into? Do you want to be on the ground or in the studio? And I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“I want nothing to do with studios,” Penny blanched. “I’m far too clumsy for the medium of television.” 

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“I’d never deny something that’s so intrinsically part of who I am.”

“Berkeley. Unless we suddenly started offering milkshake classes here.”

“And who I am to stop you? I just wanted it on the record that I never made any suggestion you were a loser.”

“Yes, Berkeley, I go there. Journalism. But you should do that. Not journalism at Berkeley, the milkshake classes. Not that I need them, but I can think of someone who does.”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“That helps plenty. At least now I’m only a loser based on circumstances beyond my control.”

“You go here too?”

“Hey, you said loser, not me.”

“To this diner or to Berkeley?”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“That’s only because you get the last laugh, and I have two more hours before my shift ends.”

“If it helps, it’s only a win on account of logistics.”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“I’ll take someone’s order and you’ll probably drink your milkshake as loud as you possibly can, just to remind me of the abomination that you’re drinking.”

“A beautiful end to a beautiful encounter.”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“And I was hoping I could convince you to have something better than strawberry.”

“It seems we’ve reached an impasse. Wherever will we go from here?”

[penelopelanes]

taleoftwoindies:

“Well, if we’re talking about serotonin, that sort of happiness, then strawberry milkshakes don’t elicit any memories that would make me enjoy them more than other milkshakes. And they taste horrible.”

“I was really hoping we could be friends.”