“I don’t get it,” she said, and shot him a puzzled look as she dropped the notebook between them on the sofa.
It was his notebook. His journal, actually. Or so he called it. It had a glossy black leather cover and sturdy, lined pages to capture his musings. A serious writer needs a serious journal, he’d told her, and this was his. But all she saw was a fancy notebook, and now it straddled the sections of the sofa between them.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“That story,” she said. “I don’t get it.”
She shifted, drawing one leg under her and facing him. “I mean, I don’t get the point of it.”
He smiled. “Well, that’s the thing, see. It really doesn’t have a point.” He laughed a little and added, “That’s kind of the point.”
She chuckled faintly, stifling a smirk as she brushed her hair from her face. “Then how can it be a story?”
“Does every story have to have a point?” He leaned slightly away from her.
“I think so. I mean, doesn’t every story sort of have an ending?”
“Of course every story has an ending,” he said. He tried to keep his voice steady but felt it grow prickly. “A beginning, a middle, and an ending. That’s how it works for every story. And mine has an ending.”
“Does it?”
“What do you mean, ‘Does it?’ Yes!” He felt his face warm, and he worried it was turning blotchy and pink, the way it did when he became frustrated. He bit his lower lip and turned away from her.
“Okay, okay,” she said. She reached a hand to his shoulder, kneading it, pressing into the tension.
“Honey, I’m only trying to help.”
He sighed and leaned into her. She massaged with both hands now, plowing her fingers into his shoulder muscles.
“I know you are,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to read it. It’s a stupid story anyway.”
“Now stop that,” she said. “It isn’t a stupid story. It’s just – ”
“Just what?” He pulled away, turned to face her.
“It’s just that I don’t get it; that’s all,” she said. “Maybe I’m the stupid one since I don’t get it.”
A smirk escaped his face.
“What,” she said. “Why are you smirking?”
“Smirking?” he said. “I’m not smirking.”
“You are too smirking!”
“Why would I be smirking?” The corners of his lips twitched upward, even as he tried to will them to stay straight.
“You think I’m stupid,” she said, and stood up.
“No,” he said. “No, you’re not stupid. Honey.”
“You know what’s stupid?” She picked up the journal from the sofa and shook it at him. “This! This little notebook of yours.”
“Journal,” he corrected.
She ignored him and went on. “This little notebook you’re always carrying around with you. Everywhere we go, you take your precious notebook, your –”
“It’s a journal!”
“This – this whatever.”
She flung the journal across the room. It struck his framed Jack Kerouac poster.
He looked up at her, horrified.
“I want to break up,” she said, folding her arms.
“Break up?”
“Yes. I want to break up with you.”
“Why?”
“No reason,” she said. “I just do.”
“Honey,” he said. “Why are you doing this?”
“Besides,” she said, “not everything has to have a point, right?”
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