Should I Stay or Should I Go?
WD February Flash Fiction Challenge — Day 19
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This is my Day Eighteen entry to the Writer’s Digest February Flash Fiction Challenge. The prompt is to write a story about a character who is conflicted.
Sonya found herself frozen in place, not knowing which direction she should take. On the one hand there was Ricardo, a fine young man with a great background — the right school, the right job and a great family. She’d enjoyed every minute with him, including the ones hanging out with his sister, or visiting his parents for the holidays.
With Ricardo, life would be predictable. She would know from one day to the next what to expect, and had a good idea where they would be five, ten, thirty years into the future.
Staid and true were the words that came to mind when contemplating Ricardo. Her father would say, a solid bet.
Then, on the other hand, there was Jesse, short for Jesus. The name wasn’t the only thing Jesse had in common with the Son of God. Jesse was passion. He was unfettered. He was fire.
With him, she had no idea what the future would hold. She couldn’t be sure of tomorrow, with one exception, getting there would be an adventure.
Jesse had a deep passion for life. Everything he did, he did with gusto, with abandon. She wondered sometimes how anyone could burn so fiercely and not burn out. He was all in, or he was all out. He was never in between.
Jesse was ruggedly handsome. There was something tortured about him, a pain behind the eyes. It was as though he walked with a limp, but only metaphorically. Tia Maria would say he was a wounded soul.
Father Dominic asked her which of them pursues God, and that gave her pause, because it wasn’t as easy to answer as all that. Ricardo went to mass semi-regularly, once or twice a month. But as with everything about Ricardo, he didn’t have a passion for God. His life seemed so right, it was as though he didn’t really need anything or anyone else.
Jesse, however, was even harder to pin down. He’d been baptized, but not confirmed. He believed in God passionately, but not so much God in a building, or even in an organization, like the Church. He says God is everywhere and in everyone. That worship wasn’t a matter of what you do, but who you are day to day. Are you loving? Are you compassionate?
Of the two, Jesse would stop and help someone stranded on the road side, help a neighbor repair a house, or sit with a friend who was in pain. Ricardo would make an excuse about having to be somewhere else, or his busy schedule, or it not being safe. He was a well-wisher, not a well-doer.
If she wanted safe and sure, and didn’t mind a lack of passion and adventure, then Ricardo was her man.
If she wanted to live life on the edge, making it up as she went along, diving in head first, rather than just dipping her toe in, then Jesse was the one.
She realized that the answer as to which way to go, or which man to choose, came down to another question altogether. Really, two questions.
Who is Sonya? And who does she want to become?
If she could answer those questions, then there would be no dilemma. She’d know instinctively.
She knew that neither choice was a guarantee against heartache or disappointment. Life throws curve balls. It’s a fact.
She could choose the easy road, the one lined with suburban houses, three kids, a dog, and a membership at the country club — all the accoutrements money can provide, and still die of a broken heart, or feel, in the end, that she’d never truly loved or been loved.
If she chose the life of adventure, the one with no clear path forward, and the one where she would have to carve out as much happiness as she had the courage and gumption to take, there was no guarantees of safety or security. But there would be passion. She would have known love — not just romantic love, but love lived outwardly, love engaged.
One would be a life given to her. The other, a life she would make together with Jesse, or, and it was a possibility, without him.
Sonya had never been a fan of romance novels, but her sister, Leah, read them constantly, and they would say, "Go with dark and mysterious. Follow adventure.”
Her father would say, "Take the sure thing.”
Her mother? She had passed some five years ago from an aneurism at the age of 48. What would she say? Had Papa been a sure thing? Or was he her adventure? Did she have regrets? Or was hers the life she’d fought for? Sonya wished she knew.
She lit a candle and said a prayer, a wish towards God. Perhaps He would reveal her own heart to her and illuminate the way. Crossing herself, she stood and made her way out of the church, nodding to Father Dominic, who was engaged in conversation with an elderly couple just outside the doors.
Sonya was undecided still, but at peace. The answer will come. It always does.
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