Kelsey was a firm believer in giving up. She had given up on Darren all those years ago. Now, she couldn’t go back and fix that, he was married and his wife had just delivered twins. She had given up on getting on well with her mother. That too was an option out the door; her mother had struggled a long and bitter battle with lung cancer and had died three years ago. She had given up on being a painter. “No one paints anymore,” she always argued. “Instead, they just sit around looking at paintings and remarking on a past era and how art is done differently nowadays.” She had given up on belonging, so that’s how she always finds herself in McNulty’s bar every Saturday night, allowing herself to be wrapped in the dim cocoon and stench of alcohol and friendly food. Kelsey was slowly letting go.

She had long since decided that her problem was with saying goodbye; she enjoyed holding onto the flimsy memories of people and things she had once had. Every night at the bar, when John the bartender had stopped pestering her about ‘just one date’, she would wallow in thoughts of what she should have done. She knew now she shouldn’t have broken Darren because he wanted more out of the relationship than she did. She shouldn’t have stopped returning her mother’s phone calls and went over for dinner once in a while. She should have enrolled in art classes and taken that job in the gallery to buy her supplies instead of being thirty-seven and still working in a CVS. Each night, she told herself she was going to do something about her life, get back on track, even if only for a little while. She had a mound of brochures for night classes in art and new techniques, dozens of business cards from gallery owners and collectors and art magazines. She wanted to pick up the phone and call Darren to congratulate him on the wedding and the babies’ birth. She wanted to call her father and say she was sorry for not coming to the last five Christmases and Thanksgivings.

Couple after couple would come into the bar, arms swung around each other and laughing happily. Each tinkering note would stab further and further into Kelsey; everyone’s happiness and success was a constant reminder that she had failed herself. She would bite her lip and down another sip of her warm beer and try to rally herself into action. She watched John put out new bowls of peanuts, the others ravaged by others’ dirty fingers. One peanut fell over the side, skittering close to the edge of the counter and nearly falling off. Kelsey, in a daze, reached out and picked up the peanut, placing it back in the bowl. Looking up, she saw John watching her, one of his sly grins plastered on his face, black hair falling impishly into his eyes.

Kelsey slid off the bar stool, stumbling a little as she walked through the crush of people towards the door.

“Hey, Kelse! Taking off early, eh?” John called from behind her.

She turned around and smiled at him, trying to still her shaking knees, “I think I’ll take that date now, John,”

“You serious?” he asked disbelievingly. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve given up on giving up,”

This was one of my submissions for the Seminar I'm in next year. It was unsupervised and had no topic, so it was just inspired by... well, anything really. I hope you liked it!