Stories that Never Made It - Story #1

Hello there, I'm back! I was unable to post for the past month or so because I was out of country (on a trip to Turkey!) but now that I'm back and full of ideas, I hope to post more often. :)

Anyhow, this post is the first installment in a new series I'm starting on this blog, Stories that Never Made It. As someone who loves to write, I have notebooks filled with stories that never saw the light of the day. Often this happens when I get distracted, when something else more urgent/ important comes up, when I run out of ideas or am unsure where exactly a story is heading. Although a lot of these stories may be underdeveloped or neglected plots, or results of sudden brainwaves, (sudden brainwaves. i get them so often, lol) but I'm sure they could have turned out better had they been given more attention. Some of these excerpts may be very short; around 100-200 words long, while others might be around 500 words in length. However, I believe they all deserve to be displayed and read, which is why I'm going to give them a new home here. :D
I would really love it if anyone gives me feedback or ideas for these because I still want to work on some of them. Also, feel free to be inspired. :)

Like many of it's counterparts, this excerpt (I'm going to call these excerpts because they aren't complete stories, at least not yet) was also the result of a sudden idea. I wrote this in about thirty minutes and then wondered where it was going. I really didn't have a clue about that, so I dropped working on it. The story is about a young woman's thoughts and feelings upon catching sight of an old friend of hers at a cafe, and her realization of how much they had grown apart over the years.

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A Silent Encounter

We hadn’t met in seven years. At university we used to be close friends and had shared interests, favourite foods and opinions. But soon after we graduated, our lives took different turns. I found a job and started working: I had an old mother and two young brothers to provide for. She - on the other hand - had gotten married shortly after, to a distant relative of hers.

Shaking my thoughts away, I glanced up to see she was already seated, a few tables away from me. She hadn’t noticed me yet (or was she ignoring me? I couldn’t tell). I wondered whether she would recognize me if she spotted me. I used to be in better shape at university, but now I barely had time for my looks. Life was a whirlwind of emails, meetings, coffee and contracts. I had gained more than a few kilos over the years, and my skin was darker and hair frizzier than ever before.

In university she had always commented on how our hands had the same shape. I examined my hands with the pale, jagged nails and scars - they did not at all resemble her soft hands and polished fingernails clutching the menu. She was still the pretty young woman she used to be, and age definitely hadn’t caught up with her. With her bright pink lipstick and perfect mascara, she could easily be mistaken for a twenty year old. She was happily-married, probably with two or three kids - she had always adored little children - and here I was, slaving away at my good-for-nothing job at a lowly advertising agency. For awhile I envied her; she lived a comfortable life while I had a boss to satisfy and an ailing mother to care for.