Tomorrow

Chapter Four: Forgiveness Quiets A Loud Heart

Chapter Four           

            I come to in the middle of the street where I grew up. At first, I think that every horrible thing that's happened in my life is just a nightmare, not real. My mother and father will be waiting for me inside. I must have fallen off my bike. Then the thudding begins. All I see is a pair of massive brown boots stomping around me, crushing everything I know. The sound of the footwear hitting the concrete is blaringly loud, and everything is shaking. The earth begins to tilt, and as I try to grab on to the ground, my feet scrambling for purchase, I finally find something to hold on to. My mother's book. Set in concrete before me, it's the only thing keeping me from a deadly fall into pure blackness.

            As I tried to figure out what this means, I realize I am dreaming. But that doesn't stop my heart from almost jumping out of my chest as I turn around and watch the boot slowly take over my vision. More. More. More. Until it's finally all I can see, and that's when I feel my bones crunch.

            I wake with a start. The steady knocking is real. It takes me a while to realize I'm back in my apartment, passed out on my desk, my computer whirring in front of me. The standby symbol slowly circulating the screen. There's the feeling of wetness on my hands, and as I look down I grimace, realizing there's a pool of drool under me. Any light is unbearable, and I cover my eyes with my clammy hands.

            The knocking gets louder, more insistent, and it takes me a second to figure out its source. My door? I'm not expecting anyone? Still, slowly, I rise and drag my feet across my living room to the door. Maybe it's my grogginess, but I don't even think to look through the peephole to check who it is - something I always do. People call me paranoid, but I think it's for safety.

            Opening the door, I rub my eyes, and when I drop my hands, my vision is still blurry. I see a tall, blond man with a sturdy chin and green eyes. The word dad, comes to my lips, but there's something wrong here.   At the same time my eyes focused, my thought and the sight of this person connect.

            Nick.

            Instinctively, I slam the door so hard the walls of my tiny apartment shake. My breathing becomes hitched and I lean back and against the door and slowly scoot down to a sitting positing on the floor. There's a familiar prick in the back of my throat that I associate with tears, but I won't let them come, no. I've cried too much for him.

            In the silence that follows as I try to calm myself down, I hear him sliding down on the other side of the door and then he sighs. I can feel his closeness, as I did the many nights Mother tucked us in together when we were both nothing but children. Also, the nights he held me in his arms at the orphanage, telling me things would be all right even thought he knew they wouldn't. I have to put my hand over my mouth now to muffle my crying. All I want to feel towards him is hate and betrayal. But all that's overwhelming my heart right now is tremendous longing. Maybe for him, but maybe it's for the life I used to live, full of innocence.

            He starts talking. "I know you hate me. And you have every reason to. I hate myself." He waits for me to say something, I even wait for me to say something, but no words escape my lips. "I should've at least sent you a letter, I should have at least said something, come back," he murmurs, and I think that it's not for me, that this is what he tells himself. "But I couldn't. I couldn't make it out there on my own, Holly." When he says my name, I hear a plead in it. "I knew that if I came back for you, you'd want to come with me, whether I was homeless or not." He takes a deep breath. "And I was homeless. You never knew how close I was to you. Every night, I would hide in the shadows, and watch you look out the window, waiting for me." We both breathe heavily as this sinks in. "You don't know how many times I started to walk to the door. But something would always stop me," he confessed.