One Shot Wonder

Luke Waits for You, Forever

about Luke Hemmings (au)

thinking maybe you'll come back here to the place that we'd meet, 

and you'll see me waiting for you on the corner of the street

so I'm not moving

THE MAN WHO CAN'T BE MOVED (THE SCRIPT)

Every Tuesday at 2:47pm. This is where I sit. Waiting.

I know I'm a fool to think she'll ever show up here. To the place we first met. But I can't risk her coming back and me not being here. She'd be so lost. So alone.

If my calculations are correct, this is the 6th, or maybe 7th time I've come here since she left me. It's hard to keep track sometimes. After the first couple of visits, all the Tuesday's just started blurring together. It's probably because every time I come here, I do the same thing.

I arrive at 2pm. I purchase her favorite flowers from a nearby florist. I grab her favorite blueberry bagel from the café across the street, and a drink. Three quarters orange juice, one quarter lemonade – just like she likes it (I always thought it was the strangest combination. So particular. But since she's been gone, I've found some sort of odd appreciation for it). Then I sit on this bench at 2:47 exactly and wait.

I wait a while, but after the first 40 or so minutes, I start to get hungry. I eat half the blueberry bagel, but I wrap the other half up tight. If she comes, I'm sure she'll be hungry. I do the same with the drink. I sip on half of it, and then leave the rest for her. She'd never forgive me if I finished it all before she had a chance to get any.

While I wait, I think back on the beautiful life I once had with her, and all the things I missed about it. Like the way she'd turn any floor into her stage. She'd laugh and dance around just because she felt like it. I feel ashamed as I remember how I used to let it embarrass me sometimes. I'd beg her to stop because she was drawing attention to us, but she never cared. She'd just laugh and dance on.

That's something else I miss about her, the way she could find humor in any situation, no matter how frustrating. There was this one time, she had some really important appointment she had to get to, but her alarm didn't go off when it was supposed to. If waking up late wasn't bad enough, she was dog-sitting her best friend's puppy, Alfie – who we, unfortunately, discovered was a bit of a kleptomaniac. After she had sped to get ready, she realized her keys were missing, and Alfie happened to be a lot dirtier than usual. After 20 minutes of digging around in the garden, she finally found them. But her misfortune wasn't over quite yet. It was about an hour after her scheduled appointment when I got a call from her. "I got a flat." was all she said, and I dropped everything I was doing to go be her knight in shining armor. Little did I know, she didn't need saving at all. When I arrived, there she was, sat on the side of the road. With a purple blouse, red shorts, two-left shoes, with dirt smudged against her skin. A clear sign of someone who's had the most impossible morning. But as soon as she saw me, she just busted out in fits of giggles. She laughed so hard tears started rolling down her cheeks.

The thing I missed the absolute most about her though, is the way her eyes lit up every time she'd call my name. Luke. A name I never loved as much as when it was rolling off her tongue. She'd do this thing where, no matter where we were, no matter what we were doing, she'd just randomly call my name. I'd turn to her and patiently wait for what usually came next. "I love you." It was something she had done since the first time she told me she loved me. She loved to make me wait for it. Always told me my face would light up like a kid on Christmas the second she called my name. I'd turn eagerly waiting for the three words that always followed the pause. And no matter how many times she did it, the excitement I felt never withered. Even after 2 years of her doing it. She never quit.

Even after she got sick. She'd lay in her hospital bed, doing her best to suffer in silence so I didn't know how bad things were. I'd sit by her bed every night, holding her hand, wishing everything would just be okay. "Luke," she'd say and wait, "I love you." It was all she had to say to calm me down. To reassure me that everything would be fine. That nothing between us would ever change. In a way I saw it as a promise between us. When she'd make me wait, and I enthusiastically did so. It was a promise that I'd always wait for her. A promise I'm still keeping to this day.

Because when the last words to ever leave her lips, before peacefully slipping away, were "Luke," I knew I'd spend the rest of eternity waiting to hear what was supposed to follow.

"I love you."