PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

He waited on her front porch the next morning, like a runaway dog that always returns home. It had been an unusually cold spring, and inches of snow covered the yards and cars on the street. He woke at seven that morning after one measly hour of restless sleep; he hardly ever woke before noon on a Sunday, but he had to see her.



Shortly after ten he gathered the courage to ring her doorbell and waited patiently for the sound of bare feet shuffling to the door. He was surprised when she opened the door fully clothed with her hair and make-up already done for the day; he had imagined he would have been waking her and expected a terrycloth robe and droopy eyes.



“It’s about time; you’ve been out there since eight.” He smiled awkwardly as she moved aside to let him in. He was a little embarrassed that she knew he’d been waiting for so long; it must have seemed a little odd to her.



“Well why didn’t you let me in then?” He teased her to avoid an uncomfortable moment.



“I thought I’d let you suffer a little. So what are you doing here?” She tried to plant herself casually on the sofa when in reality she was more nervous than she had ever been; Aden only came to the house when he had something on his mind, and that something usually involved her.



“I don’t know; I just wanted to see you.” He reached for her hand and she pulled away sharply.



“Liar. You never just want to see me. We’re not going to avoid whatever it is you came here for just because you’re not mature enough to handle it.”



“You know just what to say to set me off. Do you do this on purpose?”



“Oh yes, I try to find every way possible to make you miserable. No, just if you have something to say just say it. If not, you need to leave because, as of right now, I have nothing to talk to you about.” She didn’t mean to come across so cold and calloused, but too many encounters with him had numbed her ability to sympathize. It wasn’t like her to snap at him that way, but he had her frustrated beyond belief. Everything was so confusing and she didn’t know what she wanted. It was easier just to forget about him and find someone else rather than try to sort through the mess she’d made of things.



“Fine. I’ll say what I came here to say and then I’ll leave! I was up all night thinking about you and what was to come of us when I decided I couldn’t live without you and didn’t even want to try. I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life loving you every minute. I love you, Cadence, and came here to ask you to marry me. I thought we could runaway together and take an eternity to memorize each other’s faces, and a lifetime to make each other happy. It’s apparent that you feel nothing for me that I feel for you and I just made the biggest fool of myself. Every moment we’ve had together touched me in a way I’ll never be able to explain or match; it’s nice to know that you’re feelings about it are completely different. Noting will ever hurt me more than you have; and I hope I ruined your day, and possibly the rest of your life, because you’ve ruined mine.” He didn’t wait for her to ask him to leave, he just knew it was coming and slipped out the door before she even had the chance to exhale.



He had been gone for twenty minutes or more before she finally moved her eyes from the place he had been standing; their encounter was very real, yet it felt as though she had watched it from a distance, that she had no part in it at all. She was starring in her own destruction and powerless to stop it.



The little clock on the mantle rang out as it turned 10:30; it had only taken four minutes to completely wipe out every chance she had at making things right with Aden. What he offered was genuine but impulsive. Marry him? Had she ever intended on tying herself to him for the rest of her life, bending over backwards to keep him happy, placing her feelings on the line to spare his, day after day, night after night? No.



And he loved her? Did she love him? The questions swarmed in her head and she tried to push them all away, but every time she felt like she was turning her back on him like she always did when the situation became too much to take in. And she had called him immature. Who was the one who thought that ignoring a problem would make it go away, that as long as they were “just friends” neither one of them was entitled to feel any differently, and that if he truly loved her he would wait an eternity for her to love him? When had her thinking become so warped that sincerity and devotion had no effect on her?



She tried desperately to sort the questions into categories, one for all the pain and suffering she felt, and another for the love and warmth she had for Aden. Differentiating between the feelings she liked and those she hated made dealing with them much easier. She could focus her attention on one set at a time, and then after meticulous interpretation she would make a decision based on what she had discovered in the careful synthesis of her own emotions and feelings, as well as Aden’s.



She stared at her reflection in the mirror, studying her features and wondering if any of them would matter in the end. She studied her eyes and each fleck of color in them; the way tears enhanced every detail. She watched her throat each time she swallowed back more pride, and the way it shuddered each time she succeeded. She wanted to be completely absorbed in herself, to fall inside where she would wedge herself so precariously in that slender throat as to allow not even the slightest breath to pass.



The doorbell rang out for the second time that morning and she pulled herself away from the mirror; Aden, it had to be Aden. She flung the door open, prepared to leap into his arms and have the fairytale ending they’d always wanted- the ending they’d always needed.



Instead, an officer was peering at her from her front porch; he looked young, maybe in his mid-twenties, and his eyes held so much apprehension. He looked much like a frightened child as he cleared his throat and removed his hat.



“Are you Cadence, Cadence McAllister- daughter of Dean-Allen McAllister?” She nodded slowly, searching his face for something other than his obvious dread. “I haven’t much experience with this sort of thing, but my superiors tell me it’s best just to say it; so please forgive my blatancy. Cadence, your father died early this morning after he was life lighted to St. John’s in Gatlinburg, Tennessee after falling asleep behind the wheel.”