Waiting

I want you to know how long I waited at my window. I ran to it moments after I broke up with you, a thirty second phone call where I demanded: “Do you want to break up with me and you just don’t know how?” My heart pounded in my chest. I felt my heart breaking as I waited for the response. My blood rushed in my ears. I could barely hear you when you said, “Yes.” I ended the call and stared out into the black, empty sky. I could see the sidewalk leading to my parents’ front door. Outside, the crickets chirped, autumn leaves fell silently, and there was my mother, waking the family German shepherd. I threw open my window and breathed in the frosty air. I left it open. I figured if you came to toss rocks at my window then you could toss them to the right and it would awaken me. In my dreams, you were there. You smiled at me, a gapped tooth grin, and I admired your freckles. My arms were draped around your neck. You smelled like Asian spices from the food that your roommate’s mother fed you. Your lips trailed kisses down my back. I woke up and wiped the tears from my eyes. 

The next morning I cleaned out my room. I sorted my childhood treasures into neatly packed boxes and large trash bags labeled DONATE and THROW OUT. The teddy bear you won at the carnival was placed in the DONATE pile. The movie tickets from our first date went in the THROW OUT. But my heart, the one I gave to you over 90 days, was mine to keep. My little sister stood at the end of the hallway, her thumb in her little mouth, watching. Waiting. Her small feet padded across the hardwood floors and she entered my domain. She flopped herself onto the bed. Then, took out her thumb, hot wet saliva trailing from her mouth. She began to paw through my things. Her face brightened with excitement at the teddy bear. She kept it. I pushed her back out into the hallway and called for my mother who came rushing up the stairs. We gripped one end of the bed each and placed it so my head was directly underneath the window. She was wise enough to not ask any questions. I tossed clean sheets onto the bed and relished in the feeling of cotton against my bare skin. I cried all day. 

That evening, I tossed open the window again. My cell phone lay black screened against my bed side table. You didn’t call. You didn’t text. I deleted your phone number and the screenshotted messages bearing your eternal love for me. My eyes were filled with tears when I committed your deep blue eyes into my mind from the one picture that we took together. The room filled with freezing air and I bundled myself into my comforter patterned with images of a yellow crescent moon and little white stars against a navy backdrop. I dreamt of you. We were back at our park bench. Laughing. Touching. Kissing. When I awoke I’d wonder if you’d still love me if I went back to your place. Let you pull the soft, cotton sundress from my shoulders. Kiss you softly. Crash onto your bed like a wave on a beach. Feel your hands reach up my thighs. Cry out your name. Give you my greatest gift. 

In the morning, my mother made me scrambled eggs. They pooled in butter on my plate, moistening my once dry toast. She offers me orange juice and coffee. I guzzled it all down and slouched off to school. In class, I cried. I sniffled as quietly as I could and I wondered if anyone noticed. But I figured self absorbed high schoolers in their second semester of senior year couldn’t care less. And they couldn’t. None of my friends asked about you. They knew better than to bring you up at the cafeteria table. I just sat in my own little world, staring at a dry cheeseburger and mushy French fries while listening to heartbreak songs on repeat. My phone didn’t have any messages from you. Still, I whipped it out as fast as I could while I rushed to my classes, in the hopes that you might be there, asking for me back. Begging on your knees like you did the first time we broke up. 

That evening, I threw open the window again. I stared down at the sidewalk until my eyes filled with tears. You weren’t there. You never would be. In my dreams, you were walking away. You hopped onto your rusty, old black bike and pedaled despite my cries begging you to stop. I felt my heart shatter. I fell to my knees in the parking lot, crying in pain as they hit the leftover pebbles. I realized that I was now a tossed out pebble, left to roll in the wind. 

The fourth night there was a thunderstorm. Bright flashes of lightning made it possible to see the posters of teenage heartthrobs decorating my blue walls. They lit up my corner of childhood stuffed animals and brought beauty to my perfectly organized desk. I was haunted by the thought of you in a bar. I figured you’d be flirting and dancing the heartbreak away, a privilege I did not have. In my moments of anger, I’d scream that I was only 17 and I’d wonder what an adult like you was doing with a child like me. I cursed your name with each crash of thunder and tears would roll down my face with the pouring rain. In my dreams you disappeared. Slowly. Like a faded Polaroid photograph. 

When I got to my 20th birthday, I contemplated what life was like for you the summer we met because it was your 20th summer that year. You had run away from home to my small town. You took a job at a crappy retail outlet. And I like to think that maybe, you fell in love. 

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