We Ran Out Of TIme

“We have plenty of time.” Those words left a bitter taste in my mouth. I said that with a wide smile with a lot of hope for the future. I can gladly say it was years ago when I said them. I had years with them and that was a privilege that I had but the brilliant little boy holding my hands as we waited. It was a cold, sterile waiting room. It was a nightmare, but as real as it could be. If it was a dream, I would wake up from it in an instant and hold him in my arms. I would cry tears of joy and hate him for the ridiculous reason of getting hurt in a sad dream.

I said that by the third year together. Walking to a sci-fi movie he loved to hate. So he can be his annoying self, poking holes in the plot, the characters, and the science of it all. I’ll be waiting for him to be quiet so I can give him a kiss on the cheek. Just to get him all flustered and quiet. We’d split our snacks and the popcorn. I was frugal. Also, I wanted us to share a bit of everything. Interests and food, I wanted that cliche relationship you see from the movies. If anything, by year four we were doing things we hate for the other person.

They complain about films and I listen all the way through with a break for a kiss or two. We watch romantic movies and popcorn. He wasn’t the one for sappy feelings. No indirect games and no little messages. The first time we had feelings for each other over the little squabbles we had. It would all lead to us being married. Lead to us having that lovely dynamic of his bravery and my little dance around things. He got more patient over time. Patient. We’re still here in the nightmare.

All the years are just a moment as the seconds were years. Seconds were getting slower and slower as they passed. The color left my face, and I was pale as a ghost. I had to be brave, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t the brave one in our pair. I was always a little indirect and a little scared to tell him how I feel. I gave him a kiss, I held his hand, and I hugged him so tight squeezed the breath out of him. That was how I did things. I wasn’t even that direct when I proposed to him.

I can remember it was our fifth year together as a couple. I wasn’t brave enough to put a ring on his finger, at least in how he’d do it. I think he knew I had the ring: he was as smart as he was handsome; he was and with that, he was always cocky. That cocky attitude was attractive and a little annoying as we would sit together during a crime movie and without missing a beat, he’d figure it out before me. He’d spoil the episode, I’d roll my eyes at him and we did it all over again for seven years on Fridays when there was a new episode.

When I finally was brave enough on year six, five months, and six days in, I proposed to him. In a way, we’d it was clever and would let him flex his knowledge. It took me four of the six months to prepare. Keeping secrets in plain sight, no matter how smart, he was a bit too smart for his own good. His cocky attitude impeded things. It was just his nature. A murder mystery where a man kills his boss to get money for a ring for his husband to be. The answer was in an envelope with the ring I was about to give him.

The ceremony was nice. I slaved over the little details as he argued for a small gathering. His immediate family and my immediate family with a handful of our friends. We deserved better than that. I wanted to put on a show, something I could tell our children repeatedly. I made it a challenge for him and, of course, he went at it with a passion. The annoying bits of work he did for me and I was more than grateful. I had the picture on the walls. I could see us dancing like we had nothing to worry about.

I was just alone now. I only had our future in my hands. I looked down at him and smiled, and he hugged my leg. I wasn’t brave enough to tell him things were going to be ok. To keep that smile on my face. I had to break down because it was too much weight for me to take on my own and, of course, he‘s his son. Brave and loving, he’d say how he had my heart. He was too soft and scared to let people in, but I had enough love to share. In his eyes, our son’s eyes were love and tears. I sat down finally. It was such a terrible wait.

He was on my lap, getting a bit too big for me to carry him nowadays. I could remember the day we adopted him. Adopted our son in year eight and we might never get a year nine, ten, eleven, all the way to thirty and beyond. I’d be counting the days raising a smart kid without his smart father. Without that cocky fool, who thought he could make it on time for our son’s graduation from kindergarten. He was so, so, him. He had to be there for our son and I can’t blame him even when I want to so badly.

Time was never our friend. The phrase that always left out of my mouth one day or another was, “There was plenty of time.”

When we started dating, when I finally saw through the bravado and the smart-aleck attitude, there was a vulnerable heart. It was him against the world. Then it became us against the world. We dated for eight years. He was terrified. He scared most people away with his cocky attitude. He asked me one thing: if the relationship would last if we were going to figure things out. Do you know what I told him?

“We have plenty of time.”

When I saw the doctor walkout. With a clipboard in hand and a solemn look, I knew. I just knew. We ran out of time.