Linger

   If she would have known. She would have lingered, it never would have been so hurried. How ignorant that was, to rush a kiss as if we were things that live forever. You should never kiss like there will be a next time, because one day there won’t. One day he’ll walk out the door like he has hundreds of times. Your floor boards will creak, screaming at him to stand on them forever. Your door will close, a little too loudly, shouting for him to come back. A silence will sweep into the house, like the house knows he will never step foot in it again. She doesn’t have the wisdom of the house. She goes to sleep with pleasantly dull thoughts.

     At exactly 4;03AM, her phone will ring, a horrid cry that cuts into the lovely night. She will pick up, expecting a scam call. In some way she is right, it is a scam. As she leaps from the covers and into her shoes, she knows the world has cheated her. As she runs out the door, the floor boards will creak in a wooden sob, because they knew. They knew why people stood on them talking too long. The door will slam, the same doorway that see every hug and kiss goodbye, knowing it should’ve lasted longer. Knowing they should have lingered.

     In her little blue car she shoots down the street, towards the hospital. It feels like the world is collapsing into itself. The starless sky makes her feel lonely, she is the only living thing on the street. The radio is playing jazz. The song is the same one she remembers from their first date, he smiled when it happened. He turned it up, she remembered thinking how full of life he looked. Now that sunny memory was slipping into the black morning. Her phone was still talking, but she only heard pieces. The pieces that mattered. Too late….tried....goodbye..

.he...troubled… The last word reached her slowly, but made the feeling leave her fingers, her soul skipped a beat. On the third date, she noticed a small white line on his neck. She didn’t ask then. Later she found how much night was behind that sunny smile, how that cut wasn’t made by him, and wasn’t an accident. A year into dating, she found other white lines, they weren’t accidents either, but they weren’t from someone else…Suicide…

     A street light burned into her eyes, and for a moment she thought it was daytime, that this was all a nightmare. It had to be, because he couldn’t, he was happy. Happy people don’t die on purpose. That look in his eyes, what was it, if she would have asked the walls, they would have told her, it was a kind of exhaustion houses saw in people who lived there for 60 years. An exhaustion that was ready for something new. She did not ask the walls, she asked him.

     With a trembling finger, she hung up the phone, and with a gut feeling that it would be the last time, called his number. One ring, two rings, three, four, five, six, her mind stuck to the road and blurred out the ringing until a sharp sound brought her back. His voice, she could imagine his face matching the words, his dimples, his big blond eyebrows and thick hair. The way it all moved like she had seen just a few hours ago.

     “Sorry I missed you, I’ll pick up next time.” The phone beeped, now it was her turn.

     “Don’t worry about anything I’m on my way I promise.” She hadn’t realised she’d started crying until a tear plopped onto her shirt. “I know you,” She wanted to say that it was a mistake and he was fine, but she didn’t get that far, “There’s something I want you to know, but I hope you already do,” She slowed the car to a stop, because she understood. “I love you so much. You didn’t deserve the life you got, but you did so well with it anyway. The earth should thank you for being on it, because you will always be the best of us.” She was sobbing now, hiccuping between words, “It’ll be hard, but I’ll let you go. Before I do,” She took a deep breath, “I hope you know I’ll be okay, I’ll love you until you’re sick of living in my memories. That’ll be a better place to live than here anyway. I just wish I could have loved you longer. I wish I could have lingered with you.”

      Through her thick tears, the world swirled in dark colors, and she thinks, What does it mean to linger? Lingering is when your parents talk twenty extra minutes to a friend they saw on the street. As a kid you just wanted to go home. You wanted to rush to do something else, but you’re going to rush and rush until you notice that your mother’s hair is all gray, until you’re packing up for college. You’re in the car and thinking about every doorway you ran through, every sleepover you left early from. For the love of God why didn’t I linger? You’ll rush until you're holding you’re love’s hand in their dying moments and thinking, how did we lose so much time? I wish you would have shown up in my life with a timer saying, this is all that I get with you. This is all I have to show you how much you mean to me, and it will never be enough. She clears her eyes, holds back a sob, and finishes her message.

     “I am so proud of you. I am so proud of how far you made it. I know you’re tired, so I won’t beg you to stay. I’ll say goodnight. Just remember that if you get to heaven and it isn’t what you want, you can always come back, and I’ll kiss you longer.”