Against the storm

Our table was placed next to the window, looking out at the city and the evening sky. It was late summertime; therefore, the sun hadn’t gone down yet even though it was already eight o’clock. That’s why I made sure to get us the best spot in the whole restaurant when I made our reservations. It had taken months of waiting, but we were finally here, enjoying what she believed to be just another fancy date.

But this, believe it or not, was not just another date. Of course, I was managing to hide it somewhat. But even so, my guts had tied themselves into knots, and my hands were sweating profusely. It’s safe to say that I was a mess. A combination of anxiety, dread, and excitement gripped my soul as I nervously checked my pocket for a small box with a ring inside it. A beautiful piece of jewelry, passed down to me by my parents, who are no longer with me.

My girlfriend, Cheryl, looked beautiful in her yellow dress. She contrasted marvelously against the darkening blue sky, combined with the weakening sunlight bouncing off her dark skin and curly hair. I couldn’t help but stare at her in awe. While reading off the menu, she looked up at me, definitely noticing how strange I looked as I kept staring at her with my mouth slightly open.  

“Ray?...Raymond? Hey—hon, you alright?,” she asked, worried. For a second I almost didn’t respond. I was so nervous that it actually felt like I could pass out at the drop of a dime. She reached out and touched my hand, breaking my trance instantly.

-“What are you doing silly?,” she said with a slight smile.

-“Oh, j-just looking at the menu y’know, so many options. I don’t know where to start.” I answered nervously.

-“Ray, your menu card is closed.”

I glanced down and realized that, yes, it was closed. I was so nervous I hadn’t even looked at it once.

-Oh, haha…Well, I was seeing if I could remember the menu off the top of my head. I need to flex my brain muscles once in a while.”

 I swear that at that moment I could’ve punched myself. What the hell did that even mean?!

-“Is that so? I’ve never seen you do any of that before though…” She said as a big grin spread on her face. “So, Mr. Brain Muscles, what are today’s specials?”

-“Oh, um- well… you know…”

-“I don’t! So I’m very eager to find out. Please do-tell!” she said giggling.

I was trying to babble my way out of embarrassment when suddenly- -

-“Ready to order?”

I gasped, almost jumping out of my seat. I had managed to hold myself back from screaming like a toddler. Cheryl broke out into laughter as the waitress looked at me, extremely confused.

 After fumbling with the menu for a bit, we ordered the special (which happened to be Filipino-style meatloaf). We chatted about this and that, but for the life of me, I could not build enough courage to pop the question. 

I was dreading her response, her reaction. What face would she make when I got down on one knee? The more I thought about it the worse it got. I’ve never been very confident, truth be told, I'm a bit of an airhead. It's for these same reasons that I find it almost impossible to decipher why someone like Cheryl would ever fall in love with me. I’m not particularly noteworthy or special in any sense if you get what I mean.

If life could be described as a series of doors that you have to open in order to get into different rooms, then my life consists of me constantly crashing into the door face-first trying to find the handle. Of course, I do open the door eventually, but what I’m trying to say is that I’m never able to do it on my first try. This time, I was terrified of opening the door, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to, afraid of the other side. What if she said no?

That question had been in the back of my mind, but this was the first time that it rang at full volume. Soon enough, it was midnight. We exited the restaurant and took a cab. We asked the cabby to drop us off a couple blocks away from home so we could walk the rest of the way. Every step was agony; I felt my strength leaving me and my resolve fading away. I couldn’t help but be disheartened by the fact that I was too much of a coward to admit to her how much I really loved her. It’s safe to say that the hate I had for myself at that moment made me lose the will to keep going, almost closing myself off from life in that sense.

When we arrived at the door of our apartment, no words came out of my mouth. She opened it and went inside, looking back waiting for me to come in. I stood at the entrance, and before going inside as well I got a phone call. It was work-related, I’m a full-time nurse and I spend most of my time working. I guess one of the reasons I don’t feel worthy enough to be with Cheryl is that I feel like I’m not enough. I’ve always felt I’m not giving enough of myself to maintain our relationship and I’ve always felt guilty for it. This is something I’ve felt in multiple aspects of my life, it simply seems that I’m never good enough for anything.

They phoned me because they needed my help over at the hospital. There had just been some kind of big accident downtown, and they were severely understaffed. It was one in the morning and I was tired, but I just couldn’t bear the idea of people needing help and not receiving it. 

- ”Everything okay?” She asked.

- “Yeah, they have an emergency at work. They need me to go over to the hospital to help out.” 

- “Oh… Then, be careful, I’m going to bed.” She said with a hint of disappointment in her voice. 

I was already guilt-ridden; but it was the feeling of relief that passed through me that made me truly hate myself, hate myself because now I had an excuse to not ask her anything. I was so angry with myself because once again, it just seemed I wasn’t enough and I couldn’t do anything about it.

From this point on, everything felt foggy. I arrived at the hospital at half-past one, put on my scrubs (my uniform), and left at five o’clock in the morning, completely exhausted. 

Walking off into the early morning, through the smelly alleyways and empty streets of my city, I arrived at a giant bridge. An immense monstrosity made of steel pillars, metal wires, and white concrete. The length of it was about six hundred meters and about three hundred meters away from me. A man driving a shopping cart and wearing old dirty clothes was making his way down the empty bridge. The sound of thunder broke the silence. Dark clouds had progressively covered the sky and rain started to fall from the heavens. It was a light pour that got progressively harder, the wind was blowing so hard that any other person in my situation would’ve become concerned. I couldn’t care less.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry as it would feel like an admission of how pathetic I felt. Halfway through the bridge I stopped and settled upon the rail on the edge, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the box. It was now pouring down and the sewage couldn’t drain the water fast enough, so it started cascading from the edges of the bridge. I stared at the box, wondering if I would stay this hopeless for the rest of my life.

CLANK CLANK – CRACK!!!

At the sound, I looked up to see in the distance some sort of sign break off and fall on the man I had seen before, the one with the shopping cart. Suddenly a strong wind hit me, pushing me back. It was then I realized the sheer magnitude of the storm that had just started. The sign that had hit the other man was lifted by the wind and crashed into me. I dropped the box as my body fell to the floor, my face hitting the pavement, a sharp pain emanating from my left shoulder. 

-“I’m not even good enough to keep myself alive,” I thought to myself.

I faintly heard a scream coming from the other side of the bridge, almost drowned by the sound of pouring rain and deafening thunder. The man had slipped over the edge where the water was pouring over. He was holding on to the rail for dear life, not being able to pull himself back up. Again, he screamed for help at the top of his lungs. I had been trying to move towards him when the box slipped my fingers and fell a couple feet away from me, in the opposite direction of the man. I could hear him pleading for help. I’m sorry to say that I hesitated for a minute, but then I stood up and ran towards the man as fast as I could, his grip was loosening. He let go.

I lunged myself over the rail, almost falling over but I managed to grab his hand and mustered all the strength I had inside me to pull him back up. Even if I thought I wasn’t good enough for anything else in my life, I could never let somebody die in front of me; no rain, wind, or storm would ever change that. On the safe side of the rail, both of us laid motionless on the street, completely shocked and exhausted. The storm continued unabated, a colossal dark cloud full of lightning and thunder, shaking us to the core like some kind of cruel god.

  The man got up but he couldn’t walk properly, seeming to have hurt one of his ankles. I lifted him up and both of us hurried down the rest of the bridge. The streetlights barely illuminated the street. The street was terribly slippery, and rivulets of water carried all sorts of trash and debris, taking it all over the bridge into the river below.

We managed to find shelter under an overhang of one of the buildings next to the bridge. The man thanked me profusely as I helped him sit down so he could rest his leg. For a second, a minuscule second, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me, but then I looked back at the bridge. By some miracle, the little black box I had dropped was stuck in a rock next to one of the open sewage grids. It was illuminated by one of the still functioning streetlights. With alarm, I noticed that a stream of water, carrying trash and debris was making its way to the box. 

“I could always get another ring. I can always find another moment to ask. I can always try again later.” That is what I kept telling myself in order not to panic. But then the frightening thought came to mind, “What if I’m never able to do it? Will I ever be good enough to do it? What is the point?”. I was struck numb when I thought of the last question. “The point”...” the point!?”. When did I become this weak-hearted? Was it because of fear? Were my own fears and doubts about to take away what I considered to be most important to me? Cheryl?...

“What’s the point of living a life without risk? If you are never willing to try doing anything with yourself because of fear, isn’t that just existing with no purpose? If I died right now…could I really call this, all the hardships I’ve endured from the day I was born…could I really call this life?”. All these thoughts swirled and crashed around my brain like waves in the ocean, almost as though it had been taken by a storm of its own, a storm that had suddenly cleared and left nothing but an empty sky, suddenly, my thoughts went quiet, and my body moved without hesitation. I started running. The man desperately pleaded for me to stay, to not throw my life away, but I knew that I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t get that ring back. The stream had reached the box. It started carrying it toward the edge of the bridge. I ran even faster, more so than any other time I had run in my life. Against the heavy rain, against the powerful winds, and against the storm itself. I wouldn’t let them slow me down even if it forced me to face my own fear of failure. The box was within my grasp, and suddenly, I tripped over myself. My blood ran cold when I saw the box about to fall off the edge, but I had made up my mind. I needed to live in order to find out her answer and nothing was going to stop me. 

I crawled to it, through all the trash and wet dirt, propelling myself with all the energy left in me. I barely managed to grab the box before it disappeared over the edge. Tightening my grip on it, I moved away from the edge and hugged it tightly, trying to catch my breath, keeping it close to my heart. A combination of adrenaline and pure relief ran through my body as I crawled and stumbled my way back to the safety of the roof I had previously run away from.

 When I sat down next to the man, he looked at me with an expression that could only be described as pure shock. I opened the little black box and showed him the ring. He didn’t say anything but his initial reaction was now replaced by a warm smile and an understanding look. He patted my shoulder and we both chuckled; then we sat in comfortable silence waiting for the storm to pass. After the clouds moved away, taking the storm with them, I knew it was over. I looked at my watch. At a quarter past six, slowly but surely, the sun rose above the horizon. I took deep breaths on my way back home, enjoying the scenery and rejoicing in the fact that I had somehow managed to survive. The storm had messed up some streetlights and signs but aside from that and the flooded streets, everything was fine. I was going to call Cheryl but then I realized that I had lost my phone back at the bridge. Normally, I would’ve been angry about it but right now there was only one thing I really cared about. 

As I arrived at our building, I saw Cheryl by the entrance. She looked completely worn out, I called out to her and she ran over to me, hugging me so tightly I almost got knocked down. I hugged her back and we didn’t say anything for a while. After a couple minutes, I tried speaking. I pushed her away gently and we looked at each other. “Are you okay? You look like shit?”, she said with a worried smile. I was covered in mud and scratches and some of my clothing was ripped(I had changed back into my normal clothes before leaving the hospital). “Cheryl, I…I-”, I mumbled, but the rest refused to come out. I took a pause to think of something to say. Then, taking a deep breath I took the box out of my pocket. I wouldn’t let my fears and doubts define my life. No more lying to myself. I wanted to live properly even if it entailed going against the storm again. So I got down on one knee.

“Will you marry me?”

Her eyes widened, tears rolled down her cheeks and she gave me the biggest smile I had ever seen. She hadn’t uttered a single word yet but I think I could guess her answer.