Waiting

She sat there on the edge of the tub staring at the purple shampoo bottle that she hadn’t bothered to throw out last night when it ran out. He was pacing the length of the small bathroom, biting at the skin of his nails, since he had already bitten them all off. Neither one was ready for the results.

             “How much longer must we wait?” he said, as he recovered from tripping over the frayed edge of the small old blue rug. She knew that it was only a few minutes more, but figured it’d be easier to distract him, “What time do we have to be at that party on Saturday?”

             He looked at her with complete astonishment; how could she be thinking about a party at a time like this. Knowing her, he assumed she trying to distract herself more than him. The temperature in the tiny apartment bathroom felt it had to have skyrocketed since they stepped in there. She, on the other hand, felt nothing. To help cool himself down, he sat on the small area of the bathroom tile that was showing and held her hand while she sat near the toilet. She smiled at this small gesture; it was her first smile all day.

             Their lives were about to drastically change just from this one result, but he didn’t know how either of them would respond. He knew either way he would love her just as much as he did now, but he knew she would take the news hard no matter what. This was going to affect her much more than it would affect him, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to handle it. This was something she had wanted for as long as he has known her.

             He thought back to when they first met; they were freshmen in college and were at a karaoke event. She teased him the entire night, but he fought back. The next day, he wanted to invite her and a few of her friends to the movies. Later he would find out that she panicked, thinking he wanted to date her. They both admitted that neither one wished to be more than friends.

             Halfway through their sophomore year, she was going through hard times with her family and he would find her crying almost every night. Instead of her crying in random spots around campus, he would invite her to watch movies with him, just so she could keep her mind off things for a while. After a month or so, there was a scene that caused her to cry and cover her face. When trying to pull her hands away from her face, he slipped and kissed her. From that moment, he knew that, if he had the power, he would never let anything hurt her again.

             It’s now five years later and he is still trying to protect her from anything that would upset her that deeply again. This is one of those times; he would have to figure out her response to the results quickly so that he wouldn’t have seemed too anxious. For him reacting would have to be internally; he would have to base his response on hers. He had two possible reactions: this is amazing, or we can always try again.

             He slowly looked at the watch she gave him with their picture as the face; time was up. The results should be in. He pushed her to stand up and to walk towards the sink to look. He stood up and went toward the sink to look with her but decided this was something she should do herself. When she turned back to him, he couldn’t read her face.  She just stood there staring at the blue rug that he had just been pacing on. “Well…?” he asked.

             She didn’t know how to take the news, wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or upset. Looking at him, she knew he was waiting for her to tell him. She was nervous of how he would react and feel towards her after he knew. When she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. Instead, she rushed to embrace him. She has learned that whenever she was going through an emotional time, she could always count on a hug to flush away all the fears and stress.

             When he finally was able to pull away from her, just enough to look into her face, he saw what he thought to be pain in her eyes and hugged her more. “It’s okay. We can get through this. We can always try again later, when you’re ready,” he said as he felt her body spasm. This was what he was hoping to avoid; he knew her hopes had been extremely high, and if he was being honest with himself, so were his. He couldn’t believe it, but he had to be strong for her.

             She kept her eyes closed against him, taking him all in. He knew that all she needed from him right now was this hug, but he did not know the real reason. She was so ecstatic about the results that she actually was crying. For those few minutes, she felt sick to her stomach and in an instant, they were washed away.

             She pulled away from him and he saw the giant smile that looked as though it had been painted on her face. “Wait you’re happy about this?” he asked her, a little horrified. She had wanted this for so long and yet she was happy about the results? This made no sense to him.

             She responded to him with a giggle and took his hand in hers. She felt the softness of his palm and down his fingers all the way to the rough skin he was just biting. They walked over to the sink and bent down to eye level.

             She pointed and said “This is why I’m happy. I passed my CPA exam.”