For Better or For Worse

And she knew that he would come for her,

Despite the years she waited.

And she knew that he would come for her,

Though his arrival was belated.

And even though she was imprisoned by the feelings he created,

She knew that he would come for her.

It was the promise that he stated.

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She gazed out of her second story window, perched there in the little red dress she knew he loved, wishing to glimpse his jeep coming into her driveway to pick her up for the date he’d wanted to take her on. She glanced at her phone that was clutched in her right hand, wishing to see his number come across the screen so she could pick it up and tell him how much she loved him and how much she missed him and how she couldn’t wait to see him. To hold him and make him happy… But she knew better than that, or at least she thought she did. It was the same old story. She knew he wouldn’t come in time. She knew he wouldn’t keep his promise, and that he wouldn’t show up at her home at all. It wasn’t anything new to her. With faint hope she dialed his number again. Once, twice, three times the phone rang, and on the fourth his answering machine picked up. She sat for a moment before closing the entire phone.

The clock read 11:36.

He returned her attention to the street outside her window. The rain had picked up again, leaving a glassy sheen on the asphalt, allowing the street lights to reflect off the otherwise black ground. In the late evening she always thought the street looked like the black waters of a slow moving river when it rained.

“Where are you?” She whispered, and her words were splashed across the pane with a melancholy breath before the cold outside sucked it away. She watched the raindrops slowly collect and then slide down the glass as gently as if they meant to show their affection to the glass. She laid her head against the window and slowly allowed herself to drift off.

12:42

The door to her apartment slowly creaked open, and a wet shoe stepped over the threshold. He placed the keys gently on the desk near the door and removed his wet jacket. He walked into the apartment, shoes squishing slightly on the hard wood floors, and through her bedroom door he saw her. Her dark blonde hair was all done up in a pony tail for him, her bangs around her face all cute like he liked. And the little red dress she looked so good in was wrinkled all the way up her thighs. But none of this he noticed as he came into her room and knelt down beside her. What he noticed was the gentle smile that crossed her lips as he picked her up in his arms and her head fell against his chest. What he noticed was the way she curled against him as he laid beside her in her bed. What he noticed was that she had waited for him by her window the entire night instead of going to bed like she must have wanted. He kissed her forehead softly and watched as her sleepy eyes slowly opened to see his face. She smiled.

“There you are…,” She whispered.

“And here I’ll stay,” He whispered back, and he pulled her close and kept her there for as long as they both would live.