Counting Down

Chapter 10 - The Day

I shot up from my bed to slam my fist down on my alarm. There was no way it was already eight. The sun hadn't even risen yet as I noted as I looked out of my window. I found the source of the incessant ringing to be coming from my phone. I stumbled out of my bed, despite the protest of my tired and aching muscles. I threw on a pair of sweatpants, trudging out into the living room to cease the ringing. I checked the caller ID to find it to be Tara. I let out a groan before answering with a "Hello."

Her annoying voice along with my irritation about the time instantly sent me on edge. "So, I just want to check in. Today is the day that I get to meet, you know, the love of my life and all. I wanted to make sure you were awake."

Shit. My heart caught in my throat. "I-I yeah. I'm up. Thanks for calling me," I managed to say, but not without my voice cracking off at the end.

"You don't sound like much of a morning person, huh?" she said in her know it all voice. I shuttered while waiting in silence, an attempt to calm myself. "Well, I just want to let you know that I'll be at the diner at two o'clock, so that gives us an hour, fifteen minutes, and...twenty three seconds," she finished in a whoosh of air into the phone.

"You sound a little anxious," I chucked lightly, but more in a mocking way. No matter how much I wanted Riley to be happy, I couldn't shake the feeling of a great distaste for this woman and her incessant rambling. Quite frankly, it annoyed the shit out of me.

"Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you know, I feel every bit as anxious, if not more so, than anyone ever has at this day," she said with a light sigh.

"Well, luckily for you, you don't have to wait much longer."

I had hopes she would turn the conversation back to her, but she asked the one question I had been dreading. "What was it like meeting the love of your life?"

I clutched my lose t-shirt in my fist so tight my knuckles began turning white. I prepared to give her a bullshit answer, a little overly excited giggle, and a cute alibi. As soon as I tried to release a single sound from my throat, the words seemed to catch in my lungs, ringing back and forth in my vocal chords, and fall back into my stomach. I sat down and tried to take a breath but to no avail.

What happened next was as if someone had opened the block on my mind for the past few months.

"I fell in love. I saw her eyes and every little thing that seemed wrong fell into its rightful place and n-no matter how hard I try...to shake her face from m-my mind..it won't go anywhere a-and when I was...robbed of her, she took me with her and now I'm an empty fucking shell. I swear to god if you hurt her I will-" I choked on a suffocating sob. As soon as the words left my lips, I wished to scoop them back up and swallow, but my guts were spilled and now I was slipping on the mess I made. "Riley was the love of my life and she doesn't remember me."

The line went deathly silent. I let the sobs that had been building up inside of me out in a cascading waterfall of emotions- longing for my love, fear, anger, and resentment towards the woman on the other line.

"Look," she said with a sigh. "I can go on my own."

My stomach lurched. "N-no! I need to see her, at least one more time."

She seemed to roll the thought around in her mind before answering with, "okay. I'll see you in a few hours." The usual sparky tone in her voice was replaced by pity.

I felt anger rise in my throat like bile. "I don't want you pity," I spat into my phone. "I want to see my wife happy. And I want to say goodbye."

The line went dead.

I cradled the phone in my hand, staring at the screen blinking back in my eyes the message that the call had ended. Without thinking, I slammed my fist into the fall, denting the plaster and sending a shooting pain through my arm. I winced, letting a few tears escape through my blood-shot eyes. I bit down on my lower lip. This was hell. This was the day I would lose her completely. No hope of getting her back.