Before the sleep

Chapter nineteen

Daddy

I pull out the keys out of the ignition and lean back on the seat's plump cushion. The night sounds are louder now that the car's soft purring has stop.

A howl hoots inside a tuff of leaves. A dog barks in the distance, the light breeze of the night detaches a leaf from the palm tree, making it slide down the front window until it rests on the hood of the car.

Our house stands surrounded by an overgrown lawn, withered flowers which Irene had personally planted during the first month we had moved here. Weeds have taken over everything, slowly crawling up the blue painted walls.

This is our first house, our pride, our home – but in the last few months it has become the ultimate haunted house for kids to execute dares on Halloween. It's so out of place in the neighborhood where the grass is cut weekly, the walls painted three times a year, and seasonal decorations put up promptly.

Darkness pools out of every corner of the house, daring me to break my promise. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to walk in there and sleep tightly in our comforting bed while my other half lies on a hospital bed.

I promised myself I would wait for her. Every day, I send my brother up here to get my work clothes so that I don't come face-to-face with what my present is supposed to be like – the white picket fence and two point five kids. It was all so close but flinched away from us.

I open the car's door, the breeze chilling my face, and sniff out the peaceful air Irene and I had chased for so long. Now, it's tickling my face, ruffling my hair, and mocking me.

I cast a glance at the wooden door. I'm not supposed to be here. I need to wait so we can walk up the driveway and turn that lock together. We need to go in together because that is how we left it.

My hands slide inside my suit's pocket as I close my tired eyes, remembering the first day the building blocks for this house were placed in our lives.

It was our graduation day. It was the day meant to reward our four years of stress over finals, projects, and roommates with poor hygiene. It was also the day society expected us to start helping the economy with whatever degree we had just earned, the day that determined who we were going to be for the rest of our lives.

For me, it was the day that was to determine whether I was going to be who I truly wanted to be – Irene's husband.

The proposal. It was about that time. I was finally going to ask her to stay by my side till the day my body becomes one with the earth.

If I was to say that I was anxious, that would be an understatement. Sweat was pouring out of every part of my body that was capable of producing sweat. I was on my fourth shirt and it was already dripping. I untied the tie to allow more air into my tight lungs. My heart was jumping in place as my muscles constricted with each passing seconds.

I thought guys who were nervous before their proposal were simply insecure. If you were going to ask her to marry you that meant you were certain she loved you right? Who in their right mind would propose to someone who they knew didn't reciprocate their feelings?

Well, I was wrong. Even knowing she loved me didn't dissipate my anxiety. There were so many reasons a girl could reject a guy other than not being in love with him. There was money, family, geographic incompatibility, fear of setting down, fear of marriage, the urge to travel the world, etc. There were so many of them that just thinking about it made me hyperventilate.

"Still about to pass out?" My brother slapped my shoulder, pausing my nervousness for a quick second.

It had been a little over a year since the accident and it still weirded me out to see my brother not enveloped from head to toe by low pants and large hoodies. He had learned his lesson but getting the lifestyle out of him was taking longer than anyone of us liked. Just last week we caught him trying to sneak out to go smoke with his old friends – the same ones who left him on the cold pavement, bleeding out until a stranger called an ambulance.