The Wait: A Paranormal Short Story

Four

He looked back towards me but he wasn't looking at me. He was somewhere else.

"I told her I wanted to be with her. I told her I wanted to marry her and for us to get away from all of this and our past. We could start again, brand new. She kept nodding slowly as if she were really listening and considering what I was saying. We had the area to ourselves. It was just the two of us and I was giving her all my love," he looked off towards the water and rose to his feet.

"She stood up and told me she didn't want to leave him and that she needed to end it. She said she planned to marry him. That's what she told me. Then she had the nerve to say she was sorry. We were by the water. We were right by the river and she said she didn't want me. She wanted him. That loser who she had to drag out the house anytime she wanted to have fun. I was so mad. I mean she just got me so mad. Something snapped. I'd given everything up already, for her. I...I...all I remember was her lying in the river. She wasn't breathing. She wasn't moving. She wouldn't wake up."

His speech became trance-like. He'd forgotten that I was even there.

"I ran to my car and got in. I sped off. The gas pedal was pressed to the floor and I wasn't paying attention, and there was an eighteen wheeler...I swerved and-" his voice faded again as he looked down at himself and touched his suit. "What happened? What happened? Oh no!" I could see something dawning in his eyes as I let him continue. "I killed her. I killed her. I killed my Molly. And this suit is not what I put on to meet her."

Before I could say anything through my shock at his strange confession, he began backing away from the bench. The lunch crowds descended on the pier for one of the last nice days of early fall. I shook my head trying to make sense of what he said. I clutched at my chest as my heart began to race again. I couldn't see him. How did I lose him that quickly? The crowd wasn't that thick. What was it he said? "I killed Molly. I killed Molly."

His words echoed in my head. I looked back at where he'd been just moments before at the space filled with a young man eating a sandwich out of a paper bag. With a surge of energy, I ran the two blocks home, bursting through the door.

"Molly! Molly!"

I ran upstairs to where I'd left her sitting near me in the bedroom. Her blue chair was empty. She was nowhere in our townhouse. She was gone.