Death, and Other Past Lovers

            I was already running late. I stepped off the curb and made it about halfway when I heard the tires squeal. I saw the big silver ram’s head blocking out the world. That emblem gets really shinny when it’s only three inches from you face. I’m not usually one for flipping people off but I threw both fingers up when my foot hit the curb. Fucking jerk.

            I didn’t have time to linger though. I kept running to class hoping that the professor hadn’t taken attendance yet. It was halfway across campus but I made it just in time. The room was too full to sit up close, which was alright. I slipped into the back and dropped my backpack silently to the floor. Leaning against the back wall, I prepared myself for another hour of painful drudgery. My chin rested on my fist and I began to nod.

            “You hear that some girl got hit by a car on the other side of campus?” asked the boy next to me.

            My gaze swiveled towards him. I hadn’t noticed anyone sitting by me when I sat down, but I nod off so easily.

            “It was probably the same jerk that nearly hit me,” I told him, “Jack-ass in a big ass truck.”

            “Could be,” he smiled back at me.

            “Is she alright?”

            “Not sure yet.”

            He was wearing a big black trench coat. His eyes were dark and deep set as he looked at me. I couldn’t remember if I had seen him in the class before. It seemed like I would remember if I had, he was quite hot. He was leaning towards me so he could whisper.

             “My names Sam, by the way,” he said as he offered up his hand.

            I shook it happily, “Carol.”

            “Do you understand what he’s talking about?” he asked gesturing to the professor.

            “Forces and vector manipulation, I think.”

            We both cocked our head to look at the notes up on the board. It was a definite possibility at least.

            “You want to get out of here?” he asked.

            I tried to focus on the scribbles on the board, but it was really no use. So, I looked at him and gave a quick nod.

            We slipped out the back door and the air felt so much better. It was calm and quiet and lite. We walked together down the sidewalk. He had a sturdy walking stick that clicked against the concrete with every step. He wasn’t leaning on it, and while I find such pageantry rather obnoxious, on him it seemed natural, almost pleasant. I held his hand for a long while before I realized I was doing it. Normally I would have pulled my hand away, but it felt right to be holding on to him, so I just let it be.

            “So where are you from, Sam?”

            He smiled for a bit, “Around.”

            “Cryptic answer… interesting.”

            His hand was cold. I liked it, it was solid and comfortable clenched in mine. His smile was warm and inviting. He was pleasantness.

            I reflexive pushed at the nose of my glasses, and he paused in his stride. He looked at the wire frames on my face and gently snatched them away.

            “I can take care of this for you,” he said holding up the lenses.

            “Give me back my eyes!” I said trying to grab them away.

            I leapt into his chest and he smiled down at me. I scoffed at him, what gave him the right?

            “I can’t see, give them back.”

            “Can’t you?”

            I blinked at him. His face did seem clearer. I took a look at the world around me and realized that I could see everything perfectly well. It was better than when I had the glasses on, because I didn’t have to look through my own eyes.

            “Wow.”

            “Yeah, I’m that good,” he said as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

I felt like pulling away out of spite, but I gave up. I put my arm around his hip under his long black coat and we walk a little further. It was bizarre seeing the world this way. I hadn’t been without glasses since before elementary school. It was silly but I rested my head against his shoulder. It was the right thing to do, I could just feel it.

            I could have stayed there with him forever. He was a safe warm harbor in a painful and shifting sea. He was sunshine after a long, cold night. He was the rainbow after a storm. He was cliché worthy, and that was a beautiful thing.

            “You want to get out of here with me?” he asked.

            “Sure,” I said into his chest.

            He stopped and turned towards me. His arms wrapped around me.  I hooked mine up around his neck and rose up on my tippy toes to kiss him because it just felt so right.

            That was when I heard someone calling my name. I turned to look but couldn’t see anyone. Still someone was very insistently calling my name.

            Sam looked sadly towards the sound of the call, “What’s the matter.”

            “Someone’s calling for me,” I told him taking a step towards the sound trying to figure out where it was coming from. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

            I looked back at Sam and he had his hands in his pockets. His shoulders had hunched and he had become very down cast.

            “I’m sure it will only take a minute. Will you wait for me?”

            “For eternity, my dear,” he smiled weakly.

            I smiled back at him before taking a few steps back towards the shouts. I stopped a moment and turned around. I ran back and kissed him.

            “So I can make sure you’ll still be here,” I said before jogging back towards the calling.

            I kept running trying to find the source of my summons, but it was hard, it would get louder and quieter at random. I took me forever to make it to the curb I had stepped off of earlier that very. There was an ambulance parked there now. An EMT was leaning over the body splayed out on the ground. A crowd of people were gathered around taking pictures with their phones. I leaned over the EMT and looked down at my own battered face. He was holding a stethoscope to my chest and listening very intently.

            “I’ve got a heartbeat, let’s get ready to roll.”

            That ambulance ride was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. I had to sit and watch the technician breath for me with that squeeze bag the entire way. It was a long wait outside the ER after that, then several days in ICU before I closed my eye on one side of the room and opened them in a hell of a lot of pain on the other side.

            It’s when the full force of getting hit head-on by a very large truck comes back to you that you realize how much you preferred being dead. I spent several weeks not able to move, than I gradually worked my way through just about every piece of medical equipment that they make.

            When I could finally walk again I went back to where I had left him. He wasn’t waiting there, and that made me terribly sad. I went to that spot every day until the day I graduated, but he was never there. I looked pitiful just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, but he promised to he would wait for me. After I graduated, I went back at least once a year hoping to find him. It became a pilgrimage that I took first with my husband, and then our kids.

            Years I returned to that place and watched the world change around it. Buildings were put up, buildings were knocked down. The streets moved. The Students got younger and younger, but I stayed the same. Soon it was just a stop when we were visiting the kids at school. Then I was alone for the longest time. Then very suddenly I got too old to take myself, so my children wheeled me out to sit for a few hours while they visited their kids at school.

            It was one of these times sitting in my wheel chair alone waiting for someone to come back for me that I saw him. I could see his face as he knelt down next to me. He hadn’t changed at all. His smile was still warm and inviting.

            “You did wait,” was the sound my shaky weak voice.

            “I promised you I would wait for eternity if I had to,” he told me as he took hold of my hand.

            He guided me up out of my chair. All the aching was gone, and my legs were strong and held my weight again. He took out a pair of glasses and set them on top of my head. I had forgotten he was holding them for me it had been so long since I needed them. He wrapped his arms around me and I hooked mine around his neck. I pulled myself up and he gave me the deep kiss he meant give back then.