Chapter 8—Waiting

It has almost been a week since I had that dream and have seen Rory. I did not tell Ruth about the dream or memory that I had because I could not risk Asher finding out. What if it was all just a dream? I couldn’t belittle his character which may not have occurred. Plus I didn’t want to sully Ruth and Asher’s reconciliation. She was absolutely smitten with him. Ruth waited with me for a couple of days for Rory to return, but to no avail. Soon after, she made plans with Asher, and they had been going on dates and spending a lot of time together. I hadn’t seen so little of her since we were younger, when we had to rely on our parents to bring us everywhere. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. She had invited me to hang out with them a few times, but I could not look at Asher the same way since that dream.

Most of my time was filled with avoiding my mother by staying in my room, watching television. My father still hadn’t returned home, so whatever they were fighting about must have been very serious.

In all of this time, I even started to doubt whether Rory was real. Maybe he was a figment of my imagination or maybe I hallucinated him. Either way, I was conflicted because even with my doubt, I was still worried about him. I haven’t had a dream about him nor Silas. Maybe my telepathy had finally caused me to go crazy.

As I sat in my room pondering Rory’s existence, there was a knock at my door. I jumped out of bed, startled, and slowly opened the door, thinking that my mother may have come home early from work.

“Andrew!” I said, shocked. and smiled.

“Hey, little sis,” he replied, smiling back and hugging me. “I was knocking at the front door. Didn’t you hear it?”

“No.” I was so lost in thought, I was surprised I heard him knock on my bedroom door. “What are you doing here?” I questioned happily.

“I have some news to share,” he stated.

“About what?”

“I’m not sharing until mom and dad get home.”

I frowned. “Well, dad has been gone for almost a week. No one knows where he is, so you better not keep it a secret that long.”

Andrew looked surprised for a minute, then washed it away. “Do you want to go out?”

I didn’t respond. I grabbed my coat and boots and was out the door with my brother. We walked in silence for a couple of blocks as Andrew looked to be in deep thought about something until I decided to break the silence.

“So, who is she and when is the wedding?”

Andrew stared at me completely dumbfounded. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” I said with a smile.

“Right…Well, you hit the nail on the head with that one.” He glanced at me with a little annoyance.

“Well it was either that or you knocked someone up. That was my next guess,” I teased.

“Oh, ha ha,” he returned. “Anyway, her name is Clara. We have been together now for about nine months, and she is amazing, Sarai!”

“Well, I’m happy for you Andrew,” I replied sincerely.

“So would you like to meet her?” he asked hopefully. “I wanted her to meet you first so it won’t be so easy for mom and dad to frighten her away.”

I laughed. “When do you want me to meet her?”

“Later today,” he stated hopefully.

“Alright.” I sighed. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to meet a new person and act normal.

Andrew gave me a look of confusion but brushed it away before asking, “What have you been up to? Any boyfriend I should know about?”

“Not really…There’s this guy I met a week or so ago that I thought could work out, but he kind of just disappeared.”

“Do I need to kick his ass?” he asked defensively.

I laughed sheepishly. “No…It’s nothing to worry about,” I lied. This was a topic that I did not feel like touching. “Besides, if I wanted you to, I wouldn’t know where to find him, hence the term ‘disappeared.’”

He looked at me crossly for a moment. “You know, I did miss your smart ass,” he replied sarcastically before asking me more questions. “How’s Ruth doing?”

“She’s fine…In love with a guy we used to go to school with.”

“Who is that?” he questioned for small talk. I don’t think Andrew cared about anyone Ruth was dating.

“Asher.”

“I’ve never heard of him before.”

“No one really would remember him. He mostly stayed to himself.”

“Do you like him?”

“Not sure yet,” I said without any thought. “I mean, I hardly know him.” Jeez, he really knew what topics I really didn’t feel like talking about.

“Shouldn’t you try to get to know him?” he asked, concerned. “I mean, he is dating your best friend.”

“Yeah, but I have my own stuff to deal with right now.”

He didn’t say anything to this. We walked around in town, going to different stores and catching up with each other. There was a lot that we missed while separated. Andrew found himself a job in construction. That’s how he met his fiancé, Clara. She works at a pharmacy that he went to after he got into an accident at work. According to Andrew, he didn’t have to try very hard to get her to go out with him. I highly doubted this and as he told me the story, the real scene played out in my head as he recollected the moment.

Clara was a beautiful girl, about my height with long straight black hair. She had brown eyes and tan skin. It was apparent that she had some type of Native American in her, especially with her high cheekbones.

Andrew had walked up to her and handed her his prescription. She looked at him sheepishly, gave him a cute smile as she went to fill it. When she came back he had asked her for her phone number, which she declined to give to him. Then, he asked her out on a date, to which she replied, "No." He went up there every day until she said yes. It was kind of funny to think about, especially since he lied about how easy it was for him to go on a date with her. And quite shocking that she didn’t call the cops claiming he was a stalker.

At about four o’clock in the afternoon, Andrew took me to the park where Clara was waiting to meet us. She was sitting at a bench by herself reading a magazine.

“Clara,” Andrew began, “this is Sarai.”

Her eyes looked up lazily at me before she responded. “Hello.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I replied with a smile.

She returned a smile but seemed to be preoccupied with something else. Maybe she was just nervous? If she was, I would think that she would be more concerned with making a better first impression.

“So…Andrew told me that he swept you off your feet the first time you both met.”

She gave a little giggle; finally, she showed some sign of life. “Hardly. He had to almost stalk me before I said yes. I told him I would go out with him if it meant he would stop coming to my work…It’s not something that I would have normally done, but I could tell he was harmless.”

Andrew blushed a little finding himself caught in his lie.

The three of us talked for about an hour before she excused herself to go meet a friend. She was a very odd character. Her mind almost always seemed elsewhere while trying to hold a conversation. It was hard for me to keep up with her and my brother due to her racing thoughts.

“So, what did you think of her?”

“She didn’t seem very sociable.” To be honest, from this meeting, I couldn’t see what Andrew saw in her. Hopefully, I would find it soon because he did care about her.

“She was just nervous…Do you think mom and dad will like her?”

“I think you should spend some time with them before springing this on them. Not that they would disapprove. It’s just, I think there has been a lot of excitement this past week, and you know how mom is…”

“Does she still do the emotional hysteria thing?” he asked with a certain disgust in his voice.

“Kind of.”

“I guess some things never change.”

Andrew and I started our way back home when I noticed Asher walking towards us. I prayed that he didn’t see me, but unfortunately, he did.

“Hey, Sarai,” he said with a smile. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. What’s been up?”

“Oh, nothing…I just haven’t been feeling very well…I’ve been going through some things…” I paused, trying to think of something else besides the disgusting vision of him…but I simply couldn’t. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible. The silence that once gave me comfort now made me feel threatened, weak, and defenseless. “So…Where is Ruth?” I asked, concerned because she has been with him every day and night this past week.

Asher gave me a pained look for a split second before recovering his jovial expression. “She is at work, of course.” He smiled and looked at my brother. “Hello,” he began as he extended his hand out to shake his. “I’m Asher.”

My brother smiled. “Andrew. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Well, Sarai never told me she had a brother.”

“Is that right?” Andrew looked at me questioningly, wearing a sad face.

“The topic never came up,” I said innocently. It really hadn’t—at least, not in the time that I had known him. “Asher is a very private person, and we never conversed much in high school,” I replied defensively.

Asher’s smile faded before returning, strained. “Well…I must go pick up Ruth.” He said goodbye to Andrew, then looked me dead in the eye. “Hopefully we will see you sometime soon.”

“Yeah…” I said slowly, trying not to allow my true feelings to show, which was unsuccessful.

He gave me an odd look that was filled with regret, guilt, and pain. “See you later…” His voice was filled with melancholy.

Andrew and I started walking back to the house without speaking again. There was a lot of tension coming from Andrew as he thought of meeting mom for the first time in over a year.

“Calm down. I can feel your anxiety from here.”

“Sorry.”

We turned the corner and from the street. I could see my father’s truck in the driveway. My mother was home as well.

“I thought you said dad wasn’t here,” Andrew stated, slightly relieved.

“He wasn’t.” I gasped.

“Should we go in?” he asked, unsure of what to do. Andrew had been away from the family for too long.

“I don’t know about you, but I will have to eventually.” I walked in first, Andrew skittishly followed behind me. Noticing his demeanor as I walked in, I turned to him and said quietly, “You’re being a child! You are going to get married soon, so act like it, for Pete’s sake!” He looked at me sternly before fixing his posture, standing tall and gaining courage.

My father was sitting in his recliner watching TV as if nothing occurred over the past week. My mother was in the kitchen making dinner acting the same way. Andrew and I looked at each other blankly before walking into the kitchen.

“Mom, look who I found,” I announced.

She turned around and almost fell to the floor. “Andrew…”

“Hi,” he said awkwardly with a fake smile.

My dad entered the room and grunted before saying, “Where you been hiding, boy?”

***

After what seemed like a long and very awkward dinner, everyone was caught up with Andrew’s life, job, and fiancé. My parents took the news very well and were asking more and more questions about Clara. I sat quietly and patiently as I played with my food. I wasn’t very hungry for some reason, and I just kept thinking of ways to get away from my family. The way they carried on the façade only sickened me the more I sat and listened.

Finally, salvation came when Ruth walked through the front door. She saw all of us sitting at the table, a look of shock came across her face when she saw Andrew. “Hey!” she greeted him with a little blush filling her cheeks as she walked over to him to hug him.

“Hello,” he replied. “I heard you have a pretty serious boyfriend.”

Her face became flushed. “Yes…”

“That’s good,” he said with a smile before returning to his conversation with my parents.

I got up and walked with Ruth to my bedroom.

“Why didn’t you tell me your brother was back?” she asked after closing the door behind her.

“He just showed up out of the blue a few hours ago,” I confessed.

“What happened?” she asked, waiting to hear of some catastrophic event that caused him to return.

“Nothing. He is just getting married.”

“Oh my God! When?” Ruth exclaimed with delight.

“Didn’t say…” I retorted, sitting on my bed.

“You don’t seem too excited…Is he marrying a bitch?”

“No…At least I don’t think so…Clara is just one of those people who doesn’t seem to be affected by anything. She speaks so slowly, as if she is bored while her mind burns through different topics. It’s very distracting…”

“Ahh…I understand.”

“Well, what have you come to tell me?”

Ruth looked questioningly at me. “We just haven’t seen each other in a few days. I thought we could hang out.”

“Did you finally have enough of Asher?” I said with a little more bite than I intended.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ruth questioned becoming defensive.

“Nothing…” I said in return. “I’m just aggravated.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone is smiling, laughing, and sharing stories as if nothing ever happened! Andrew was gone over a year, no one knew if he was dead or alive, he never wrote or called to see if I, or mom, or dad was ok. My father had been missing for a week and before Andrew showed his face, they were acting like everything was normal while I had to hide in my room to keep from my mother giving me unnecessary glares of contempt and rolling her eyes as if I’m the one who caused her problems.” I started a rant and kept going with it, laying all of my frustrations out on the table. “On top of that, I can’t even discuss with you other things because it deals with Asher. But above all, I feel like I am going insane because I may or may not have made Rory up in my mind! He hasn’t called or tried to get in touch with me whatsoever!”

Ruth stared at me with a mixture of anger and concern. “You are not going crazy. I saw Rory that day at the diner and…you know how your family is as well as I do. Your family is acting normal.”

“I think I just need to be alone,” I replied angrily after a minute or so passed by.

“I think you’ve spent enough time alone,” she countered. “You wouldn’t be this agitated if you had someone with you, someone to talk to.”

“Please, just go hang out with Asher…I know that’s what you really want to do anyway,” I protested out of anger.

Hurt and guilt washed over her face before she picked up her things and left without a word.

Two hours later, Andrew decided he was going to and meet up with Clara. I went outside to say goodbye. When I came back to my room, Rory was laying on my bed with a big smile on his face.

“Are you happy to see me?” he asked.

I quickly closed the door behind me, locked it, and stared at him with so much contempt.

His smile never faded. “I take it that you’re not.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I’ve been spying on Asher, like I said I was,” he stated plainly. “I know you read my note.”

“You need to start explaining yourself, and you need to start right now!” I demanded furiously. “I have been worrying out of my mind, thinking that I had gone crazy! I’ve been staying away from Ruth and Asher, hiding in my room the whole time. Meanwhile, I kept thinking that I dreamt you up or a hallucination!”

The smile began to fade as I told him how badly he messed with my head. “I’m sorry, my love. I never wanted to make you doubt yourself…I usually have more time to explain this to you. But it was more difficult to find you this time.” He sighed before continuing, “It would just be easier and quicker to show you.” Rory walked over to me and grabbed my hands. “Take a deep breath, my love. You will feel disoriented at first, but then everything will become clear.”

“What are you doing?” I asked, confused, pulling away from him at first.

“Showing you everything…from the beginning.”