Page 33 of Waiting for Her

“We do need to talk,” I tell her once she’s a safe distance away from me.

Ridiculous… within the first day of being in her presence again, I’ve thrown all my anger, all the bitterness to the wayside.

But it’s not forgotten.

And I know, if there’s any chance of us working together for the next six weeks, of me holding on to my sanity, we both need to clear the air.

This can’t happen again.

“Yeah, we do. I apologize for getting carried away. That wasn’t my intention today.”

“No?”

“No, it wasn’t. I saw the picture,” she points to my old pickup that’s beyond recognition now, “and I, I don’t know, Grady. I lost all rational thinking. I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispers.

A memory assaults me at her whisper. A dream, really, of the night I felt like I lost everything.

We’d been broken up for two years and it was the summer before my senior year at Southern Michigan State.

Staring up at the ceiling of the hospital room, I say goodbye to my family before being wheeled off to surgery. My mom still sniffling, my sisters telling me they’re coming back but with their bags because they’re going to sleep in my room with me. My dad’s eyes are rimmed with red. Mia’s still in her wedding dress, Cole in his tuxedo, jacket open, top buttons of his shirt undone as his tie dangles around his neck. Not exactly how either of them intended to spend the early morning hours the night after their wedding. Both promising me they’d be here when I get out of surgery.

Me telling them that’s bullshit and I’d be pissed if they didn’t go on their honeymoon.

I have a feeling they won’t listen.

Their honeymoon, luckily, is mostly refundable and they tell me as such.

I ask for a few minutes alone, and now I wonder if I should have.

I hear the door click closed and a tear escapes my eye.

If she would have been with me…

Bri’s been gone from my life for two years now, but I still think of her as a permanent fixture.

All day at the wedding, I felt like a part of me was missing.

When I walked down the aisle as Cole’s best man, I felt cheated.

Knowing she wouldn’t be walking down to join us at the altar of the church.

I stood beside my brother as he vowed to love and cherish Mia for the rest of his life, and I felt a punch to my gut because not only was she not standing beside Mia as she should have been, but she wasn’t even in the audience.

At the reception, it was impossible to not notice her absence.

To hear the murmurs amongst distant friends and family, wondering where Bri was.

Knowing usually where I was, she was also, even after all this time, it’s still confusing for people to realize we aren’t together.

And now, I lie in this hospital bed knowing if she had been with me tonight, she would no longer be with me.

A hard reality. The harshness of it hits me, finally understanding maybe this is the reason for her leaving me. Knowing she’s no longer mine is one thing, to even think about her not being in this world is an impossible reality for me to consider.

The doctor and nurses come in, telling me it’s time.

Pilon Fracture.

I broke both my tibia and fibula when the impact from the speeding car hit my pickup causing me to collide with the car stopped at the stop sign. I felt it immediately. Knew what this meant for the rest of my football career.

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