The Time Until (26 page)

I don’t know where the strength or powerful
emotions come from, but I feel like I have to get her to wake up.
 
I’m tired of watching her sleep and, after
talking to her again earlier, I really want her to wake up again.
 
The feeling of want, need, love, and power
overflows and I push past the doctor to get to Sam.

I lean over the bed and cup her face with my hands
as I place our foreheads together.
 
Closing my eyes, I kiss her hard on the mouth.
 
Pouring every ounce of my love in to my lips,
I try with everything I have to get her to feel my emotion.
 
The kiss is desperate and filled with
need.
 
A powerful will to get through to
her fills my chest as I coax her lips to move against mine.

“Samantha Cohn, you wake up right now!” I yell at
her giving her a little shake.
 
I kiss
her again, softer this time, allowing the tears to fall freely from my
eyes.
 
I try again and again to show her
how I feel for her and how much I need her with each kiss.
 
She doesn’t respond and desolation slowly
creeps over me.

I’m desperate to wake her up.

Everyone in the room remains silent.
 
It’s like they don’t want to interrupt my
pitiful display.
 
Mary is crying again
and even my mother is breaking down in my dad’s arms.
 
Ethan looks concerned and seems to sympathize
with me, but Quentin doesn’t seem to know what to do.
 
Arianna is holding herself together, but only
barely, as she watches me.

No one
moves
to pry me
off her, they only watch and wait to see what happens.

“You’re mine, Sam, I forbid you from leaving me
alone,” I whisper into her ear and softly rub my thumb across her cheek.
 
There’s no response and, after a few moments
of waiting, I start sobbing again before desperately kissing her.

2 and Half Weeks Ago (Age 20):
 
December

“That is the last time I let you buy tickets for
us.” I follow the mass of people as they exit the theater, Sam close
behind.
 
She’s been giggling since the
moment I noticed the name of the movie on the door and stopped dead in my tracks.
 
She thought my face the most hilarious thing
in the world.
 
I knew I was not going to
enjoy that movie, but Sam has a way to get me to do things for her.
 
She asks with this sugary voice and a little
twist at the waist, I’m agreeing to all sorts of things before she gets through
one twist.

“Oh, you know you loved that movie,” she
teases.
 
Rushing forward, she grabs my
hand and arm, using them as
leverage,
she raises up
and kisses me on the cheek.
 
I notice
that she’s wearing the necklace, charm bracelet and earrings I gave her before
I shoot her a glare over my shoulder.
 
Though it doesn’t take long before I’m breaking down and smiling, her
puppy dogface has not improved at all since we were young.
 
It’s become something of a joke for us
now.
 
She uses it when she wants me to
laugh and it works every time.

“I can’t believe you got me to go see that
stupid, glittery vampire movie,” I say disbelieving.
 
Sam giggles on my arm and I admit it feels
good to have her there.
 
I love the feel
of her warmth on me even though I’m wearing a heavy jacket.
 
It’s a filling sensation for my heart to have
her here in my arms.
 
Nothing makes me
feel closer to her than the times we’re just hanging out like this.

It makes me love her even more.

“So, Alan, the night is still young.
 
What do you want do?” Sam asks knowingly.
 
I’ve been dragging her to the park at least
one day in December for the last four years.
 
She knows it’s coming again this year.
 
The plan isn’t finished yet.

I have one more phase to finish.

“Well, Samantha, I was thinking of taking you
to the park tonight, but only if you consent,” I tantalize.
 
She squeals and jumps up excitedly, but
quickly gathers herself and throws on a fake businesslike look on her
face.
 
It cracks with a suppressed smile
randomly.

“I think I could be persuaded,” she speaks fast
to avoid the excited laugh that’s begging to escape.
 
“After all, you’re driving.
 
I’m practically your hostage.”
 
I shake my head.

“Nope, you make a lousy kidnap victim.
 
All that loud and obnoxious girly laughing
all the time,” I poke.
 
“Not to mention
you drag your captor into lousy vampire movies about a mentally challenged
vampire teen and a really depressed young woman.”

“I want to kill myself after watching that
movie,” I shudder at the memories.
 
Sam
whacks me in the arm with her hand and laughs at my over exaggeration.

We pull into the parking lot that leads into
the park and Sam has her seatbelt off and the door open before I have the car
in park.
 
She’s at almost a dead sprint
by the time have my door open and I get out.
 
I think she’s a little excited.

“Hurry up, slowpoke!
 
I’m dying to find out what you got me,” she
shouts over her shoulder without slowing down.

Despite her excitement, I’m nervous.
 
This is it, the final phase.
 
I have a very good idea how she’s going to react
to this, but it’s still scary to put yourself out there like this.
 
It’s the small amount of unknown in this plan
that causes the doubt to take hold and fester.

I smile despite it all; at least I have to do
that.

“Calm down, Speed Racer, or I’ll turn this car
around and go home,” I repeat what I heard my dad say all the time to us when
we were younger.
 
Sam immediately stops
what she’s doing and starts rocking back and forth in a vain attempt to contain
her enthusiasm.
 
I laugh at her bubbly
expression.
 
Her eyes are shining like a
kid in a toy store.

I come up to her and gently cup her face with
one of my hands, the opposite from the one that holds the ring box.
 
I look into her eyes and try to figure out
what she sees in me by way of my reflection.

The doubts are strong in this one.

“You are beautiful and you are going to make
someone a very happy fiancée someday,” I smile at her obvious disappointment of
the term ‘someday’.
 
I have plans and I’m
not going to let her goad me into changing them.
 
I’ve been planning this for four years.
 
It will go on without a hitch.

Doubts banished, mostly.

I pull the box out of my pocket and watch as
Sam’s face lights up at the sight of the tiny box, but I don’t hand it to
her.
 
This one is the one that I’ll be
opening for her.
 
It gives me a bit of
satisfaction that Sam looks confused by this before understanding chases it
away.
 
She starts to play with her charms
absent-mindedly.

I drop to one knee and her entire body stops
working.

Her breathing hitches and sputters before it
exhales itself out in a surprised breath.
 
Tears start falling immediately and she covers her mouth to keep the
smile she has hidden — I never understood the point of doing that, I love her
smile.
 
I reach up and grab her left hand
without
wavering
my line of sight.
 
She looks beautiful in the moonlight, all
surprised and happy.

“Samantha Cohn, I love you.
 
I love you and I promise that I will always
treasure you and your heart, forever.
 
I
promise always to listen to you and to always cherish your input and
opinion.
 
I promise to support you in
anything you wish to do, be it skydiving or lounging at home on the couch,
nothing will prevent me from being your biggest supporter.” I raise the box and
open it for her.
 
The gasp I hear from
her makes me realize that I made a good choice in letting the sales lady help
me pick this ring.
 
She looks like she
wants to say something, but I cut her off with my other hand.
 
I don’t place the ring on her finger,
yet.
 
It just sort of hovers there in
front of her ring finger.

“This ring represents my undying love.
 
Just as the ring is never ending you will
remember that my love for you is complete and unending,” I pause for effect,
“now I have just one question for you…”

“Yes!” she shouts before I even finish the
question and I can’t help but smile at the excitement.

“Let me finish at least.
 
It took a long to plan this and you have to
go and jump the gun like that.
 
Sheesh.”
Sam rolls her eyes playfully and motions for me to
continue with an excited smile.

“Will you marry me?”

 
I slip
the ring on her finger after she nods her head.
 
I step back from her and admire the girl I love.

“Jesus, Al, it’s about time.
 
I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that for
four years,” Sam admonishes.
 
“Though, I
have to admit it’s amazing how you set this up.”

“I love that you did this for me,” she says.

“Now you have my entire being with you.” Sam
look confused by this statement and I step up to her.

“I told you what each of your gifts represents
physically.
 
Now I’ll tell you what they
truly mean,” I tell her.
 
I reach up and
pin the necklace pendant to her chest with my finger.

“This represents my promise to treasure you
heart, what it means is that this is my heart.
 
You have my heart on a chain.”
 
I
move to her earrings and shine them with my thumb.

“These represent my promise to always listen to
you, what that means is these are my body.”
 
I look down and gently raise her wrist with the charm bracelet.

“This represents my promise to support you at
all times, this is my soul.
 
You carry my
soul with you.” The charms each represent a certain portion of my personality —
soccer ball, letter A, letter S, a pair of small children, boy and girl.
 
I play with her new addition for a second
before continuing.

“This represents my never ending love for you,
what it means is that my promises are never ending.”
Now for
the grand finale.

“You hold my heart,” pointing at the necklace,
“my body,” the earrings, “and my soul,” the charm bracelet, “for all time,” the
ring on her finger.

“I am wholly and completely yours, Samantha
Cohn.”

Sam has tears chasing each other down her
face.
 
A massive ecstatic smile on her
face, tells me all I need to know.
 
I
smile with her and she leaps into my arms, squeezing me tightly as her tears
soak into my jacket.
 
Nuzzling my neck a
bit, Sam giggles to herself.
 
I feel the
happiness radiating off her in waves.
 
It’s incredibly infectious and I find it hard not to laugh with her.

“I promise to forever be yours,” she declares
into my neck and I smile.

I practically carry her back to the car since
she keeps jumping into my arms every time I set her down.
 
It’s time to head back to reality for a while
before we can have our fairytale ever after.

Sounds cheesy, but I really want the cheesy
fairytale.

I would gladly hand in my man card for it.

She stares at her ring in a blissful trance as
we pull out of the parking lot.
 
I take a
few quick glances at her happy face and try to memorize it for future
reference.
 
Life won’t always be kind to
us, but I know we can manage.
 
I’m sure
we’re ready for anything fate can throw our way.

“I still can’t believe you got me to go see
that stupid movie,” I exclaim one more time while on the way home.
 
Sam playfully groans and rolls her eyes at my
discomfort before breaking into a laughing fit.
 

“You know, Al, I’m so happy right now I could die
with no regrets,” She exclaims to me as I pull into the intersection on our way
home.

Present Day

My lips leave hers one more time.
 
Placing my forehead against hers again when
there is no reaction, I cry out of desperation.
 
My tears have been falling during my entire breakdown.

“Please, Sam, I need you,” I whisper mostly to
myself, but hopeful she’ll hear me.
 
I
look at her one more time and slowly lower my lips onto hers.
 
I gently coax her mouth to respond to mine
and nearly jump back when they do.
 
Slowly at first, her lips start to gain more fervor as they work against
mine and I fight the urge to deepen the kiss more.
 
I moan softly into her mouth as the lip-lock
breaks
slightly.
 
I
can feel the happy and weak smile play across her face as I dive in for another
kiss.

The best feeling in the world is to be kissed by
the one you love.

A single tear falls from my eyes and crashes on
her cheek.

“You are such a pansy,” Sam’s soft and scratchy
voice breaks the silence in the room
.