He wakes up alone one night to the sound of cars driving too fast on the rain soaked streets. He sits up in bed, his ear to the window and his eyes to the wall. In the dim glow of the streetlight, he can see the shadows of his hands in front of him and he misses her.
Spring started over night and the air is damp and cool, making his heart beat a little faster at the promise of it. But then he looks around the dark room, emptied of anything belonging to him besides the bed he’s sleeping in and his heart falters. The emptiness of the dark makes him wonder about her.
Another car passes, its silhouette moving across the ceiling. He listens to the speed of it, slowing down as it goes over the speed bump and then speeding up again. The sound of late night cars makes him anxious, something sinister in their speed and the mystery of where they’re headed. He stretches his legs out in front of him, watches them move under the covers and he thinks hyperbolically that he’s close to dying now without her face.
He lays his head back down on the pillow. His eyelids feel weightless and the streetlight’s turned blindingly bright. The trees move with the wet whisper of leaves and it sends a surge of something akin to despair through him. His fists and his teeth clench as he waits for the wind to die down. His heart swells with restlessness at the thought of not having the words to describe this moment to her, to say, “This is how much I love you.”
The leaves are returned neatly to their places and the late night cars seem to all have reached their destinations then. For a moment, the street is silent and still. He listens hard for noise and there’s nothing. He closes his eyes and reaches blindly for a phone on a night stand. The ringing echoes in his head until she answers, laughing sleepily, “It’s only been twelve hours since I left for my mom’s and you’re already calling me?”
He turns onto his side to watch the rain drip from the power lines as she talks to him, her voice like a slow river. He’s quiet. His mind turns to cardboard boxes in her living room, his things becoming their things, this last night in a place that doesn’t belong to them. The wind sends the power lines swinging for a second and she says, “I miss you. I love you.”
He thinks about how the leaves were tossed about and how he’d needed her then with that lonely sound. But when he speaks, he can only say, “Yeah, me too.” And then she’s gone from him again as a car bottoms out loudly on the speed bump. He turns over on his back to watch it pass along the ceiling and he thinks about the things he still can’t say to her.
unfold is the author of 102 other stories.
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