Hesitate

They sat across from each other at the dinner table occasionally trading comments but you could cut the tension between them with a knife. Corey hadn’t told Jim what had transpired the night before but Samm had certainly filled him in on the ride over. Their meal was finished and now it was time for the awkward ride home.

“Thanks.” Ash mumbled has he helped her into the car.

“No problem.” He mumbled his reply.

The car ride from the restaurant was silent. Neither of them knew what to say to each other and rather than make a situation even more awkward, they kept quiet. When he pulled in the driveway and put the car in park, she sat there for a second hoping maybe he’d say something, anything really. When no words came out, she got out of the car and went inside. He rubbed his head with his hand, let out a heavy sigh, and followed her. The downstairs portion of the home was silent. He figured she had gone upstairs so he trudged up them to find her. He heard some movement in his bedroom and softly pushed the cracked door open all the way and saw that she was packing her things.

“Packing?”

“Yeah,” she nodded without turning to face him, “Flight’s in the morning. Figured I should go ahead and get this done.”

“Yeah….that’s a good idea…” He said trailing off.

“I’m just gonna sleep down the hall in the other bedroom tonight.”

“Why? You don’t have to…”

“We apparantly can’t even talk to each other, Corey.” She told him. “It’d be better. And I can get a cab to take me to the airport. No sense in you getting up early.”

“No, I’m taking you to the airport. And you’re not sleeping down the hall.” He huffed. “It’s your last night with me for who the hell knows how long. That shit is not happening.” He moved her bag off the bed forcefully and sat in front of her on the bed with his arms outstretched. “Please come here.”

She exhaled and moved towards him allowing his arms to encompass her and pull her down to sit on his lap.

“I can kind of remember some stuff…” he started to confess tentatively.

“What?”

“Not everything. And not until I found the pictures and stuff. I don’t remember how we got there…nothing like that…..just…..the wedding part.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You were pretty upset to begin with and I thought it’d make it worse. And like I said, I don’t know remember every detail. Just some stuff.”

“I didn’t exactly help matters with me running my big mouth.” She said softly. “What I said….it came out completely and totally wrong and I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok….I guess I can understand why you’d think that….and we’ve let this ruin our last day together for a while….and that just pisses me off.”

“What are we gonna do?”

He took her hand in his and noticed that the silver band was gone. “Where is it?”

“Here.” She said reaching into her blue jean pocket and pulling the ring out. He grabbed it out of her hand and looked at it a second.

“Will you at least wear it until we figure out what’s going to happen?” he asked her with that same pleading look in his eye that he always got when he needed something from her. She nodded and he slid the ring back on her hand. He smiled a little, “This is one of the parts I remember.” Lightly, she kissed his cheek.