I'm Not Moving

"Kyle don't be ridiculous man," Marc exclaimed throwing his hands into the air as he watched his step-brother pack a backpack with a watch, a sleeping bag, assorted jackets and a picture. It was in fact not just any picture. It was the picture that Kyle had been carrying around for the past two years. It was frayed, worn and slightly torn, but the image that was printed on the paper did the state of its habitat far more justice. Even from the frayed and yellow paper the radiance of the young woman could be clearly seen and felt.

Kyle ignored his friend and reached for his passport and flight ticket.

"Kyle be reasonable, what are you going to do when you get there? You can't just troop up and down New York looking for her! How do you even know that she's still there?" Caleb challenged Kyle, after having received a pleading look from Marc who wanted to stop Kyle doing from whatever he was about to at any price. John was about to open his mouth to offer another reason for going through with his plan but Kyle cut him off.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Kyle said plainly. "I know it makes no sense, but she'll come back to where I first saw her. She will. When she wakes up and finds out that she's missing me."

Marc, John and Caleb shook their heads in unison and sighed. There was nothing they could do. What Kyle planned, Kyle did. Stubbornness is not necessarily an attractive trait in a human being. It does far more damage than is good. It was stubbornness that worked two ways on Kyle's current situation. Stubbornness had caused him to loose her, and it was stubbornness in the second place that was not letting him waver from his plan.

"You need to get over her Kyle," John said trying his luck at dissuading his friend.

"How can I get over her when I'm still in love with her?"

There are some things in life that we cannot explain. Why we think the things we think, or why we do the things we do. Kyle did not know what he was going to do in New York to be honest. He wasn't looking for a holiday or for some time to clear his head as the only thing that had been filling his head had always been her anyway and for this reason he did not want to clear his head, even though it was something that John had always heartily encouraged. He did not want to forget about her.

So it came that Kyle found himself standing somewhere by Times Square in Manhattan two days after John had told him to stop being so ridiculous. It didn't matter to Kyle what his friends said or did to try and stop him. He wanted to do this. He wanted to be in New York waiting, just like he had always promised her. He had said he would wait, and so he was going to do just that.

He walked to the place where he had seen her for the first time. It was under the massive billboard in Times Square where adverts for more unsatisfying material things flashed across, brainwashing the masses below.

It had been two years to the date when he had seen her.

He first saw her in Times Square and yet despite all the lights and all the sights of the great city around them, Kyle only had eyes for her. Even then she had glossy auburn hair and the clearest green eyes. When he first met her she was quiet and had next to no self-esteem. He even remembered what she was wearing; dark blue skinny jeans and an oversized grey jumper, which Caleb had later claimed as his own from her, once she had begun to develop her own personality and confidence.

She lived in New York, he didn't. He had everything going for him at home, she didn't. It was a difficult balance but somehow the long distance relationship thrived on weekend visits and weeks in a tiny and boy like smelling tour van roaming around the country and playing in countless venues.

But their dedication wasn't enough to last. Kyle had insisted she move out to Dallas with him, but she refused. She couldn't leave New York. She didn't want to. Things had been setting into motion for her; she had been coming closer and closer to her dreams of script writing for theatre and films. She was beginning to make a name for herself and to leave New York for Dallas would be a career suicide.

What ensued was a rift between two people who had once meant everything to each other, the arguments they had were capable of moving mountains, and Kyle's band mates listened with trepidation as the volume increased and as the tears became more audible on both sides. Neither of the pair was willing to sacrifice what they had and it was impossible for them to find a solution, moving the band to New York would be the death of them and for her to commute between Dallas and her place of work was unrealistic.

So one day she had enough. She packed her bags and went back home to New York after having spent a disastrous two weeks in a smelling van permanently on the road, doing nothing but arguing with the boy whom she loved with her whole heart, but was unable to drop everything for.

It had been a year since Kyle had seen her pretty face.

So he did what she couldn't do.

He dropped everything and went to New York.

Picture in hand and a cardboard sign written.

'If you see this girl can you tell her where I am?'

He sat down on the cold and much traversed sidewalk in Times Square. Watch laid out to the right of him, picture and sign placed delicately in front of him, and he waited with his rucksack to his left side, wrapped up in an old hoodie that she had bought him.

He never moved. He stayed there day and night watching people walk past him, from tourists with awe placed in their shining eyes to locals who had frustrated notes lining their faces. Some dropped change in front of him, but Kyle held it back out to them saying softly with a sad smile, "I'm not broke, just a broken hearted man."

He never got trouble; those who would stereotypically have beaten him up for sitting on their pavement asked what the hell he was doing here, and once they got Kyle's simple if mind boggling reply they said "Good on you man," and made sure others left him alone.

Soon people began to talk. Some people were talking about "A guy that's waiting in on a girl, and he won't be moved." They said "There are no holes in his shoes but it's like there's a hole in his world." People crowded around him during the day and took the picture of the girl into their hands gently and smiled at her beauty, nodding in understanding to Kyle. They heard his story and let him be. Volunteers from 'Shelters For People' brought him warm soup in cups and a homeless lady near by on the next avenue knitted Kyle a hat for the Autumn that was about to come and take Manhattan in its firm and frosty grasp.

The police often came by and proclaimed "Son you can't sit here," but Kyle just shook his head with a smile and said "Officer there's someone I'm waiting for, even if it's for a day, a month or a year. If she changes her mind this is the first place she will go." The female policeman, who always came along, smiled at her partner and laid a hand on his arm, motioning that they were going to move on. They didn't come back to him again.

And so Kyle became famous for being 'The Man Who Can't Be Moved'.

He aroused the whole attention of Manhattan, tourists came and took pictures of him and his sign, but Kyle never saw them. Life was a blur and it would stay like that until she decided to come back into his life and meet him on the corner of the street where they first met.

One frosty late Autumn day a camera crew suddenly appeared in front of him, a sympathetic young anchor lady with a kind smile held the microphone out to Kyle and asked him what he was doing.

"I'm waiting for her, if one day she wakes up and finds out that she's missing me, she'll maybe come back here to the place that we first met."

The anchor lady's heart melted right there, like a soft ice cream in the strong rays of summer heat. Kyle single handily won over the entire female population of Manhattan in one swift and honest sentence.

His face appeared on every TV screen of the big city, and it was this face that caused Lyla Grace to drop the cup of coffee that she had just made on her Italian coffee machine that had especially been imported from Milan. The expensive white porcelain cup hit the marble floor and exploded into tiny white splinters that decorated the floor like fallen snowflakes.

Lyla Grace sank to her knees, the small porcelain splinters digging into her legs and knees, causing to draw a little blood, but she didn't care. Her eyes were riveted on the picture of Kyle that was splashed across her plasma screen TV. She had just meant to hear the news, and not be confronted by the face of the boy whom she had loved so unconditionally.

Seeing his unshaven and worn face that was, despite the hardship of sitting and waiting outdoors, still lined with hope and dedication, caused Lyla to break down in floods of tears. It wasn't meant to be like this. From Lyla's mouth a shaky sigh emitted as she ran her hands through her long auburn hair, a diamond ringing getting caught on a strand of hair.

She glanced at the ring that she had been given by her fiancé, Adam, three weeks ago. He had been the first man she met in New York after leaving Kyle. They had been together for almost a year and Adam was convinced she was the one.

Yet she still woke up in the mornings feeling that something was missing, even after all those days, weeks and months which had slowly surged together to form a year, Lyla Grace did not feel fulfilled or completely happy with her life.

Rising slowly to her unsteady legs, Lyla got up. Her eyes still fixed upon Kyle's face and taking in where exactly he was sat, which caused her heart to wrench and her stomach to turn. She knew what she had to do. She saw her coat hanging by the door that would lead her out of the penthouse she shared with Adam.

She could get her coat and go to Kyle and be with the man whom she had always loved, but lived an unsteady life full of unpredictability, or she could stay where she was, sure of being able to receive security and stability.

Lyla took a deep breath in and made her decision