Friday, May 10, 2002

Patrick sat in his car outside her house, as he sat there, the clouds that been building all night begun to shed their rain on the earth. It began slowing building to a steady rhythm as he sat and stared out the windshield, wondering why he felt the way he did. He played with his zippo still warm from lighting his cigarette. As he exhaled, the smoke wrapped around him, and then drifted out of the window into the night.
Patrick was confused; he didn’t know what to feel. He wished that all this pain he was feeling would be washed away in the rain, or carried off into the night with the smoke. Where the pain was coming from was as big a mystery as was why he was sitting in front of her house wanting to leave. She was inside waiting for him to come to bed, a situation any man would jump at the chance to have. But still, here he was trying to figure it out. Trying to find something in his head that would explain how he felt. He was scared, he was happy. He was scared, cuz he didn’t know what was next. He was happy, cause it came from deep in side him, whenever she looked at him, whenever she touched him. When they kissed, waves of energy would wash over him, it was warm, and it almost tickled. He’d grin uncontrollably every time they kissed. Still he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, she’d say, with a look in her eye, I need to tell you something. And it would be nothing, yet every time he heard that his heart sank. He knew some day it would come, and crush him. So he sat in his car, in the rain, waiting for something to happen. He not once ever reached for his keys to start the car. Maybe he was waiting for her to come running after him, maybe he was waiting for the hand of god to reach down from the heavens and poke him in the chest, and tell him to do something with his life. He didn’t know, so he sat in his car and smoked his cigarettes.
After a while, he got up, and went back inside, and walked to her bedroom. There, curled up with a blanket, she lay. So quiet, so peaceful. Did she know how he felt? Did she feel the same way? He looked at her in the pale light of her room, and she looked up at him and smiled. So he took off his shoes, laid his clothes on the floor beside hers, and slide into her bed. Taking her in his arms, he decided that right now, tonight, this is all that mattered at this moment in time. His head raced momentarily, then stopped. He closed his eyes, squeezed his girl in his arms and drifted off to sleep.
Patrick woke up early, but still lay in bed, his arms wrapped tightly around his girl. The moment quickly slipping by. Soon her alarm clock would go off and she would be gone. He layed there awhile in her bed after she left. He could still feel the warmth of the bed where she lay. He could still smell her on his skin and taste her on his lips. Her kiss lingering like warm shot of bourbon, sweet and full of aroma. When the bed began to cool, and he knew she was gone, he pulled his tired body from the bed, put on his crumpled clothes, gathered his things and went back out to his car. His car was much like him, but it wasn't even his car. It was a friends that he was driving while he fixed his old bike, but it suited him well. A little worn around the edges but still completely road worthy. It had a certain style that was hard to describe, but it did have style. As he started the car, he lit a cigarette, tuned in his favorite radio station, and then roared off down the road. His cigarette smoke mingling with the exhaust and blowing down the road on the melody of the radio.

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