The Last Time

Where do I start? I had asked myself this question thousands of times, not knowing how to answer. Where do I start? None of these words made sense to my half-asleep brain. It was not processing anything, and I had doubted it ever would anytime soon. I sat looking at the blank computer screen and shivered. The deadline was Tuesday and it was already Sunday. I typed in a word and deleted it right away. I was in no mood for writing a whole essay for History. All I wanted to do was spend time with Richard, or sleep. Sleeping was not an option. It was only three in the afternoon. If I wanted to sleep tonight I would have to stay awake so I would be tired when I went to bed. I called Richard instead.
When he answered his cell phone his deep, rich voice came from the speaker, “Hello, Steph?”
I smiled forgetting all about the thirty page essay and said, “I miss you.”
I heard him laugh and say, “Don’t you have a paper you need to get done, you silly procrastinator?”
“Maybe.”  He clicked his tongue and said,
“You’re terrible. You should be writing that thing. Mr. Slug will be disappointed in you! When’s it due, Friday?”
“Tuesday,” I replied, startled that that day was coming up so soon, “And it’s not Mr. Slug it’s Mr. Slag. Don’t be so disrespectful.”
“You call him that all the time, hypocrite. How much do you have finished?”
“I haven’t started yet. I have writer’s block, and I do not! I said all the other pupils call him that!”
“Sure you don’t, and that’s impossible. You aren’t a writer.”
“Shut it.”
“Make me.”
I half sniggered and said, “Want to go get some coffee?”
“Will it help with your ‘writer’s block’?” Richard mocked.
“No, but seeing you might.”  I must have sounded convincing because Richard said, “Okay, but I’m bringing the coffee to your house and helping you with that thing, not like I’m going to be of any use. Writing isn’t for me anyway. I’ll stick to my painting.”
“Sounds good you better do that or I think I’ll die because of this writer’s block.”
“Don’t do that!” he joked sarcastically, “Be there in a few. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” I disconnected the call and looked at the blank word processor on the computer and sighed thinking I was never going to get it done, but I sat down anyway and started typing up something harebrained and ridiculous about the Civil War. Richard and I had been together for three years and we finally decided to get married next year after I was done with college. He proposed at the park where we first met at a bench beside a beautiful maple tree. It was my favorite place to go. I hoped Richard would agree on going there today. I really needed it.  I was just finishing up page ten, surprisingly, when Richard rang the doorbell. I saved my essay and let him in out of the pouring rain. Sure enough he was carrying two Styrofoam cups of coffee, from Starbucks which smelled deliciously good. “It’s raining,” he stated, wiping his feet on the welcome mat, “I hope you knew that.”
“You’ll live.” He smiled my favorite grin, which involved showing off a lot of his pearly teeth and a set of crooked lips. I couldn’t resist him then; I was too much in love. I drew him to me in a close embrace and kissed him. He kissed me back, but only for a short time. “The coffee is going to get cold, and you should work on your paper,” he pushed his way passed me toward the computer and put my coffee on the desk, “It’s a mocha I thought you would like it.”
“Thanks,” I said, not so happy that he was stressing me to write the essay while he was here and very disappointed we couldn’t take a walk at the park.
I sat down at the computer and sipped my coffee. Richard seemed thrilled to see me so obedient today. He smiled and took a sip of his cup, too and pulled a chair up next to me.
“I see you already started some of it. How many pages did you finish?” he inquired with too much interest.
“Ten,” I typed another sentence in, “Twenty more to go.”
“A third done,” he said cheerfully.
“Joy.”
“You should be happy,” he said, hearing the sarcasm in my voice, “You’re almost finished.”  I rolled my eyes. We sat in silence as I typed and he played with my hair. He must have been reading everything I was writing because he laughed out loud.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked embarrassed.
“Your sense of humor is a bit out of whack today. That paragraph about Abraham Lincoln being assassinated, let’s just say it was messed up,” he cackled even louder after he said that.
“Well, I’m not going to change it! I’m on page twenty-three!” I protested.
“It’s fine, just odd. Keep typing,” he said, digging his face into my long, black hair, still chuckling.
“I can’t. My fingers are killing me,” I whined, “Besides, I’m hungry. What time is it?”
“Five thirty,” Richard whispered, playing with a strand of my hair, “You have the most beautiful hair in the world, if I hadn’t told you before.”
“You have, many times,” I turned in my chair to face him, “Do you want to eat dinner?”
“Let me take you out, you deserve it, even though you are a hypocrite who procrastinates” he laughed and got up from his seat and grabbed his coat.
"You aren't going to drop that are you?" I sneered.
"What? My coat?"
“No, the hypocrite who procrastinates.”
“Nope, not until after you finish that paper.”  I glared at him and put on my coat and we were out the door and into his car. The rain was still pounding down on everything with viciousness, soaking the two of us when we jogged into a nice restaurant to eat our dinner.  A teenage girl sat us down at a table in the back of the restaurant by the wall. Not a lot of people were around, just an old couple a few seat away from us.  They were sitting next to each other, holding hands.
“Aww, that’s sweet,” Richard said.
I nodded, smiling, “Hope we are like that when we are old.”
“We sure will be,” Richard took my hand which was sitting on the table across from him and gave it a small squeeze.  We sat in a peaceful silence most of the time. Richard and I did not have to talk to each other to understand one other’s thoughts. It was only until he got a phone call our silence ended.  He answered his cell phone after it vibrated, which was unusual of him. If it had rung when he was with me, he would ignore it, but not tonight.
“Hello?” He answered, “Ricia, hey how are you?” There was a pause.  It was his sister, Patricia who lived on the other side of town from us. I wondered how she was doing.  Patricia and I had become close friends since Richard and I became engaged.
“You what?”  Richard’s voice grew loud and frantic, “Are you alright? Did you call the police?”
I stopped eating my salad to look at his face, which was a panicked mess.
“I’ll be there. In the meantime, just stay calm.” He put his phone in his pocket and motioned for the waiter to give us the bill.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.  Richard shook his head, “I have to go, okay? I’ll drop you off at home, but I have to go see my sister.”
“Is she okay?”
He took a deep breath, “I don’t know.”
“What did she say?”
“She says she’s in trouble. Someone broke into her house and trashed everything. She thinks they were looking for something, but she didn’t say what,” Richard paid the waiter and headed out the door. I tried to keep up with his pace.
“Someone broke into her house?” I asked, getting into his car, “Did she call the police?”
“No. She’s acting strange, too about it. She didn’t want me to call them either. It’s like she’s hiding something.”
“Hiding something?”
“She sounded…strange. She begged me not to call the police until she got everything straightened out. It was like she didn’t want them seeing something or knowing something.”
“You think she’s up to something?” I asked trying to think what all this meant.
“I don’t know. She wants me to stay with her a while just in case they come back.”
“Who?”
“The people who trashed her house. She just wants a little protection I guess.”
“Maybe she should call the police.”
“I’ll try to talk her into it.”  We were at my house in no time. Richard walked me to my door and kissed me goodnight.
“Get your paper done, silly procrastinator,” he demanded.
“Yes, sir,” He smiled and trotted back to his car, but I stopped him, “Richard?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful, alright?”
“I will. I’ll call you when I get back to my house.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.” He drove away and I went back to my computer. I was able to think of anything else to type, so I shut it off and watched the news for a couple hours, hoping Richard would call back. After it was ten o’clock and Richard still did not call me, I got ready for bed. I brushed my teeth, put on a nice pair of sweats, which I vowed to get rid of when Richard and I got married, and hopped into bed. I fell asleep, worrying about my fiancé and had a horrific nightmare.   I felt like I was trapped, maybe because I was, and felt like every wall around me was closing in, suffocating me, and squeezing the last breath out of me slowly and snaillike. I wanted it to be done with. I knew I was gone, and I could hear the clock ticking.  I almost started panicking but remembered if he had buried me already I would have limited amount of oxygen left. I breathed as little as possible praying to God that he would come and that he would stop this maniac from murdering me like this.  He will come; I thought to myself, He’s coming. But I knew that if he did he might be too late. Maybe I would never see him again. Maybe we would never marry each other in that beautiful church, or never have the kids we wanted, or grow old with each other like what we dreamed.  I felt the back of my throat close up and tears form in the corners of my eyes. I bit my lip in the darkness and held my sobs back. Richard might not be able to save me.  I was becoming tired. It was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open. I had no idea how long I had been in this box, but I knew now that the psychopath had buried me what might have been hours ago when I was unconscious and I was going to become lethargic and become comatose soon and never seen my beautiful Richard again.  A memory flashed in my head just then. It was Richard’s blue-gray eyes, which were looking at me in a calm but passionate sort of way. We were sitting on our usual bench at the park just holding hands and gazing into each other’s’ eyes. It was a thousand times better than the other memories I had been obtaining.  I wanted to be there then. I wanted to hold him for one last time before I left this life and traveled into a new one. I just wanted to see him one last time.  I imagined he was next to me, that I was not in this wooden coffin, but instead at the park on the bench where Richard and I would spend most of our afternoon. I fell asleep then, dreaming I was really there. It was the best dream I have ever had.