Ally sighed as she walked home. Flakes of snow melted in the steam of her breath, and the sounds of traffic, city life and distant sirens were her company as she thought of so many things that ran in and out of her head as dreams that refused to go away. She thought of her life and her future and possibilities that left her as she waited unnoticed at the corner and crossed the street, just another face in the crowd as she wandered on alone and stared to the ground. It was just a few days until Thanksgiving and Christmas was coming up, but she didn't feel very much in the holiday spirit. She gazed down at her shadow and noticed the other one overlapping it. Someone was following her as her eyes rounded with fear a little bit. Pretending everything was normal she pulled her coat a bit tighter and clenched her briefcase tighter. Her eyes turned slightly to behind her as she swung it like a club.
"Hey!" William Collins grinned as he caught it short from hitting him. "You trying to kill me?"
"It's you." She replied in a very subdued manner as she looked at him in his black sweater, leather jacket, jeans and boots.
"Yes, it's me." He forced a grin as he stared starry-eyed back to her. She didn't grin just yet. She had not seen him in months! "I wanted to see you."
"Why?" Ally frowned and kept marching as he kept up. "The last time we saw each other was at the Collinsport Train Station after your birthday. You said you were going to the Hotel Overlook in Colorado, and then be back before you headed to Germany..."
"Ally..." William noticed she was obviously upset.
"But you never came." Ally continued and walked faster to make William fight to keep up with her. "You sent me an e-mail telling me you were already in Germany and that you'd see me after that stupid Danish paranormal team was done investigating Stalag 13, but did I see you? No, I got another e-mail from you in California. That, what was it, Vannacutt Sanitarium? If you spent as much time with me as you did chasing those stupid ghosts, I'd..."
"Ally," He stopped her and turned her to look at him. "I'm sorry. You know how important this stuff is to me, but this is me. I don't go home for weeks at a time because of how miserable I feel there. I haven't even seen my parents since my birthday, but the other day I realized how much I missed you, and how much you meant to me. I left California yesterday and came straight here to you." He gazed deeply into her eyes and stroked her chin. "I don't what to say, but if you tell me what you want, I'll say it."
"Oh, it's not your fault." She kissed him. "I'm just really stressed." She talked a little calmer and strolled a little slower for him to keep up with her. "Richard recently hired this new lawyer named Nell who I really hate just after I saw you who I really hate. She's got this little tiny Oriental sidekick named Ming, Wing, Ling or something like that who I really, really hate, and Billy and Georgia seem to be on the outs. I think it could be my fault. He's bleached his hair and has these... Billy girls following him... I seriously think he's lost it."
"I'm sorry." William took her hand like he used to and kissed her. She felt his hands on her waist moving up her back as if he was massaging her. She cooed like a little girl.
"I needed that." She gasped.
"Ally," He looked deep into her troubled child-like brown eyes and reached to caress her childlike chin. She then gasped when he knelt to her feet on the snowy sidewalk "Would you marry me?" He looked up with those troubled boyish eyes looking upon her with extreme loneliness, extending a small box taken from his pocket with a diamond ring in it.
She stared back at him a second. Her eyes bounced subtly from focusing on his left eye to his right eye then back upon the ring and to him again. What to say? How to answer? She was feeling light-headed before him. A light restained chuckle on her lips, she tried to be rational but the romance in her was screaming for her to go for it. As her heart and mind struggled to be the one to give the answer, she fell backward with the sound of the old hinge on a rusty gate breaking loose and releasing the emotions in her heart.
