Disclaimer: I do not own Early Edition or any of its characters. I just like to torture them. Please don't sue.
Authoress's Notes: Did you honestly think I'd be so cruel as to leave you hanging? I like to torture GARY, not my READERS! I like readers! (Not that I don't like Gary...hehehe) Read, relish, review. :-) BTW, will the girl who said Hickory is in Indiana and not Illinois please e-mail me? I want to know how you know this, 'cause I just assumed it was in the same state as Chicago. Address at end.
*rinnng...*
"Aaahh!" Sora Marley had, once again, fallen asleep waiting for the Weather Channel to tell her tomorrow's weather, and the ringing of her telephone jarred her awake.
*rinnng...*
"I hear you, I hear you." She picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Sora, what's up?"
"Hi, Gar, not much...I fell asleep trying to find out the weather...say, you know better than they do, tell me."
Sora could hear a paper shuffling about, and then "It's supposed to cool down a bit, but no precipitation just yet. Highs in the low 40's, cool enough for a jacket."
"Rats. I was hoping for snow."
Gary laughed. "I'll call you when the paper tells me."
Sora grinned. Being close friends with a guy who got tomorrow's newspaper today had its perks. "You do that. Hey, what'dja'want?"
"Oh, nothing, just hadn't heard from you in a while, checking up. In fact the last time I heard from you, you had a date with a...what was he, a stockbroker?"
"Yeah..."
"Well?"
"It bombed. Just like all my attempts at dating. He's looking for a Sagittarius, and I don't even know what my sign is."
Gary laughed again. "I don't know mine, either. Half the time I don't even remember my birthdate."
"Oh, I know that. September 19th...1974, I believe."
"I think so...but let's not bother with it. No matter what year it's several months off. Are you busy tonight? I was thinking, you, me, Marissa, pizza..."
"Nothing in the paper?" Sora quizzed, surprised.
"Well, there's a *very* minor thing at five o'clock, but once that's done, I'm free to go."
She sighed a bit. "We always do the same thing when you have a night off. I come to McGinty's where you and Marissa are. Then we walk down the street to Tonia's Pizza, and the whole time we're munching one third-pepperoni and extra cheese, third-mushroom, sausage, Canadian bacon and olive, third-plain cheese pizza, we complain that we could have fixed ourselves a perfectly good pizza right at McGinty's."
Gary paused a moment. "Yeah, you're right. So what do you suggest?"
"I don't know...I'm just tired of everything being so...*routine*. I want...I don't know what I want, but this is getting monotonous."
"Well, Sora, if you keep doing what you're doing you'll keep getting what you're getting."
"Hmm...That's good. Where'd you hear that?"
"I think from Chuck, when he was on one of his seize-the-moment kicks...you know, him and his friend the Dalai Lama..."
Sora laughed. She *did* know. "So I should stop trying to get a date?"
"They'll quit bombing if you do," Gary reminded her. "Maybe even if you stop looking and wait for one to come along it'll be the right one."
"You may have a point. You, on the other hand, had better get up off your duff pretty soon and start looking or you'll end up kinda like...well...Lucius Snow."
"Huh? I lost you there."
"Well, think, Gar, if Lucius Snow had had a wife, you could go to *her* with your questions. Now do you want whoever gets the paper after you to be left in the dark?"
"Good point, but I really won't care...I'll be dead."
Sora laughed, glad he couldn't see her rolling her eyes. "Well, you have a few years left, yet...so are we doing pizza at Tonia's?"
"If you're free."
"I am."
"Good. Can you be at McGinty's about five forty-five, six?"
"Easily."
"All right, see you there."
"Gotcha." Sora hung up. Why was it this way? She liked him as more than just a friend, but she hid it, hoping he would have to get it out of her, like a secret. ~Perhaps I hide it too well, if no one has noticed.~
She sighed. They had been so happy going out, back in high school. She still liked him in *that* way, and wished things could be like that between her and Gary again. ~If only I were a year older, I could have gone to college with him...but it's too late now, and I'll have to wait on him...~
Gary thought about what Sora had said. He didn't want to be single *forever*, but the paper afforded him little time to go out and look for someone.
He descended the stairs and popped into the office to talk to Marissa.
"Hey, Marissa, you, me, and Sora are going to Tonia's...she'll be here about six..."
"Umm, Gary, I can't...I have a date with Emmett, and he's supposed to pick me up about then...sorry."
"Oh...I guess I'll have to go call Sora back..."
"No need. There's no reason you two can't go without me. I mean, after all, if you needed a chaperone I'm not exactly the wisest choice..." Marissa laughed lightly, referring to her blindness.
Gary exhaled, "Yeah, I guess there's no reason. Say, Marissa, do you believe that if you keep doing what you're doing you'll keep getting what you're getting?"
"Well, I suppose. It makes sense."
"So if I was to want things to be...different, I should try to make them that way?"
"Yes, Gary, faint heart ne'er won fair lady."
His thoughts halted. "How do you do that?"
"Comes naturally, I guess...but if you're going to go change what you're doing to get what you want, be sure of what you want. And remember that sometimes the biggest surprises are right in front your face."
"Yeah, okay...I have to go save these people...little fender-bender, but one cab driver will be in critical condition..."
"See ya." Marissa bent back down to her Braille paperwork.
"Bye." Gary flew out the door.
Gary reached the intersection of the "accident". He began to flag down the cab.
The taxi did pull over, but the cabby began chewing Gary out. "Can't you see I *already* have a passenger here, bub?"
The passenger became agitated, also. "Hey! I thought I was paying you twenty bucks to *hurry*, you idiot!"
Just as Gary was about to tell the cabby what he thought, a car further up the street swerved to avoid hitting a young boy recently escaped from Mommy's grasp, and hit a fire hydrant.
The cabby stared in awe. "That's right where I was going to park and wait for him!" He jerked a thumb at his passenger. "That guy woulda killed me!" he said.
"Is that all the further it is? Suddenly I feel like walking. Here's your fee, and your twenty bucks, man, sorry about making you drive just ten blocks..."
"You're not from Chicago, eh?" the cabby asked, taking his money as the man shook his head.
The child's mother had taken him back, and was apologizing to the man in the car.
Gary smiled as he walked off before the cabby could ask him "where to?" After all, McGinty's was only ten minute's walk away, and he had half an hour. Plenty of time to reflect on what Marissa had said. "*Sometimes the biggest surprises are right in front of your face*."
He supposed she meant that he didn't have to go crazy with this, that all that was necessary right away was the want to change.
And she'd said to be sure of what he wanted. Well, it was true, love was like fire and it could do a multitude of good, but he'd been burned a few times and although the wounds had healed, if he tried again he risked another one.
But, on the other hand, it was obvious to him that he wanted to be married again. Marcia...well, she hadn't turned him off to marriage. She had made him realize he'd made a mistake, that just because you had a steady girlfriend and you could coincidentally afford a ring did *not* make her the one. He had screwed up, he'd been burned, but fortunately he'd been left with minimal scars.
He'd even had several girlfriends since Marcia, but none of them had lasted more than a few weeks.
Gary sighed aloud. Then another thought occurred to him--what if Marissa had meant that he already knew a wonderful girl and simply overlooked her? He tried to think of all the single women he knew. Most of them were dating, and the rest that came to mind he couldn't even *imagine* going out with.
Oh well, he'd gotten back to McGinty's and he could ponder it later.
"Hello?" he called. There were a few customers just getting off work, but rush hour wasn't for another thirty minutes or so.
"Hey, Gar," Sora called to him, standing up from her soda pop. "Marissa told me...she just left with Emmett, like, five minutes ago. So I guess it's just you and me."
"Yeah, I guess so."
They walked to Tonia's, ordered a half-pepperoni and extra cheese, half-mushroom, sausage, Canadian bacon and olive pizza, and out of habit sat on the same side of the booth with Sora on the outside.
Sora snickered. "Look. I was right. We're so used to giving Marissa her own side that we do it even if she's across town. Habit, habit, habit."
Gary found it funny, too. "Oh well. Our pizza's here." Sora helped the waitress set it on the table. "So we might as well just eat it where we are."
Sora agreed. She took a slice from her half (the pepperoni-and-extra-cheese-half) and took a bite before it ever touched her plate. "Hot. Hothothothothot," she said, taking a drink of her Dr. Pepper.
He laughed at her a little, and she elbowed him. "If we weren't such good friends I'd sock you for that."
He laughed again. "You probably would, but thankfully, we *are* such good friends." Suddenly he became quiet. "We really are good friends, you know that, Sora?"
"Yeah," she agreed, "I'm glad."
"Do you remember those days back in high school?"
"That year. I remember that year so well." She was referring to her junior year, his senior. That was when they had met and kept up a relationship between his hometown of Hickory, 150 miles from her hometown of Chicago. "I don't have any qualms about calling it the best year of my life, Gary."
He blinked at her. "Really? But you never really wrote..."
"I know you lost my address and you couldn't afford to call that long of a distance and all that. But I never had your address, so I couldn't write to you at the college. Or, I should say, I couldn't *send* you anything. I wrote a diary full of letters, I still loved you...it broke my heart when I heard about you and Marcia. I hated her for so long..."
"I never knew that...I thought you two just didn't get along."
"She broke my heart, Gary...sometimes I'm positive it never fully mended."
"Oh, Sora...so *that's* why...uh, when did you stop hating her?"
"When she threw you out. Oh, don't get me wrong, I wanted, and still want you to be happy, but I couldn't help but think that maybe..."
By this time she was almost in tears. Gary put a hand on her near shoulder. "Suddenly I've lost my appetite...what say we put this in a box, and go to your house, and let me read a few of those unsent letters?"
Sora nodded and complied, not able to think straight. This wasn't how she had pictured telling him, but...
They walked to Sora's apartment, just a few blocks beyond McGinty's.
Gary stuffed the pizza into her disorganized fridge and then followed her into her room. She opened her equally disorganized closet and dragged her desk chair to the open door. He held it steady as she reached up to the far right and pulled out a thick diary.
"I know it says 'diary'," she told him, "but I never did use it for that."
He nodded, taking it from her and helping her down. Leaving the chair, they went into her living room and sat on her couch.
Gary read the first ten pages or so, which were filled with love, adoration, and hope for their future. Then he flipped toward the back. The mood, the feeling of the words did not change, although there was more doubt as to whether or not he'd waited for her. The last few letters asked him how he could have done that to her, and there was one very nasty one to Marcia in which Sora made threats to ruin the wedding, (which, as she told Gary aloud, she had not carried through with for his sake and his sake alone) and that she had signed, "Your worst nightmare".
Gary handed her the book in silence, trying to search her downcast eyes.
"I never knew about any of this, Sora...I...I...right now all I can say is that I am *so* sorry I didn't wait for you, and that it was the biggest mistake of my life." He stood and put his hands on her shoulders as her tears began to fall, noiselessly but sincerely. "I never meant to hurt you, and I am truly sorry, but right now I need some time to think...I'll call you...if you still even want my friendship--if you can forgive me."
She nodded, hand over her eyes to try to hide the tears.
He left without a word.
The next few days made Sora especially glad for her job at a stable. A lot of the work was either mindless, so she could vent frustration, or required concentration, to keep her mind off of it. Horses were what she'd always wanted to work around, and she was quite an accomplished rider.
But suddenly, in the midst of waiting for that one phone call, it didn't matter. All she cared about was hearing what Gary had to say on reflection. Her evenings were spent watching game shows and bad "Brady Bunch" reruns so she had an excuse to have the phone within answering distance. She hung up on several telemarketers, something that she was usually too polite to do, just to keep the line free. She could hardly think for the craziness of wanting the phone to ring and it be him.
Gary thought good and hard about what had transpired.
Sora loved him, had never quit loving him. All her dates bombed, not because of *her*, but because she had eyes only for him.
He wanted to eventually get married again. Marissa had said the best surprises are right in front of your face, and she'd been right. There was Sora.
Yes, he was pretty sure this was a good surprise. He also had a feeling Marissa had known about Sora's liking him, although she denied having actually heard anything about it from Sora herself.
So, yes, he did like the idea of him and Sora. He just wasn't sure what to do with it.
Nine days passed before he let Marissa confront him.
"You want my advice, don't you?" she asked him over McGinty's coffee that Saturday afternoon.
"Yeah."
"Then you ought to ask for it...but tell me, Gary, every time you sit there and mope over a girl, what do I tell you?"
Gary sighed. "You can sit there and wonder what went wrong, or you can go get the girl." It had been more than once that Marissa had issued the tried-and-true piece of advice.
Marissa brightened. "You remember more than I hoped for. Perhaps you've got a prayer after all...anyway, it still rings true. You need to go get her before you lose her completely, even as a friend. You've not spoken in nine days, Gary, she's bound to think you decided to just forget about her."
"All right. I'm going and getting her." Gary left half a mug of black coffee and a very satisfied friend behind as he headed out the door.
Sora heard a knock at her door and wondered who it would be, since she had just gotten home from work a few moments ago. She had even worked the past two Saturdays--it kept her mind off the whole ordeal. She figured it might be her cousin who lived down the hall, but she opened the door to a dozen red roses.
"These are for you, Sora, but I don't think they make up for all I've done to you."
"Gary!" Sora took the roses and laid them on the closest table as he shut the door. "Gary, you came!"
"I know I said I was going to call, but there are just some things that you just can't say on the phone."
"Like what?" Sora asked.
"Like this." He took her by the elbows and drew her close. "I'm so sorry. I can never make up for the pain I've caused you, but I would love to have a second chance." He kissed her gently on the cheek. "Will you give me...that chance?"
"As in be like we were in high school?" Already the tears fell again, although not as fast as before.
"If that means as in going out, yes."
Sora was enjoying every second of being that close to Gary, whispering every word. "Gary...you don't even need to ask...I just simply didn't know *you* wanted that chance...but yes, of course, please...I've waited six years for this..."
He smiled and drew her closer. "I promise I won't misuse it, Sora...but...I'd like to seal my promise with a kiss."
Sora tilted her head back and smiled. "I'm waiting."
She felt him kiss away the last of her teardrops, and then her lips met his, bringing back a sort of ecstasy she had not felt since he had kissed her good-bye before leaving for college. The same feeling that her first kiss--which had also been from Gary--had brought her.
When the kiss finally ended, she looked into his eyes. "I still feel the same way about you."
"I don't know how I could have ever left you--and what we have, now and then--for anything."
"At least you came back for it." Sora leaned her head onto his shoulder. "Suddenly it feels like you never left."
"I'm don't think I ever really did, in my heart." Gary smiled. "You know, I know this place over on Third Street. Nice almond cappuccino, live violinists..."
"Let's go."
And they did...her hand in his.
Gary tried to sneak up the stairs five hours later, but he couldn't get past Marissa.
"So, Gary, how's your girlfriend?"
"Umm...uhh...what girlfriend?"
"Oh come on, Gary, do you really think I know that little about you? If it hadn't gone well, you'd come straight to me to complain the moment it happened, and here it is, nine o'clock, and you tried to escape talking to me. I *know* you."
Gary looked away from her and tried not to admit it.
"Gary, you're on cloud nine. I can sense it. Now you may as well 'fess up. It's not like this is bad news."
"All right! Sora and I are...are..."
"Going out?"
"Yes! Sora is my girlfriend. I am her boyfriend. Are you happy now?"
"Yes, I am. I was kind of expecting it, though..." she smiled.
"You know," Gary said, "I may be the one who gets tomorrow's paper, but somehow I *always* have a feeling you know more than I do." He turned and went upstairs.
Gary fell onto the couch, flicking on the news. The Cat came and curled up in his lap, rather content for a change.
"Why am I doing this? I heard all this *yesterday*."
The Cat crawled over his arm and the arm of the couch and nosed at a framed photo of Gary and Sora taken about a year before.
Gary sighed, smiling. "No. I can't stop thinking about her." He ruffled the Cat's fur, causing the Cat to shake his head and meow. "Of course, that's a good thing." Again the Cat settled in his lap and actually began to purr.
Gary began stroking the Cat, something he didn't do often and usually distractedly. "You know, I think you know even more than Marissa."
The Cat simply closed his eyes and purred louder.
Please tell me what you think! Did I commit the unpardonable sin by tying Gary down to a girlfriend or are you just happy to see him happy? All comments accepted at: RenaissanceGrrl@excite.com
Authoress's Notes: Did you honestly think I'd be so cruel as to leave you hanging? I like to torture GARY, not my READERS! I like readers! (Not that I don't like Gary...hehehe) Read, relish, review. :-) BTW, will the girl who said Hickory is in Indiana and not Illinois please e-mail me? I want to know how you know this, 'cause I just assumed it was in the same state as Chicago. Address at end.
*rinnng...*
"Aaahh!" Sora Marley had, once again, fallen asleep waiting for the Weather Channel to tell her tomorrow's weather, and the ringing of her telephone jarred her awake.
*rinnng...*
"I hear you, I hear you." She picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Sora, what's up?"
"Hi, Gar, not much...I fell asleep trying to find out the weather...say, you know better than they do, tell me."
Sora could hear a paper shuffling about, and then "It's supposed to cool down a bit, but no precipitation just yet. Highs in the low 40's, cool enough for a jacket."
"Rats. I was hoping for snow."
Gary laughed. "I'll call you when the paper tells me."
Sora grinned. Being close friends with a guy who got tomorrow's newspaper today had its perks. "You do that. Hey, what'dja'want?"
"Oh, nothing, just hadn't heard from you in a while, checking up. In fact the last time I heard from you, you had a date with a...what was he, a stockbroker?"
"Yeah..."
"Well?"
"It bombed. Just like all my attempts at dating. He's looking for a Sagittarius, and I don't even know what my sign is."
Gary laughed again. "I don't know mine, either. Half the time I don't even remember my birthdate."
"Oh, I know that. September 19th...1974, I believe."
"I think so...but let's not bother with it. No matter what year it's several months off. Are you busy tonight? I was thinking, you, me, Marissa, pizza..."
"Nothing in the paper?" Sora quizzed, surprised.
"Well, there's a *very* minor thing at five o'clock, but once that's done, I'm free to go."
She sighed a bit. "We always do the same thing when you have a night off. I come to McGinty's where you and Marissa are. Then we walk down the street to Tonia's Pizza, and the whole time we're munching one third-pepperoni and extra cheese, third-mushroom, sausage, Canadian bacon and olive, third-plain cheese pizza, we complain that we could have fixed ourselves a perfectly good pizza right at McGinty's."
Gary paused a moment. "Yeah, you're right. So what do you suggest?"
"I don't know...I'm just tired of everything being so...*routine*. I want...I don't know what I want, but this is getting monotonous."
"Well, Sora, if you keep doing what you're doing you'll keep getting what you're getting."
"Hmm...That's good. Where'd you hear that?"
"I think from Chuck, when he was on one of his seize-the-moment kicks...you know, him and his friend the Dalai Lama..."
Sora laughed. She *did* know. "So I should stop trying to get a date?"
"They'll quit bombing if you do," Gary reminded her. "Maybe even if you stop looking and wait for one to come along it'll be the right one."
"You may have a point. You, on the other hand, had better get up off your duff pretty soon and start looking or you'll end up kinda like...well...Lucius Snow."
"Huh? I lost you there."
"Well, think, Gar, if Lucius Snow had had a wife, you could go to *her* with your questions. Now do you want whoever gets the paper after you to be left in the dark?"
"Good point, but I really won't care...I'll be dead."
Sora laughed, glad he couldn't see her rolling her eyes. "Well, you have a few years left, yet...so are we doing pizza at Tonia's?"
"If you're free."
"I am."
"Good. Can you be at McGinty's about five forty-five, six?"
"Easily."
"All right, see you there."
"Gotcha." Sora hung up. Why was it this way? She liked him as more than just a friend, but she hid it, hoping he would have to get it out of her, like a secret. ~Perhaps I hide it too well, if no one has noticed.~
She sighed. They had been so happy going out, back in high school. She still liked him in *that* way, and wished things could be like that between her and Gary again. ~If only I were a year older, I could have gone to college with him...but it's too late now, and I'll have to wait on him...~
Gary thought about what Sora had said. He didn't want to be single *forever*, but the paper afforded him little time to go out and look for someone.
He descended the stairs and popped into the office to talk to Marissa.
"Hey, Marissa, you, me, and Sora are going to Tonia's...she'll be here about six..."
"Umm, Gary, I can't...I have a date with Emmett, and he's supposed to pick me up about then...sorry."
"Oh...I guess I'll have to go call Sora back..."
"No need. There's no reason you two can't go without me. I mean, after all, if you needed a chaperone I'm not exactly the wisest choice..." Marissa laughed lightly, referring to her blindness.
Gary exhaled, "Yeah, I guess there's no reason. Say, Marissa, do you believe that if you keep doing what you're doing you'll keep getting what you're getting?"
"Well, I suppose. It makes sense."
"So if I was to want things to be...different, I should try to make them that way?"
"Yes, Gary, faint heart ne'er won fair lady."
His thoughts halted. "How do you do that?"
"Comes naturally, I guess...but if you're going to go change what you're doing to get what you want, be sure of what you want. And remember that sometimes the biggest surprises are right in front your face."
"Yeah, okay...I have to go save these people...little fender-bender, but one cab driver will be in critical condition..."
"See ya." Marissa bent back down to her Braille paperwork.
"Bye." Gary flew out the door.
Gary reached the intersection of the "accident". He began to flag down the cab.
The taxi did pull over, but the cabby began chewing Gary out. "Can't you see I *already* have a passenger here, bub?"
The passenger became agitated, also. "Hey! I thought I was paying you twenty bucks to *hurry*, you idiot!"
Just as Gary was about to tell the cabby what he thought, a car further up the street swerved to avoid hitting a young boy recently escaped from Mommy's grasp, and hit a fire hydrant.
The cabby stared in awe. "That's right where I was going to park and wait for him!" He jerked a thumb at his passenger. "That guy woulda killed me!" he said.
"Is that all the further it is? Suddenly I feel like walking. Here's your fee, and your twenty bucks, man, sorry about making you drive just ten blocks..."
"You're not from Chicago, eh?" the cabby asked, taking his money as the man shook his head.
The child's mother had taken him back, and was apologizing to the man in the car.
Gary smiled as he walked off before the cabby could ask him "where to?" After all, McGinty's was only ten minute's walk away, and he had half an hour. Plenty of time to reflect on what Marissa had said. "*Sometimes the biggest surprises are right in front of your face*."
He supposed she meant that he didn't have to go crazy with this, that all that was necessary right away was the want to change.
And she'd said to be sure of what he wanted. Well, it was true, love was like fire and it could do a multitude of good, but he'd been burned a few times and although the wounds had healed, if he tried again he risked another one.
But, on the other hand, it was obvious to him that he wanted to be married again. Marcia...well, she hadn't turned him off to marriage. She had made him realize he'd made a mistake, that just because you had a steady girlfriend and you could coincidentally afford a ring did *not* make her the one. He had screwed up, he'd been burned, but fortunately he'd been left with minimal scars.
He'd even had several girlfriends since Marcia, but none of them had lasted more than a few weeks.
Gary sighed aloud. Then another thought occurred to him--what if Marissa had meant that he already knew a wonderful girl and simply overlooked her? He tried to think of all the single women he knew. Most of them were dating, and the rest that came to mind he couldn't even *imagine* going out with.
Oh well, he'd gotten back to McGinty's and he could ponder it later.
"Hello?" he called. There were a few customers just getting off work, but rush hour wasn't for another thirty minutes or so.
"Hey, Gar," Sora called to him, standing up from her soda pop. "Marissa told me...she just left with Emmett, like, five minutes ago. So I guess it's just you and me."
"Yeah, I guess so."
They walked to Tonia's, ordered a half-pepperoni and extra cheese, half-mushroom, sausage, Canadian bacon and olive pizza, and out of habit sat on the same side of the booth with Sora on the outside.
Sora snickered. "Look. I was right. We're so used to giving Marissa her own side that we do it even if she's across town. Habit, habit, habit."
Gary found it funny, too. "Oh well. Our pizza's here." Sora helped the waitress set it on the table. "So we might as well just eat it where we are."
Sora agreed. She took a slice from her half (the pepperoni-and-extra-cheese-half) and took a bite before it ever touched her plate. "Hot. Hothothothothot," she said, taking a drink of her Dr. Pepper.
He laughed at her a little, and she elbowed him. "If we weren't such good friends I'd sock you for that."
He laughed again. "You probably would, but thankfully, we *are* such good friends." Suddenly he became quiet. "We really are good friends, you know that, Sora?"
"Yeah," she agreed, "I'm glad."
"Do you remember those days back in high school?"
"That year. I remember that year so well." She was referring to her junior year, his senior. That was when they had met and kept up a relationship between his hometown of Hickory, 150 miles from her hometown of Chicago. "I don't have any qualms about calling it the best year of my life, Gary."
He blinked at her. "Really? But you never really wrote..."
"I know you lost my address and you couldn't afford to call that long of a distance and all that. But I never had your address, so I couldn't write to you at the college. Or, I should say, I couldn't *send* you anything. I wrote a diary full of letters, I still loved you...it broke my heart when I heard about you and Marcia. I hated her for so long..."
"I never knew that...I thought you two just didn't get along."
"She broke my heart, Gary...sometimes I'm positive it never fully mended."
"Oh, Sora...so *that's* why...uh, when did you stop hating her?"
"When she threw you out. Oh, don't get me wrong, I wanted, and still want you to be happy, but I couldn't help but think that maybe..."
By this time she was almost in tears. Gary put a hand on her near shoulder. "Suddenly I've lost my appetite...what say we put this in a box, and go to your house, and let me read a few of those unsent letters?"
Sora nodded and complied, not able to think straight. This wasn't how she had pictured telling him, but...
They walked to Sora's apartment, just a few blocks beyond McGinty's.
Gary stuffed the pizza into her disorganized fridge and then followed her into her room. She opened her equally disorganized closet and dragged her desk chair to the open door. He held it steady as she reached up to the far right and pulled out a thick diary.
"I know it says 'diary'," she told him, "but I never did use it for that."
He nodded, taking it from her and helping her down. Leaving the chair, they went into her living room and sat on her couch.
Gary read the first ten pages or so, which were filled with love, adoration, and hope for their future. Then he flipped toward the back. The mood, the feeling of the words did not change, although there was more doubt as to whether or not he'd waited for her. The last few letters asked him how he could have done that to her, and there was one very nasty one to Marcia in which Sora made threats to ruin the wedding, (which, as she told Gary aloud, she had not carried through with for his sake and his sake alone) and that she had signed, "Your worst nightmare".
Gary handed her the book in silence, trying to search her downcast eyes.
"I never knew about any of this, Sora...I...I...right now all I can say is that I am *so* sorry I didn't wait for you, and that it was the biggest mistake of my life." He stood and put his hands on her shoulders as her tears began to fall, noiselessly but sincerely. "I never meant to hurt you, and I am truly sorry, but right now I need some time to think...I'll call you...if you still even want my friendship--if you can forgive me."
She nodded, hand over her eyes to try to hide the tears.
He left without a word.
The next few days made Sora especially glad for her job at a stable. A lot of the work was either mindless, so she could vent frustration, or required concentration, to keep her mind off of it. Horses were what she'd always wanted to work around, and she was quite an accomplished rider.
But suddenly, in the midst of waiting for that one phone call, it didn't matter. All she cared about was hearing what Gary had to say on reflection. Her evenings were spent watching game shows and bad "Brady Bunch" reruns so she had an excuse to have the phone within answering distance. She hung up on several telemarketers, something that she was usually too polite to do, just to keep the line free. She could hardly think for the craziness of wanting the phone to ring and it be him.
Gary thought good and hard about what had transpired.
Sora loved him, had never quit loving him. All her dates bombed, not because of *her*, but because she had eyes only for him.
He wanted to eventually get married again. Marissa had said the best surprises are right in front of your face, and she'd been right. There was Sora.
Yes, he was pretty sure this was a good surprise. He also had a feeling Marissa had known about Sora's liking him, although she denied having actually heard anything about it from Sora herself.
So, yes, he did like the idea of him and Sora. He just wasn't sure what to do with it.
Nine days passed before he let Marissa confront him.
"You want my advice, don't you?" she asked him over McGinty's coffee that Saturday afternoon.
"Yeah."
"Then you ought to ask for it...but tell me, Gary, every time you sit there and mope over a girl, what do I tell you?"
Gary sighed. "You can sit there and wonder what went wrong, or you can go get the girl." It had been more than once that Marissa had issued the tried-and-true piece of advice.
Marissa brightened. "You remember more than I hoped for. Perhaps you've got a prayer after all...anyway, it still rings true. You need to go get her before you lose her completely, even as a friend. You've not spoken in nine days, Gary, she's bound to think you decided to just forget about her."
"All right. I'm going and getting her." Gary left half a mug of black coffee and a very satisfied friend behind as he headed out the door.
Sora heard a knock at her door and wondered who it would be, since she had just gotten home from work a few moments ago. She had even worked the past two Saturdays--it kept her mind off the whole ordeal. She figured it might be her cousin who lived down the hall, but she opened the door to a dozen red roses.
"These are for you, Sora, but I don't think they make up for all I've done to you."
"Gary!" Sora took the roses and laid them on the closest table as he shut the door. "Gary, you came!"
"I know I said I was going to call, but there are just some things that you just can't say on the phone."
"Like what?" Sora asked.
"Like this." He took her by the elbows and drew her close. "I'm so sorry. I can never make up for the pain I've caused you, but I would love to have a second chance." He kissed her gently on the cheek. "Will you give me...that chance?"
"As in be like we were in high school?" Already the tears fell again, although not as fast as before.
"If that means as in going out, yes."
Sora was enjoying every second of being that close to Gary, whispering every word. "Gary...you don't even need to ask...I just simply didn't know *you* wanted that chance...but yes, of course, please...I've waited six years for this..."
He smiled and drew her closer. "I promise I won't misuse it, Sora...but...I'd like to seal my promise with a kiss."
Sora tilted her head back and smiled. "I'm waiting."
She felt him kiss away the last of her teardrops, and then her lips met his, bringing back a sort of ecstasy she had not felt since he had kissed her good-bye before leaving for college. The same feeling that her first kiss--which had also been from Gary--had brought her.
When the kiss finally ended, she looked into his eyes. "I still feel the same way about you."
"I don't know how I could have ever left you--and what we have, now and then--for anything."
"At least you came back for it." Sora leaned her head onto his shoulder. "Suddenly it feels like you never left."
"I'm don't think I ever really did, in my heart." Gary smiled. "You know, I know this place over on Third Street. Nice almond cappuccino, live violinists..."
"Let's go."
And they did...her hand in his.
Gary tried to sneak up the stairs five hours later, but he couldn't get past Marissa.
"So, Gary, how's your girlfriend?"
"Umm...uhh...what girlfriend?"
"Oh come on, Gary, do you really think I know that little about you? If it hadn't gone well, you'd come straight to me to complain the moment it happened, and here it is, nine o'clock, and you tried to escape talking to me. I *know* you."
Gary looked away from her and tried not to admit it.
"Gary, you're on cloud nine. I can sense it. Now you may as well 'fess up. It's not like this is bad news."
"All right! Sora and I are...are..."
"Going out?"
"Yes! Sora is my girlfriend. I am her boyfriend. Are you happy now?"
"Yes, I am. I was kind of expecting it, though..." she smiled.
"You know," Gary said, "I may be the one who gets tomorrow's paper, but somehow I *always* have a feeling you know more than I do." He turned and went upstairs.
Gary fell onto the couch, flicking on the news. The Cat came and curled up in his lap, rather content for a change.
"Why am I doing this? I heard all this *yesterday*."
The Cat crawled over his arm and the arm of the couch and nosed at a framed photo of Gary and Sora taken about a year before.
Gary sighed, smiling. "No. I can't stop thinking about her." He ruffled the Cat's fur, causing the Cat to shake his head and meow. "Of course, that's a good thing." Again the Cat settled in his lap and actually began to purr.
Gary began stroking the Cat, something he didn't do often and usually distractedly. "You know, I think you know even more than Marissa."
The Cat simply closed his eyes and purred louder.
Please tell me what you think! Did I commit the unpardonable sin by tying Gary down to a girlfriend or are you just happy to see him happy? All comments accepted at: RenaissanceGrrl@excite.com