Chapter 8: One Year.

xox

That was all it said. "Wait for me," she repeated. "Wait for me. Well that's not ambiguous at all. Wait for you for how long? And where?"

When had he left the note? She doubted that he'd stopped to write it while running after Quinn.

Which meant he'd come back to leave it. Probably when she was fighting with Puck.

How much had he heard? And why hadn't he come in to at least explain to her what was going on?

Wait for me.

You didn't tell someone to wait if you didn't want to be with them again. If that was the case, then you just left without a word. So did this mean he still loved her and wanted to be with her again? Someday? Eventually?

She stared at the note for a long time and then walked over to her purse and carefully tucked it into the inside pocket. Then she walked over to the phone. She had some calls to make.

Mercedes sat primly on a bench in the central train station. Her two suitcases sat at her feet—pink, so they could never be mistaken for someone else's—and her purse and shoulder bag were cuddled in her lap. In her shoulder bag was her leave of absence from work, her current manuscript.

It was time to take a vacation.

Things had actually gone very smoothly. She called her boss last night and explained her situation—this novel was taking longer to write than expected, and if she wanted to meet her deadlines, she would have to put some serious time into it. Yes, she had plenty of money in the bank—more than enough. She could live comfortably for a year and still have plenty left over. Yes, she would return, just think of this as a sabbatical.

Relieved, her boss assured her that her old position would be hers again when she decided to return. "In all, this is very good," he said in his usual frazzled manner. "With this sudden economic decline, I was going to have to make some layoffs. But with you going on your sabbatical and Quinn on maternity leave, I think we all can make it."

Mercedes told him how delighted she was and said she wanted to leave the next day.

This statement had not been well met.

In the end, they had agreed on three days. Thus, she was leaving on the 5:00pm.

A girl at the office—ironically enough, a close friend of Quinn's—had just broken up with her boyfriend and needed a place to stay indefinitely. News travels fast in a tight-knit corporation, so the minute Mercedes heard the news, she called her up. "Oh my god, that would be so perfect," she gushed, her voice still heavy with old tears, "I just really need to get out of here. My folks live up north, and all of my friends either have roommates or boyfriends or husbands and—and—" she made a conscious effort to get a hold of herself. "I would love to take your sublease. Thank you so much."

She'd finished moving in last night.

Mercedes pushed a flyaway piece of hand back behind her ear. Everything was falling into place. She'd actually told a white lie to her boss—she'd sent off her last installment to her publisher that morning. After finding the white note Sam had left, she pulled two all-nighters and finished the book. With a few revisions, it would be published in less than two months.

The manuscript in her bag was a drastic deviation from her usual genre. She decided that she was done with her romantic novels. It was time for some serious writing. Maybe action/suspense. Maybe philosophical. Who knew? She would write what she felt like.

A disgruntled teenager was being dragged along by his ostentatiously-dressed parents. He gave her a leering once-over and Mercedes didn't hesitate to flick him off. The boy's face registered shock, but she only smiled benignly.

So what? She was off guys for the time being. Just her and her manuscript. Her and her nice, gentlemanly characters. Or at least guys that started out tough and then melted into butter when he saw what a good find he had. Why couldn't all men see like that?

Mercedes decided once she found the perfect character from her book, she would marry him. And have babies and raise them. Only this made her think of Quinn and her baby (and Sam with them?), so she quickly grabbed a book out of her bag and started reading furiously.

"Mama, is that lady a bum?"

Mercedes furtively looked at the child sitting on the bench across from her out of the corner of her eye. Yep, sure enough, the child's finger was pointing at her. The mother quickly hushed the child and whispered into his ear; most likely that it was impolite to point and call people "bums."

She couldn't wait to get out of the New York business sector. She was seriously only dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt. With a sweatshirt in her lap.

The train pulled into the station only minutes later, and by stepping through the doors onto the crowded rush-hour packed Friday train, Mercedes felt as if she was leaving everything behind.

"Hello! I'd like a—"

"Double chocolate fudge sundae cone?" The boy behind the counter with the word "elephant" tattooed on his forehead smiled. "Coming right up."

Mercedes smiled unabashedly. It was her Friday night tradition to emerge from the charming little house she'd rented and spend the evening wandering through the main streets of the small town. It was a pleasant tradition she'd started—even if it did include her new obsession with dessert.

As she strolled down the stone streets licking her ice-cream cone, she watched the many tourists amble by. No one was in a hurry, and most people were laughing and talking. The old couples, arm in arm, exchanged few words: after so many years of marriage, they already knew each other's thoughts. The young couples chattered animatedly, eager to get to know each other better. The middle aged couples smiled in exasperation at their excited children and warned them not to wander to far.

Couples. She was surrounded by happy people.

Not that she wasn't happy. She'd made enormous progress on her book in the past eleven months and she'd made a few friends that were living in the city long-term too.

But she was lonely.

She didn't think about Sam as much. The first month was hell. The second was just as worse. By the time the fourth rolled around, she'd become accustomed to her new life.

Now it had almost been a year since she'd seen or heard from him.

Silence had never been so cruel before.

Mercedes laughed softly at herself as she once again thought of her books. In her third novel, the protagonist had returned to his love after exactly a year of disappearance. Somehow her beloved character had set the standard in her mind—over the past months she had turned down the numerous dates and offers she'd received. She was waiting for the end of the year. If Sam didn't show up by the end of the year, she would forever put him out of her mind.

There was the minor drawback that he might not know where she was. But if he really wanted to find her, he could. She'd left hints.

Well sort of. She'd told Kurt. She told the girl she subleased her apartment to. That brightened her a bit. Of course! Sam would naturally show up at her apartment and pound on the door without calling ahead first. Then the cute little Sugar would tell him dolefully that Mercedes was taking a vacation and she was very sorry to disappoint him but if he wanted to stay for dinner he could—

No! Bad thoughts, Mercedes! Very bad thoughts!

Sugar wouldn't seduce Sam, even though she had just broken up with her boyfriend. Two lonely souls…

Whatever, Mercedes. You're pulling this completely out of air. All this loneliness is getting to your head.

Ridiculous fantasies were the first sign of You-Really-Need-a-New-Boyfriend-itis.

She finished her cone and tossed it in a trash can that was attached to a light post. The sun was setting and the sky had put on its finest evening wear—it was ablaze with color.

Mercedes smiled sadly and started her walk home.

She really did miss him.

Passion, like summer, eventually fades and gives way to the cool, comfortable feelings of Autumn. The best way to tame a fire is to let it slowly sizzle out.

Keira sighed and let her hand fall to her side. If he had really loved her, his feelings wouldn't have gone out so quickly died out with so little hesitation. He'd failed the test. And she'd been so sure of him to. But perhaps that was fate's way of telling her they weren't meant for each other. Maybe like the fire something would rise out of the embers their love wasn't worth it their love was only a brief period of high flames and then..

Screw this.

Mercedes gave up writing for the night. Sometimes there was just no hope.

She stretched and moved her writing pad and pen aside. From her place on the sofa, she could see yet another extraordinary sunset morphing into the inky darkness of the rural sky out of the big bay window the owners of the house had put into the living room.

Tomorrow would be exactly one year that she'd been here. Starting at midnight, Sam would have twenty-four hours to show up and profess his love before she would forget about him forever.

What if he turns up on one year and a day? What will you do then? That's close enough, right?

No. He said "wait." It was up to her to choose the specifications. And besides, a year was plenty of time to work out any doubts or insecurities he had.

Enough. She wouldn't think about it until tomorrow night. She was not going to spend a perfectly good writing day wasted on thinking about that loser.

Mercedes stood. She might as well check on her small, solitary dinner. Spaghetti was so lonely. Noodles were just meant to be slurped with someone else there.

Actually, it was a wonder her food wasn't burning already. She'd lost track of time again.

Oh well, she could always just order sushi to go. Take-out and delivery were her new lovers.

She walked into the kitchen and promptly crashed into the refrigerator.

There at her stove, calmly stirring a large pot of spaghetti, was Sam.

Mercedes knew her jaw was hanging open. She knew her eyes were bugging out very unattractively. But she had absolutely no ability to fix any of these things.

"Hey."

AN: Tell me what you think! o: