The car's headlights were on so I could take a picture of the two of them. The rain made it hard to see what we were doing. We had stood out in the rain for twenty minutes just standing there no one willing to say good-bye. The only thing we could do to not speak yet justify our standing in the rain getting drenched was continue hugging one another.
"You'll be here when I come back in two years... Actually I expect if nothing at least a wedding invitation from you,'' he pointed at me. "You," he pointed at Andrea now, "you'll be here!" they hugged once more.
I tilted my head and looked at the person standing away from the three of us. Ryan had called me at least three times before Andrea had come to my apartment to stay the weekend. He wanted to make sure that he saw her before he left. Saturday night/ Sunday morning flashed through my memories.
"I'm not standing out there in the middle of the ghetto to wait for anyone. I love Ryan but a lady doesn't stand in the corner especially for a man," we both rolled our eyes at the thought.
We both jumped out of the car when we saw his sedan. We all hugged and ten minutes later we were headed back to University City to eat at Marathon Grill. The waiter thought we were high. We didn't smell of alchohol so we had to have been high the way we giggled the way we laughed the way our jokes only made sense to the three of us. "Do you want to sleep over at my place?" I asked naturally after Andrea and I wrestled him for the bill and lost. "How can we pay you back for dinner?" Andrea winked at him.
"You can wait for me till I come back," he winked back.
Everyone was fighting the need to sleep that nagged at us like a mom who refused to be ignored when we arrived to my apartment. We finally went to bed at 4 but by 8 Andrea and I were talking. I refused to let her sleep I hadn't seen her in two weeks and we were dancing then we hadn't talked like we had done before in three months. We giggled as we stood in my kitchen looking at him sleep on my living room floor. We stared at him till he woke up. Soy milk and Chex was breakfast.
We still stood in the rain trying to find an excuse to stay with one another just a few minutes longer. We talked about eating once more but what could be opened so late? I looked at the lonesome figure by the gate and knew that it was too late to eat. I was the same size as my skinny friends only because of that figure and I knew that dinner at 10 was not something that we should do but if that's what we had to do to stay together just a few more minutes... We kept staring at each other everyone deciding how to stay together just a little longer. One more group hug and finally one of us was brave enough to say it.
"I have to go before I start crying," he began walking backwards towards his car after he said it. There was water running down my cheeks and it wasn't the rain.
"Don't!" Andrea yelled.
"I"m not," I yelled back.
"If you start crying I'll cry too," it was to late there was tears rolling down her cheeks now.
Ryan's car had already left the parking lot. We got in the car she and I yelling at one another that we weren't going to cry. The more we said it the more we cried. Two years before the person who gave us the best memories for the last year would return to us. No where to park for anyone when we got to my block. The hazards were put on. The car behind us went past us when he knew that we were safely home. Andrea and I got all her stuff in the living room as we both kept denying the fact that we were crying.
"I'll come visit soon," were her last words with her duffle bag and five shopping bags in her hands.
For the first time in three days I went in to a completly empty apartment to shed my first tears not of anger or frustration but of love
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