Dead Awake: The Last Crossing

by Hades

  ***

  The time of fear came soon enough, for already the thought had come to her. Within a few days Noelia approached me with the awful crisis, and it was time to face what was coming. It was obvious that she had been thinking about it for quite some time, when she came to me with her question. It was a plain and simple question, which she had prepared with two emotional responses.

  The first was simply relief, that her fears would not come true. The second was an outpouring of anger and concern. And when the question wasn’t answered in the way she thought was the right way, there came a rapid fire of other interrogations that questioned my sincerity for her. Was I leading her along all this time, with no intent of holding on to her? What of the promise that was made?

  Though I told her how wrong she was, that all I had said was true, that I meant to keep my promise, and that I did love her, still she did not believe me. It was worse when the tears came. She was soaked with them, and I couldn’t stop her. They came as tears come from a child full of despair and agony. They came as tears of rushing-feelings that come to a woman who is told that her husband has just died in a war. How do you stop a torrent of such immense passion? I could not... and though I tried, it only got worse. Fear struck me deep: the fear of a magic that is lost, or beginning to go.

  I felt as a knight who had dishonored himself by his own deceit and lack of integrity. I had left the place of privilege, and was now at the bottom, not sure if she would believe in me again. I told her that it would be all right. I thought that now was the time to tell her of my plan to take her to the States with me, thinking it was sure to make things better... I would marry her, I said, but she didn’t ease up. My suggestions were only salt upon her wounds.

  “You told me you loved me! You made me feel you would never go! I was a fool to love you! Why have you done this to me? Why?” Her tears, along with the screaming, made it a desperate situation.

  “But you can go with me. Why can’t you go?” My rebuttal was of no avail. Yes, I would have married her in a second, but asking now might have suggested that I would give up my job and life to live with her. Then there could be no more going back.

  Then came her answer. “I cannot go!” she said, “I have my family here, and this is my home! Why won’t you stay with me? Why don’t you love me?” This last statement burned at the sore more than all the rest, though she had said it before; but somehow this time it made more impact. I did love her! More than anything! I was willing to do anything for her. She had to know that. So I fought back.

  “You can go with me dear... We can take your family too. I can make a place for all of them with us, back in the States, or they can even have their own house.”

  “And what will they do there? This is my home! This is my life! You cannot take it away from me, and take me there! My family cannot go there! If you love me you will stay here!”

  “But why can’t your family come too? We can all be happy there.” Her crying got louder, when I thought it could not. The argument was lost, and so was the conversation, as she ran away from me.

  I wished I had gone after her, but it seemed useless to me, at the time. I thought I’d wait it out a little, and go back when the fire had gone out. But the fire didn’t die, and she had been right; I didn’t understand a thing about it. Why couldn’t she go with me?

  When I finally went back to talk to her, she would only cry. It had only been a few hours, but things now appeared worse. I thought that the time spent to ourselves would have helped, but it didn’t. Her mother even asked me to leave because Noelia was getting so upset. She said that she would talk to her and see if she could help, but that now I had to go. It was all right for me, because I knew that Higinia really would make things better for us.

  There was concern and feeling in her eyes. Higinia really loved me, as a son, and wanted it to work out for us; but even with all her help and influence, I wasn’t able to talk to Noelia for the next three days.

  That was an awful eternity. I thought I’d go to the airport, to reschedule my ticket, because the time of my return was quickly squeezing up on me. I wasn’t going to leave without resolving my deep dilemma with Noelia, so I made my plan of action. I decided to trade my ticket in for an open-return ticket and pay the difference.

  I could call in to work, and tell them that I’d be a few days late, then resolve everything with Noelia. Surely my boss would understand, once I told him that I was going to marry this girl. I could probably get an extra two weeks in it for a honeymoon.

  With that plan, I walked up to my airline terminal and made arrangements to reschedule my departure. Everything went as planned except that they were unable to give me the open ticket, due to the tourist season that usually started during that time of year. I decided that I needed to give the problem a week to be fixed, and made arrangements accordingly. That would be ample time to get things resolved, I thought.

  Noticing my hesitation, the ticket agent asked me if it was a sure date; if not, I should make sure, because it would probably be impossible to reschedule anything again for quite some time. There was no reason to do so, I was sure. I felt confident with another week, thinking it would be plenty of time.

  Then, anxiety turned to aggravation toward the ticket agent. What did she know? Airlines... always giving the customer a hard time. If they don’t lose your luggage, they lose your reservations. What’s with all of them? I’m a paying customer!

  In this frame of mind my thoughts got me very hot under the collar, and I became very irritated towards the lady. If they have so much of a problem with their seating space, my mind went on, why do they always over-book the flights! It’s not my fault if they sell the same seat to two different people. I liked flying. It was having to deal with the airlines and the people they hired that was the real hassle.

  By then, my nerves had truly shattered, and so had my patience. I needed to straighten things out once and for all with Noelia.