After Thought

by P. A. Crenshaw

  Around 9:30 that night, when the band would have normally been well into their first set at the club, Adam sat in his apartment and surfed the web. Suddenly overcome by boredom, he began to look for a distraction. Since he hadn’t checked the mail in days, he decided it would be good for him to get out and walk around for a few minutes.

  He hobbled out of his apartment and down the hall to retrieve the mail. Walking was a little tricky with the walking cast, but he had gotten used to it fairly quickly and could get around relatively well. The doctor was hopeful that he would only have to wear the annoying thing for another couple of weeks. He couldn’t wait to get it off. He was ready to put it all behind him: cast, Maddie, and all.

  Since the accident, every time Adam approached his apartment after being out, he couldn’t resist the urge to look at Maddie’s door. He didn’t know what he thought he would see. Maybe subconsciously he hoped for some sign that she had returned, but he knew that was wishful thinking. He told himself that he would quit the habit, but it hadn’t worked so far.

  As he turned the corner on his trek back from the mailbox, he vowed to not look at her door this time, but he couldn’t help it; he looked in spite of himself. What he saw caused him to freeze in place.

  Maddie stood at her door with her keys in her hand, ready to unlock it. At first Adam thought he was hallucinating. He blinked. Maybe his subconscious had materialized her image. He shook his head to clear it. She was still there. His eyes narrowed as he caught his breath.

  In that instant, her eyes met his and he saw her look of panic, like that of a child who had been caught doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. She froze momentarily, eyes wide.

  Adam’s automatic reflexes must have kicked because he didn’t remember willfully moving, but he felt himself approach her.

  “Maddie, is that you?”

  He felt like he was in a dream. He rubbed his eyes. She didn’t respond. There was no look of happy recognition or gladness to see him. Instead, she looked as if she might bolt at any moment. Not exactly the reunion of his dreams.

  Her gaze darted from Adam to the keys in her hand as she fumbled with them and tried frantically to get the key in the keyhole. But her hands shook and made the task more difficult. Adam picked up his pace, as best as he could in the walking cast. Instinctively, he knew that if she got into her apartment and got the door shut and locked before he got there, he might never see her again. She continued to fumble with her keys as he approached.

  Adam said, “Maddie, wait.”

  She didn’t look up. She finally got the key in the lock and started to turn it quickly with trembling fingers. Adrenaline kicked in, and he walked as fast as he could toward her. He wasn’t going to let her get in that door and shut him out. He could feel all the pent-up frustration and anger well up inside of him. She didn’t even have the courtesy to say hello to him. Instead, she gave him no more acknowledgement than a complete stranger.

  Finally, she managed to get the door open and attempted to hurry inside as he lunged toward her. He made it to the door right as she was about to slam it shut. Without thinking, he thrust his walking cast between the door and the doorjamb right as the door slammed on his foot. A dull, jarring pain shot up his leg. It wasn’t excruciating, and he didn’t even care because he had managed to stop the door from shutting.

  From the other side of the door, he heard Maddie yell, “Adam! What are you doing?”

  “Let me in! I need to talk to you,” he yelled back.

  Adam could hear the anger in his voice and he knew that she could too. He was not going to let her get away without an explanation—and without giving her a piece of his mind. He pushed on the door. She tried to hold it shut on the other side.

  Her angry tone matched his as she said, “Move your foot so I can close my door!”

  Oh, now it was on. Through gritted teeth Adam said, “I can’t move my foot with you pushing on the door.”

  She was pretty strong and she managed to hold him out for a moment. But she couldn’t match his strength and he eventually pushed the door open.

  She stepped back with a look of dismay on her face and screamed, “What the hell do you think you are doing? Get out!”

  His voice was low and shook with anger.

  “I’m not leaving until we talk.”

  “You were supposed to be at your gig. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “Really, Captain Obvious?” he snarled sarcastically. “Tell me why you came back tonight.”

  She glared at him, ignored the question, and said, “Adam, you don’t know what you’re doing. Leave now.”

  His heart pounded as he stepped toward her. She took a step back. She was every bit as beautiful as he had remembered. Seeing her face-to-face again brought back all the feelings of love and passion he had tried to suppress. At the same time, he felt the hurt and anger burning in his chest. He took a few more steps toward her. She continued to back away. A storm of emotions raged inside his body and mind.

  Faintly, he heard her say, “I told you we can’t be together.”

  “I am not leaving until I get an explanation,” he said.

  He had lowered his voice, but his anger and the seriousness of his intention was unmistakable.

  She pleaded, “Don’t do this, Adam. I know you don’t understand, but you just need to go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he hissed.

  He continued to walk toward her as she continued to back up until her back pressed against the wall. She had nowhere to go. He didn’t realize that he had pressed his body against hers. He held his hands up and took a small step back to give her space, but his eyes remained trained on hers. She didn’t move.

  Still pleading, she said, “Please, don’t do this. Please.”

  It looked as if the fight was leaving her. Being this close to her, Adam thought that his heart would explode within his chest. He knew that he had to speak his peace and get some answers from her, or he might never get the chance again.

  He tried to appear calm as he swallowed hard, took a chance, and said, “Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t have any feelings for me. If you can do that—if you can honestly say you don’t care for me at all—then I’ll turn around and walk out the door and leave you alone forever.”

  He stared directly into her eyes. His heart pounded so loudly that he was sure she could hear it. She held his gaze for what seemed like an eternity, and then she looked away as a tear rolled down her cheek. He sucked in an involuntary breath as he gently wiped the tear from her cheek.

  She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t love him.

  It gave him hope.

  “Don’t cry,” he said softly.

  Adam felt Maddie’s determination dissolve as she returned her gaze back to him. She didn’t look angry anymore. On impulse, he leaned closer and gently kissed her cheek where the tear had been. She quietly sighed and closed her eyes, but didn’t try to resist. He brushed his lips against hers. The slightest moan escaped her lips as they parted. He pressed his lips to hers as he took a step closer to her and kissed her softly at first and then more passionately as she gave in to his kisses. He felt her give in to passion as her body arched closer into his and she started to kiss him back. Her tongue met his as the kiss deepened, causing his stomach to flip as he became aroused. He was so hurt and angry with her, but he still loved her. Kissing her again stirred up the feelings that he had tried to stuff away. He had to have an explanation. He deserved one.

  Moments passed as they melded together in the familiar embrace. Lips moving, hands stroking, bodies pressed close together. And then he tasted the saltiness of her tears.

  Chapter 19

  Adam pulled back, looked at Maddie’s face, and saw that tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked defeated and angry at the same time.

  Her v
oice cracked as she said, “You don’t even know what you’re doing, Adam.”

  His determination was renewed. “I want an explanation. I’ve had a lot of time to think since you left me in the hospital, and I’m not leaving here until I get one.”

  He crossed his arms. She shook her head.

  Then his words frantically spilled out. “We should’ve died that night on the mountain. We should’ve frozen to death up there, but something unexplainable happened, something miraculous. At first, I thought you were just being brave and trying to comfort me when you told me that we weren’t going to die. But then you told me to think warm thoughts and everything changed. I thought I was really dying because suddenly it felt like I was on a hot beach in ninety-degree weather. I thought I was in heaven. And then there was the fact that neither one of us got frostbite, not even the slightest bit. That’s impossible, Maddie. I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  She hung her head as she continued to cry.

  “And then there were all the little things. Look, the scar on your arm and the marks from the stitches are completely gone. How do you explain that?”

  She absentmindedly rubbed her arm where the wound had once been.

  “And what about the fire in the nightclub? You claimed to have never been to that club, but you just happened to find a door that nobody else knew about. Coincidence? I don’t think so. And what about on our first date when I cooked dinner for you? I know that I didn’t have a corkscrew in the drawer, but you found one. How convenient. And you just happened to show up at rehearsal the first night with Shark Fin beer, and you didn’t even know us at all. There is no way you could’ve just randomly picked that out. You told me the avalanche was your fault. You told me that being with you puts me in danger. How can that be? And most of all, how could you tell me that you love me and then just leave?”

  She wiped the tears with the back of her hand, sighed, and said in a low, defeated voice, “I told you that you wouldn’t understand. I was trying to save your life, Adam. Being around me is dangerous. Don’t you see?”

  He stood there with his arms crossed and stared at her. There was no holding back now.

  “No, I don’t see. Don’t I get a choice in this, Maddie? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I would rather have died on that mountain than live without you?”

  Her eyes met his and she winced almost imperceptibly.

  “What is going on with you? What is it from your past that you are not telling me? Why were you afraid to be intimate? In some ways I feel so close to you, like I’ve known you forever, and in other ways I feel like I don’t know you at all. Who the hell are you, Madeline Smith?”

  Her face was unreadable. Maybe she finally believed he was not leaving. Maybe she was just tired of fighting. She stood there silently with a look of ambivalence. She had stopped crying.

  Adam suddenly realized the room was cold and shivered involuntarily. Maddie noticed him shudder.

  “Are you cold, Adam? How about a fire?” she said stoically.

  Before he could respond, she pointed to the fireplace while never taking her eyes off him. Instantly, he heard a whoosh like the sound of a fire being lit with an accelerant, and a fire sprang to life. Adam was stunned. How had she done that?

  He tried to recall if she had gas logs with a remote starter. No, it was a wood-burning fireplace. He remembered stacking the logs and lighting the fire on the cold nights they had spent together at her place. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. Wide-eyed, he looked at her expectantly and waited for an explanation.

  She stared at him without any emotion as she said, “You might want to sit down and get comfortable. How about a beer?”

  She pointed to the couch. As he robotically turned to move toward the couch, he noticed a Shark Fin beer on the coffee table, as if she had just placed it there for him. But she hadn’t moved. He was pretty certain the beer had not been there before. Goose bumps rose on his arms, and not from the cold. He sat down slowly, looked at the beer in amazement, and then looked back at her. There was a glass of wine in her hand where there hadn’t been one before. He grabbed the beer and noticed that it was ice cold. He took a huge gulp.

  Her face was still unreadable when she said, “What do you want from life? Fortune? Fame?”

  Her empty hand closed into a fist and opened again as she pretended to toss something to him. To his astonishment, several one-hundred-dollar bills appeared out of nowhere, flew toward him, and floated down all around the room like confetti. Astonished, Adam picked one up and examined it. It looked and smelled like the real deal. His eyes widened even as his blood ran cold.

  “Do you want a mansion? How about eternal youth?”

  She paused for a moment and waited, he assumed, for a response. He took a few more gulps of beer.

  He whispered hoarsely, “How the hell did you do that? What are you? A witch?”

  She smiled in spite of herself and said, “Well, I’ve been called a witch before, but no, Adam, there’s no such thing as far as I know.”

  “Are you a magician or a sorcerer?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you a superhero? I give up. What the hell is going on?”

  Even though all of the things that he had just witnessed—and the other strange events that had revolved around Maddie in the past—went against what he knew of reality, he also knew he hadn’t imagined these things. She had just proved it. She could do things that were not humanly possible. Still, he couldn’t quite believe what he had just witnessed.

  Adam repeated the question, “What are you?”

  Her eyes looked to the ceiling as if deep in thought, and then slowly back to him as she said, “Well, if you have to give it a label, I guess you could call me a manifestor.”

  “Manifestor?” Adam repeated, not sure if he had heard her correctly.

  “I know you’ve heard of term ‘manifest.’”

  “You mean like to make things appear out of thin air?” he said.

  She nodded. “Right. That’s what I do. Whatever I think of, I can manifest. If I think it, I can make it real in this world. It sort of gives new meaning to the word ‘afterthought.’ Get it? After…thought.”

  She laughed halfheartedly.

  Adam didn’t know what to say. He was speechless. He just sat there and stared at her in amazement. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t witnessed it for himself. He tried to process everything that had just happened. It all seemed impossible. But at the same time, he knew deep down that this was the only explanation that would piece everything together. Now they were getting somewhere. Maybe she had saved his life that night on the mountain. Maybe she had saved his life at the nightclub. But there were still things that she hadn’t explained to him—so many unanswered questions.

  As if reading his mind she said, “It’s a very long story, Adam.”

  He shook his head in disbelief and said, “I’ve got as long as it takes.”

  Chapter 20

  Maddie picked up a tissue, wiped the remaining tears off her face and eyes, and sat down beside him. She appeared calmer as she slumped back into the cushions of the couch with her glass of wine. She sighed heavily and said, “Adam, I want you to understand that if I tell you the truth, I’m exposing you to the very thing I was trying to protect you from by leaving. There will be no turning back.”

  Again, he felt chills run down his spine as he said, “I understand. I need to know, regardless of the outcome.”

  She looked down at her hands as she quietly said, “I thought that I was making the right choice, or I would never have left and hurt you. I’m sorry. I truly am. I thought it was for your own good. I knew that you wouldn’t be able to make the right decision because you didn’t have all the facts.”

  “Then give me the facts,” he said. “I assure you that—even after everything I just witnessed—there is
nothing you can say that will change the way I feel about you.”

  He took her hand in his, intertwining his fingers with hers.

  Her eyes welled with tears again as she said, “I do love you, Adam. I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to you because of me.”

  “I love you, too,” he whispered.

  He kissed her gently for reassurance and put his arm around her shoulders. Even though he was still a little angry with her, he couldn’t stand to see her in pain.

  Maddie looked down at her hands again for such a long time that Adam thought she might have clammed up again, when she finally said, “Where do I even begin?”

  Thinking the question was rhetorical, he waited.

  After another awkward silence, he said, “Tell me about the fire and the avalanche. You claimed responsibility for those events. You said that being with you had exposed me to danger. How could those things be your fault? Why would you cause something like that to happen?”

  She furrowed her brow and shook her head vehemently. “Not me. I never said that I caused those things to happen. I believe it was someone else.”

  He still had no clue what she was talking about, but he was relieved to see that she was finally willing to open up to him.

  “Who would do such a thing?” he said slowly.

  “My ex-husband,” she said so quietly that it was almost a whisper.

  Adam felt as if he had been dealt a physical blow to the gut, but he tried not to let it show. It was yet another shocker. He had no idea she had been married before. She had never mentioned it, and he had never seen any evidence of another man in her life. No old wedding pictures. No mention of him in conversation. No nothing. It made him bristle at the thought of her being married to another man, but at least she had said ex-husband.

  She was studying his face as she slowly said, “I’m not the only one who has the ability to manifest. There are many people out there, like my ex-husband, who are manifestors.”