by Ashley Drew
My breathing grows heavy but short. I haven’t slowed my pace since Henry’s frantic phone call this morning when he told me to turn on my TV. As I continue to watch the catastrophic events unfold, a tight knot forms inside my chest when I reflect back to yesterday after reading Cori’s e-mail, thinking to myself how I pitied anyone who would wake up to a normal Tuesday morning. And it should have been for some—the routine of work or school ready to greet them as dawn broke through the night, as it does every day.
Nothing about today was supposed to be normal for me. I was on top of the world because the girl I loved would finally be where she belonged—back home and in my arms.
We all know now there is absolutely nothing normal about today. Not for anybody.
My landline rings in the kitchen, and I’m flying through the living room, picking up the receiver even before the end of the first ring. My arms instinctively brace my weight upon impact with the kitchen counter. “Cori?” I pick up, holding my breath as I wait for her voice on the other end.
“It’s me,” Tess answers.
I fall silent, my breaths rolling out in slow, defeated exhales. Part of me knew it couldn’t be Cori because she doesn’t have my house number. In the three seconds it took me to run from the living room to the kitchen, I hoped that by chance, she had asked Braiden, Tess, or Henry for my number. Perhaps she couldn’t reach me on my cell phone because I tied up my line trying to reach her.
I realize now that’s the hope talking.
“God, Nicholas.” Her voice cracks through the silence. “You haven’t gotten ahold of her, have you?”
My vision blurs as moisture pools in the corners of my eyes. “I haven’t.”
“Why is this happening, Nicholas? Those people. God, all those people.” She draws in a sharp breath. “She’s okay. I know she’s okay,” Tess tries to assure, and I’m thankful for her positivity. On the other hand, her hesitation is only a confirmation of her doubt. “I mean, this is Corinne we’re talking about. Right, Nicholas? She has to be okay.”
I know what she wants to hear. Yes, Tess. Of course she’s okay. God knows that’s what I want to tell her.
But The Rolling Stones said it best—we can’t always get what we want, and especially today, it’s a cruel, ugly truth.
“Look Tess, I—”
“There are reports of another plane,” Tess interrupts, sniffing through her uneven breaths. “Bound for San Francisco, Nicholas.”
My knees buckle, and I slide against the kitchen counter down to the cold surface of the linoleum floor. My heart feels like it’s given up, but I don’t see how that’s possible, since I’m still breathing. With my other hand gripped around my cell phone, I bring it over my chest, making sure there is still a pulse.
Tess’s voice shakes. “What airport was she flying into?”
“Um, I don’t—” I hold the receiver between my ear and shoulder and tug a fistful of my hair. Maybe if I pull hard enough, it will ease the pain off my chest. It doesn’t.
“What’s her flight number? Nicholas?”
“I don’t…no she was flying into…it wasn’t San Fr…it was San…I can’t remember.” I stutter through my panic, squeezing my temples as a tear slides down my cheek. I try to recall my conversation last night with Henry when I told him I’d meet Cori at the airport. Only now, that conversation sounds as distorted as this kitchen looks beneath my teary vision.
The only clarity I have is in Cori’s e-mail because I pretty much memorized the entire thing. Despite me telling her I couldn’t wait, the truth is, I would have waited, regardless if she sent that e-mail or not. I would have waited months. Years. Possibly even forever. Because a life without her would have never made sense. And if I close my eyes, I can practically hear her reading it aloud, hearing that cute giggle of hers in between her jokes and the soothing octave her voice carries when she’s serious. I’d give anything to hear her voice again.
If her phone would at least ring to voicemail, I’d hear it. But as my finger redials, each busy tone is merely another rip at my heart. If I could just leave her a message, I’d tell her I waited. That I’m waiting for her.
Just like she asked.
Two days later…
The dashboard clock says it’s one p.m. I crossed the Illinois/Indiana border not long ago, so I guess technically it’s four o’clock, that is, if Indiana’s considered part of the Eastern time zone. It could technically be Central, making it three o’clock. Unless Indiana doesn’t observe daylight savings. Or maybe it’s Arizona that doesn’t observe it. Yeah, Arizona. Definitely Arizona. That means it’s four o’clock. Right?
Screw the technicalities. My mind is exhausted, delirious even. I’ve been on the road for forty-seven hours now, gas stops, bathroom breaks, and naps included. I think that includes meals, too, if a couple bags of beef jerky and a few packs of Twinkies constitute as a meal.
Forty-five of those hours have been silent. Switching off the radio the second hour into my drive, I couldn’t take it any longer, with every single station covering the tragic events of Tuesday morning, regardless of the airwaves, regardless if the station was a Rock, Pop, Country, Rap, R&B, Alternative, or Christian Rock station. They were all talking about it.
The four planes. The two towers. The Pentagon. 11. 175. 77. 93. Ground Zero. Thousands injured. 9/11. Tragedy and devastation in numbers.
Except for one: casualties unknown. That’s the one that gets me the most, that so many lives were lost, the task of identifying every one of those souls nearly impossible. Even when most are accounted for, some will go unidentified.
Unidentified. Another way in which life can be cruel, giving you an identity to live by, only to take it away in death. Robbing you of your name, your story, and everything you lived for.
She could have been the single mom, working two jobs to make ends meet just to afford daycare for her child. Or maybe he was the CEO of his company on a routine business trip. Or maybe he was the young college grad, looking forward to his first day on the job in the real world.
Or like Cori, the young woman simply going home, ready to face her fears, ready to truly live.
Whoever they were, every one of them had a life. A story to tell. Now trapped in a numerical uncertainty.
I couldn’t listen to it anymore, so I’d turned it off. But it doesn’t mean I could turn it off as easily in my head because no matter what, the events that had unfolded that day will forever be scarred into my memory. It’s only been two days since, but come tomorrow, next year, or fifty years from now, the memories will remain fresh in my mind.
I’m about forty-five minutes outside of Indianapolis, but if I don’t stop now, my gas will surely run out, and God forbid I have any setbacks, considering how close I am. I pull off the nearest exit on the Interstate and head for the first gas station I see. It’s only then that I actually take in my surroundings, noticing the flat, desolate geography of the landscape. It baffles me that I would pay attention to this and somewhere behind me, I’d completely missed the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon. I think I may have passed the Gateway Arch back in St. Louis. It just shows how focused I’ve been, how consumed I am by my thoughts.
The first gas station I come across looks like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Cori made me watch it once when we were kids, and I was creeped out for days. Tess hated me that week; I practically begged her to let me sleep on her floor. Of course, she dangled it over my head and used it as blackmail for a while.
I park beside a gas pump and take in the sight of the small, worn building, simply named ‘Grocery Store’ as written on the tattered sign in bold capital letters on the front. A dull grey is exposed in patches beneath the chipped white of the building’s exterior. Rust lines every inch of the tin rooftop, and what looks like a broken window with a small bullet hole should be enough to send me running for the hills. The place creeps me out, but I stop anyway. I stop mainly because I need gas, but I also think I do it because Cori would get a kick out of th
is. The thought makes me smile.
After I pump the gas, I go inside the store for a bottle of water, and when I step inside, it isn’t at all what I expect. It’s bright and clean, the shelves neat and fully stocked as they would be at your local 7-Eleven, and at the cash register is a young girl, blonde and petite, probably not older than sixteen or seventeen. Her attention is focused on a small television on the opposite counter, and she isn’t aware of my presence until I step up to the register with the bottle of water, and startle her.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear ya come in,” she apologizes, the mid-west twang ringing through her voice.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” I say. “I thought you might’ve heard me pull up out front.”
“No worries. Just a little on edge, that’s all.”
I give her a reassuring smile. “I think we all are.”
As she rings up the water bottle, my eyes focus on the TV behind her, and she notices.
“A dollar twenty-five, please. You know they started openin’ up the airports today. That’s what they’re talkin’ about now. But they’re sayin’ it’ll prolly take days, if not weeks to get all those stranded passengers back home, until everything’s back to normal, ya know?”
Normal. I’m not quite sure what normal is anymore. Without responding, I hand her two dollar bills. She opens the register, places the two bills neatly into it, and pulls out my change.
“It’s kinda bittersweet. My dad and I, we run this place, and we’ve had more business the past couple of days than in the past month,” she admits, handing me the three quarters. “Not many people roll through this town, but because of the grounded flights, lots of ’em been driving through here. I’ve met a lot of nice people the past couple days. It’s sorta ironic the way tragedy brings people together, don’t ya think?”
I couldn’t agree more.
In no time, I’m back on the road again, flying down the Interstate as fast as the speed limit will allow, plus some, and finally, in my forty-eighth hour, I make it.
Never in a million years did I think I would ever step foot in Indianapolis. I don’t hear people really talking about visiting Indiana, and it doesn’t strike me as a destination or a vacation spot. Call me ignorant, but there are only three things that I know about it.
One: It’s the home of the Indianapolis 500.
Two: It’s the third of four U.S. states that begins with the letter I.
Three: Cori is here.
After I’d hung up with Tess that morning, I’d rushed to Henry’s house. The six hours of waiting to hear from Cori were the longest six hours of my life. We sat in the living room, watching the news coverage on TV as we waited for updates: which airlines, what flight numbers, the possibility of other flights affected. Henry was on the phone with Cori’s airline, Jamie on the other phone with Evelyn, and my thumb still dialing Cori’s number again and again.
As time passed, and more details started to come to light, the likelihood that one of the four flights being Cori’s dwindled, and though it raised our hopes the tiniest bit, it certainly didn’t ease our anxieties and wouldn’t until we heard her voice.
So we waited. And waited. And after several long agonizing hours, that call finally came.
She assured us she was fine, shaken up but fine nevertheless. Her plane was instructed to immediately land in Indianapolis, and when the FAA declared that all flights would be grounded until further notice, I knew what I had to do. Who knew how long air traffic would be halted for? Plus, all other forms of transportation were nearly impossible to come by. And even when the airspace reopened, it would be several days, or weeks even, before flights were fully restored. I couldn’t wait. It didn’t take me long to make the decision to go to her. Henry asked me to bring our girl home, and I couldn’t deny him that.
I pull into the lot of Cori’s hotel and quickly slip into a parking space, slamming on the brakes. I practically jump out of the car, mimicking the motion of my heart flying out of my chest, and run toward the lobby. My legs are moving so fast I don’t even call her to let her know I’m here. I’ve never set foot in the state of Indiana, let alone in that hotel, but for some reason, I navigate through it as if I had, locating the elevator immediately and pressing the button for the third floor. Call it a good guess. Call it intuition. Call it whatever the hell you want. When love fuels your desperation, anything is possible.
As soon as the elevator doors open to the third floor, I dart out, whisking around the corners of the hall in search of Cori’s room. My head spins as my heart crashes against my chest, all while trying to keep up with my moving feet. I practically fly through the corridors, rounding corner after corner like a mouse in a maze until an invisible wall brings me to a standstill.
There she is, standing at the other end of the hall in front of the vending machine, and I catch my breath. I never understood what it meant to see stars, but I am well aware of its meaning now. Because I see lots of fucking stars. And it isn’t because I’ve been running like a maniac to get here. I might pass out merely at the sight of Cori as she stands there with her hair piled in a loose bun on top of her head, and her flannel pajama bottoms hanging low on her waist, exposing the ivory skin below the hem of her tank top. So simple. So natural. And so effortlessly gorgeous.
A part of me doesn’t want to believe it, like this is one big reality fuck and in a matter of seconds, I’ll wake up. I pinch myself on the arm just to make sure. The skin turns bright red and throbs like hell in the best possible way, and thankfully, I’m still here.
When I flinch from the pain, Cori turns her head and sees me. We stand silent, our expressions deadpan, staring at one another from opposite ends of the hall. Neither one of us moves, maybe because we both want to live in the anticipation just a tad longer.
“Please tell me I’m not dreaming,” she pleads through her shaky breaths. A handful of coins falls from her grasp, making light taps against the carpeted floor as she drops her arms at her sides.
I take a step closer. “You’re not dreaming.”
“Are you sure?” She brings her hands in front of her and laces her fingers together. “Because ever since I left you, this is all I’ve thought about. If I thought there’d ever be a chance of us standing here, together again like this, then it only happened in my dreams. When I would reach for you or try to touch you, I’d wake up, and I’m afraid I’ll wake up, Nick. I don’t want to wake up.”
My lips tug at a smile at the same time my eyes fill with water. “You’re wide awake, Cori. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Before I take another step forward, she dashes toward me and jumps into my arms, hooking her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck in one fluid motion. She holds me tightly, and I bury my nose in her neck and grab fistfuls of her hair as her bun comes undone. I take a deep breath of air when a tear slides down my face and meets the swipe of her nose. Her lips move against the stubble of my cheek when she pulls away to meet my gaze.
Cori’s mouth breaks a soft smile. “I’m awake, and you’re here,” she says between her heavy breaths, a tear sliding down each of her cheeks. “You waited.”
She unhooks her legs from my waist before I set her feet on the floor. I hold her face in my hands, her cheeks warm against my skin, and brush away the tears with my thumbs. “I would have waited forever.”
“I didn’t think...I was so...God, Nick, I don’t know…”
And she breaks. The tears fall down the curves of her face, and don’t stop. My hands become damp with every tear that hits them, every fear that she’s ever had wrapped up in each one, exploding against my skin, and I soak it all up.
Wrapping my arms around her, I pull her into me as she buries her face into my chest. The moisture from her tears seeps through the fabric of my shirt, but I couldn’t care less. She can soak the entire thing. She doesn’t hold anything back, losing herself in me and exposing every one of her vulnerabilities. And it’s the bravest thing she
could ever do.
I don’t know how long we stand like this. Several minutes. An hour maybe. However long we stand here doesn’t matter because time is finally on our side.
Cori pulls her head away from my chest. Her eyes are swollen and red but no longer carry the weight of the fear that was buried within them for so long.
“I was so scared, Nick. Being on that plane and hearing about what was happening elsewhere, I didn’t know what to think. No one knew what to make of it. All I thought about was how I needed to see you again. How I needed to hear your voice. How I needed to tell you I love you. Because I do. God, Nick, I love you so much my heart may explode if I don’t say it enough. I’ve loved you for so long. I was just too afraid to admit it.”
For a moment, a pang of guilt washes over me as I think about the world outside this hallway. Nothing but love and joy fill this corridor, and if I wasn’t aware of all the grief and tragedy going on right now, I would assume the world beyond these walls were just the same.
Then I realize we can’t feel guilty. We should be thankful we’re standing here, together, because life doesn’t always give you the happy ending. But it has this time—for us—and if we allowed guilt and sorrow to dictate our lives, there’d be no point in living. People would never heal, life would never move forward, and our stories would never be told. We shouldn’t forget the adversities of the past or the pain of others, but we also can’t forget to live.
So we live, Cori and I. We live when our lips meet, our passion igniting into a full-blown fire as we eagerly take possession of each other’s last kiss. The taste of warm, salty tears invades our kisses, and regardless if they’re Cori’s or my own, I don’t care. I pull her body into me tightly, hanging on for dear life because there is no way in hell I am ever letting this girl go again. Not even the cold hollow of my grave could keep me from her. She smiles against my mouth as I whisper sweet pledges of love between our lips.
“I want to go home, Nick,” Cori pleads between our kisses. “Take me home.”