Patiently I Wait
By J.R. Stephens
©2012 J.R. Stephens
Patiently I Wait
J.W. Stephens
PUBLISHED BY:
J.W. Stephens
Copyright © 2012
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
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CHAPTER ONE: REUNITE
She stood in horror, frozen by what the lights revealed as she flipped the switch to illuminate the small, dark room. She began to shake, unable to put the thoughts running through her head into any kind of logical order. Hundreds of photographs filled the room, taking up the walls and shelves in their entirety. She stumbled backwards trying to both move and make sense of the situation simultaneously. Just before she spun to head back up the stairs behind her, she heard a voice that made every hair on her body stand straight up.
“Babe, are you okay?”
THREE DAYS EARLIER
“I think that’s the last of it,” Shannon said as she closed the trunk to her little blue sports car.
The winter holidays had given her a couple of days away from school and she had decided to go on a trip up North to visit her best friend, Julie.
“Just call me if you have any questions,” she yelled back at the housekeeper before she hopped into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and threw the car into reverse.
She figured she needed to get moving if she was going to make the eleven hour drive from Durham, NC to Ann Arbor, MI in one smooth shot. As she pulled out of the driveway she honked the horn at the waving housekeeper, pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes, and turned the radio up to a deafening level. She was in for a week that she would never forget and was more than excited to get it underway.
It had been about two years since Shannon had seen Julie, which was by far the longest stretch since they became friends in the 2nd grade. Julie promised Shannon that if she came up to visit for the holidays she would show her a good time in Ann Arbor. Shannon’s parents no longer lived in Ann Arbor. They were very wealthy and decided that a lifetime of vacationing was what they were going to do so they sold their home and moved away to sunnier weather in Southern California. Although Durham is a college town, populated by people Shannon’s age, Ann Arbor is far more exciting and entertaining on a night like Christmas Eve.
The drive was nice and smooth for Shannon. No accidents and no highway patrol to slow her down. As she blew past the city limit signs in Ann Arbor, Shannon was mesmerized by the size of the college town in which she grew up in and would spend the next few days. She was used to the college life, but not something quite of this magnitude. She almost had forgotten how large her hometown was. She looked down at her phone for directions of how to get to a local bar that Julie wanted to meet up at. Just after she pulled off the highway exit, she pulled into the parking lot at about 11 pm. She was extremely excited to see her best friend. After touching up her makeup in the rear view mirror, Shannon stepped out of the car, locked the doors and walked toward the downtown hot spot.
Shannon was not your average girl by any stretch of the imagination. She was tall, 6’1 in fact, and had a body that any man would drool over. Light blonde hair that draped down her back and stopped just above the waist line, accompanied by a light complexion that was practically flawless. At only 25 years of age, Shannon had nearly completed her Master’s Degree so her wits were by no means a downfall. She drew a lot of attention with both her stunning looks and ability to carry herself with the utmost confidence, so it didn’t come as a surprise when her longtime friend Julie was able to pick her out of the crowd at the local bar they had designated to meet at when she arrived.
“Shannon!” Julie yelled as she made her way through the masses of people to get to her best friend.
As soon as she got to her, Julie threw her arms around Shannon and squealed with excitement.
“It’s been so long,” Julie said, trying to talk over all the noise.
“It seems like forever,” Shannon responded.
“Well, now that you are here, let’s have some fun!”
Julie was much like Shannon when it came to physique. Very tall and slender, as they both played volleyball together in high school and neither had lost the figure. She had dark hair though, almost black, and bright blue eyes that could pierce your soul if you stared too long. They knew they could have anyone in the bar if they chose to do so and in the past, they enjoyed making a game of it.
The local college pub was packed wall to wall with college students that was not so unusual, even on Christmas Eve. Julie and Shannon made their way up to the bar, bumping into and squeezing around people every step of the way. Eventually they got a chance to order drinks and Julie ordered a round of drinks for the both of them.
They spent the next few minutes sitting at the bar; flirting with the blue eyed bartender that had been fixated on Shannon from the time she sat down.
“He is cute,” Shannon said to Julie.
“His name is Michael, he’s a student here,” she replied.
After Michael bought the next round of shots, Shannon told Julie she would meet her on the dance floor after she went to the restroom.
As she jostled through the crowd, Shannon slowly made her way to the back of the bar, aiming for the sign that pointed to the place she needed most. She opened the door and was disgusted by the lack of upkeep but tried to put that out of her mind knowing she really didn’t have a choice. The lone stall was littered with toilet paper and beer bottles but she, like the others that had used the facility, couldn’t hold it anymore. As she was sitting on the toilet, the handle of the door rattled violently.
“Just a minute,” Shannon yelled.
The handle shook again, harder this time but no one said anything at the door.
“Hold on, someone is in here,” she said this time, louder than the first.
She got up, washed her hands, and opened the door back to the bar. To her surprise, there was no one waiting by the door when she walked out. She figured they must have just given up and found somewhere else to relieve themselves by now.
As she walked back to the dance floor, Shannon saw Julie dancing with a young looking guy, 21 at most, on the dance floor. Once Shannon got to Julie, the guy made his way back into the crowd when Julie turned away from him to talk to her.
“Who was that?” Shannon asked.
“I’m not really sure”, said Julie as they laughed together.
Although it seemed like only minutes, hours had actually passed and it quickly became time to leave the bar. The night had been very exciting, yet brief, for Shannon’s first night in town. Since they drank quite a bit in only a few hours, both of the girls were feeling the effect of the alcohol. They stumbled out of the bar at closing time and decided it would be best to catch a cab that was idling by the curbside.
“1134 Ashley Street,” Julie told the cab driver as he shut the door behind them.
They figured that they would worry about their cars in the morning as they were in no position to drive at the moment. Julie had already informed the bar’s owner, whom she had been friends with for some time now, that they would more than likely leave the cars in the parking lot overnight that evening.
As the cab driver pulled into Julie’s driveway, Shannon noticed something that seemed a little out of place.
“Is there someone here?” Shannon asked.
“No, why?” said J
ulie.
“Your front door is wide open.”
CHAPTER TWO: WHAT A SURPRISE
The effect of the alcohol wore off in mere seconds as the girls stared at the open door in fear. There had been reported break-ins in the area according to Julie so the girls didn’t know what to do. Apparently two males had been entering homes, ransacking them while their owners were out and police were afraid of the day anyone came home to them doing so. The girls didn’t want to be the first to encounter them, not knowing what they were capable of doing if startled.
They didn’t move an inch once they opened the front gate to the yard, waiting to see if they could muster up some sort of explanation for the situation. After seconds turned to minutes, without any sign of movement, they decided to test the waters and make their way into the house. They would have to be sneaky and see if anyone was there first, and if so, not allow them to notice.
Julie decided to go in first, making her way up the stairs onto the porch. Trying to be as quiet as possible she motioned for Shannon to stay down at the bottom of the stairs so she could go in and investigate. She disappeared into the darkness of the home leaving Shannon to stand and wait on her return. After what seemed like an eternity, she decided it had been far too long and went in to see if Julie was okay.
This seemed to be a common occurrence between the two of them. The number of times that Shannon had went to the rescue of Julie in sketchy situations was countless. It seemed that whenever Julie went out to do something daring or courageous it was followed by Shannon rushing in to help.
In their senior year of high school, Julie and Shannon were out drinking at the lake by Shannon’s house. They were having a good time diving off of the dock and showing off for a group of young guys that were fishing on the bank. Julie hopped off the dock and after she didn’t surface after nearly a minute, Shannon dove in to pull her out. She had hit her head in a shallow spot and was lying at the bottom of the lake, drowning. The only reason that she was still here to walk into that house was because Shannon had saved her life that day, dragging her to the shore and giving her CPR to revive her.
This was just one of many incidents in which Julie had found herself in some sort of odd predicament where she needed help. Shannon, for some reason, had always been the one right there to come to her rescue. It seemed that wherever they went together, Julie had gotten into trouble knowing Shannon was there to guide her. As best friends, Shannon didn’t mind though, and marched into the dark house just to make sure everything was okay.
“Here we go again,” Shannon said under her breath. “Everything is going to be just fine Julie; I’m coming to get you”.
As she walked up the stairs and peered into the house, she saw nothing. It was as dark as the night outside and shadows seemed to bounce around, giving Shannon chills as she stepped through the doorway. She didn’t know the layout because of the fact that Julie had only moved into this house six months ago. She knew certain aspects of the home from hearing Julie boast about them and receiving pictures, but never actually saw it in its entirety.
As she entered the home she found herself standing in a small room that opened up into the home. On the other side of the first large room after the foyer was a hallway running to the right. She guessed this lead into the living area of the home, but since Julie hadn’t fully furnished anything yet, it was hard to tell.
“Where are you?” Shannon whispered again, desperate for help this time, hoping that miraculously Julie could answer and lead her down the right path.
Of course, silence. She knew that she couldn’t take too long investigating the layout if in fact Julie was in trouble. The two men breaking into homes could easily outmatch Julie and Shannon wasn’t about to let that happen to her as well. She needed to be free to get help if needed. She took a couple quick steps to get to the hallway, gazing around the corner when she got to it. It was pure darkness. She saw the outlines of doors, but no lights were on in the entire home still. If Julie had gone in, wouldn’t she have turned on some of the lights at least? Did her attackers turn them off to make sure Shannon didn’t have a chance in finding her easily? These were all questions running through Shannon’s head as she looked down the vacant corridor. If her phone wasn’t dead, the light from that would be useful, but that wasn’t an option. Also, Shannon didn’t want to turn the lights on herself and risk giving up her position to anyone that wasn’t welcome.
She was about to start down the hallway when she heard something. It sounded like… crying. She stopped dead in her tracks and attempted to pinpoint the direction of the sound. She knew she had to hurry now and wasn’t in the mood to think anymore. She took quick steps down the hallway and the sound grew louder. As she moved past the rooms in the hall, another big room was directly in front of her. She stood in the middle of the room, which she had gathered to be the living room, for just a second when the brightest flash of light her hit eyes which made them close immediately. She opened them quickly after and saw something she never could have imagined.
“SURPRISE!”
She jumped as she heard the twenty or so people stand up and yell at the top of their lungs. Julie was right in the middle, wielding the biggest smile she had ever seen on her face. All of her friends from high school were there as well as a couple she didn’t recognize but that didn’t matter at the time.
“What is wrong with you?” she yelled at Julie.
“I really thought you were hurt!”
“Come on sis, you know that was a good one,” Julie tried to reason as she saw the fury erupt into Shannon’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I really wanted it to be a big surprise.”
Yes, Shannon was furious, but staying that way was tough for her and especially when it came to Julie. Although she was shaking and sweating, she managed to muster up a smile and then a nervous giggle to follow.
“Okay, okay, you got me,” she said, “but don’t you ever do that again!”
Julie and the rest of the crowd chuckled, knowing that they caused Shannon a bit of distress and knowing they got away with it because of her forgiving nature.
Although it was late, and the girls had just left the bar, Shannon was still a little flustered by the events and decided to stay up and join the in on the party. Julie came from the kitchen with a drink in hand and passed it off to her.
“Whiskey for the southern bell?” asked Julie, knowing that Shannon loved whiskey, regardless of the reasoning.
“I haven’t seen some of these people in ages,” Shannon whispered, “and I don’t think I have seen some of them before at all”.
“Yeah, I invited a few people from school that I know just to make the event a little bigger; get to know them though, we usually have similar taste.”
As Shannon looked around, she started to notice what Julie was hinting at when she said that. Yes, Julie did invite a few people Shannon had never seen before, but not just a few random people. They were all young men that Julie had invited over; knowing Shannon would like them for their looks. This again, wasn’t an uncommon occurrence between the two of them. Shannon had always been shy when it came down to meeting guys outside of the bar and with Julie being the opposite; she had always tried to set Shannon up. Out of the three real boyfriends Shannon had dated, Julie had matched her up with two of them. In the short term picture, Julie did well. She found men that Shannon were attracted to but that was basically it. With Shannon’s looks the guys had no issue with being set up by Julie. In each case, Shannon always found that not only were the guys not for her, but looks couldn’t conquer all the flaws that were ever so apparent. So, as much as Julie was trying to help, she wasn’t going to fall for it again and risk hurting someone else because they weren’t what she thought they were when a glass of wine was doing all the listening. “This hasn’t worked before Julie, why do you think it would now?”
Julie calmly tried to reason with Shannon, telling her that it didn’t matter if she ended up liking them or not, but she th
ought she would enjoy meeting new people while she was in town. Of course, as much of a trick as it seemed to be on paper, Julie ended up talking Shannon into chatting with the men after a couple of the whiskey drinks that never seemed to end.
Matt, Brian, and Wade were all good looking, went to the University of Michigan, and showed extreme interest in Shannon. She worked on making it more of a friendly conversation by talking to all three together and not allowing any them to get the best of her in her inebriated state. The men each talked about things that they knew would or could possibly arouse Shannon. She wasn’t going to let this happen, not this time. She didn’t want to be in a relationship at the moment with all of her course work in the way. She didn’t have time to commit to a relationship and didn’t want to make the time right now either. The one thing she didn’t understand was how Julie, time and time again, made every guy seem perfect from the start. None of the three had any standout flaws, besides the fact that Wade was six inches shorter than her.
Julie walked over and interrupted the guys in mid conversation to offer Shannon another drink. Shannon had decided she wanted to lie down soon and another drink probably wasn’t the best idea. She did however need to go to the restroom so she politely stepped away and told the guys she would be right back.
When she got into the restroom, which she found on her own after a couple minutes of wandering the hallways, she found that she was a little more intoxicated than she had thought. The bathroom was immaculate and completed decked out with pictures, paintings, and artwork, unlike the rest of the house. She went to the sink to wash her face hoping to clear her mind a little bit so she could make a respectful exit before heading to bed. As she dried her face with the hand towel on the rack she noticed a picture of her on a shelf that seemed a little odd. Yes, she remembered the picture and when it was taken, but it wasn’t the same as it had been before. Her ex-boyfriend Dan was in the picture, which was taken by Julie at the Grand Canyon years before, smiling and holding her hand. He wasn’t in the picture now though as it appeared it had been altered to feature only herself, standing there, smiling at the camera. She thought for a moment and didn’t see why Julie would have done this, then realizing this wasn’t the strangest part about the photograph. The picture, which had never been copied, was sitting in her bedroom on a dresser when she left her house in Durham. She hadn’t given a copy to Julie, and to her knowledge, didn’t remember Julie making a copy herself. She was puzzled, trying to remember if she had done so and not remembered. Maybe it was the drinks that were fogging up her memory, and if so, why was Dan cut out of it in the first place?
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