Ignition

Perhaps the time wasn't right. She thought it wasn't right, but that doesn't mean it wasn't right. Perhaps, though, it wasn't. She didn't know what to know anymore. She thought about it some more. No one would see her here, at the front door, right? Well, maybe the people driving down the street might see her, but to them, she was just getting ready to knock. There was no way a passing car would stare for long enough to realize she was just standing at the door, staring.

Even if they looked for ten, fifteen seconds, they would still assume she knocked and was simply waiting for the door to be opened. From a third party's perspective, she was certainly not acting out of the ordinary. Actually, it would be a second part's perspective, she thought, because "third party" would assume there was a person other than her in the situation. Regardless, a second party's perspective certainly would still place her in a situation of normality. Somehow, though, this thought was not comforting.

It wasn't comforting because she knew that if the second party was him, he who made her angry and joyous and sad and nervous and excited all at once, she would be anything from normal, far removed from average, and certainly well above the level of casual surprise. If he saw her there, standing like an idiot with his letters in her hand, he would certainly be baffled. Why hadn't they spoken in months? Where were his due responses to those heartfelt letters? How come she never contacted him? Did she get his other messages?

But the thing that made her most nervous was not that she would be dumbfounded by those questions, but rather, that she had answers to all of them but knew them to be inadequate, at least by her own standards. She knew that anything she said would not justify how wrong she was, how immoral her actions were, nor how amoral her complacency must appear.

She clenched her fist and leaned her hairline on the door, placing her head's weight just below the old-fashioned knocker, and to her bewilderment, it opened. She put her hands up to push herself on the door back into her natural vertical stance, but the door was no longer there, so she took a step forward and nearly fell right into him.

She regained her composure as quickly as she could as he stood there in bafflement. This, however, was not the kind of surprise she had in mind.

"What...uh...hello?" he began.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Not for almost falling on you, but...well for almost falling on you, too, but not just that. I'm sorry, uh, for everything. You know, before...this."

She looked away to hide her embarrassment, now both for her physical blunder and her past mistakes.

"It's okay, I guess. Do you wanna come inside?" he offered, opening the door wider to welcome her.

"Oh," she said, mildly surprised. "Were you going somewhere? I don't wanna stop you. I just came to say sorry and maybe talk about some things, you know, but I don't wanna do it if you're busy, right?" She chuckled nervously. He did not.

"No, I wasn't going anywhere. My friends down the street called and said there was a lady in yellow standing at my door. They thought I didn't hear you knocking, which, to be honest, I didn't."

"I didn't," she replied. "How long were they watching me?" She turned around to see if she could find any faces at the windows, visually intruding on her embarrassment and thereby compounding it.

"I didn't ask, but they don't live on the other side. I don't think they could have seen you from their house. They said they saw you on the way home and as they were leaving, so I assume you've been here for awhile?"

"Yeah," she said, looking down. It's amazing how long you can avoid looking into someone's eyes when you're really committed, she thought.

"So..." he muttered. "Come inside?"

She looked around, back at her car, checked her cell phone for the time, did not pay any heed to it, and replied, "No, it's really...It's okay. I'll call you, uh, or something."

"No, please, come inside. You look tired. I'll make some tea or something. I was just watching The Wonder Years on DVD. You used to love that show as a kid." He smiled his famously familiar and warm smile.

She paused. It was the same smile that snared her mother, the same one that made sure she slept well every night before turning off the lights.

"No, it's really...it's okay, dad," she said, starting to back up. "I just, you know, have some things to do. I'll be in town for awhile, so we can hang out or something."

"Yeah," he said, still smiling. "That'd be cool. You have my number, right?"

"Yeah. I got it from mom. I'll call you!" she was turned around now, walking on the sidewalk, toward her car. She didn't look back. She knew he would wait until she left, to make sure she got on her way safely. Tears started to line her eyes. She furrowed her brow and clenched her lips, stuffing his letters in her jacket pocket. She opened the door to her car, and from the periphery of her vision, saw that the front door was still open, that vague yet familiar figure still standing there to watch over her.

And, somehow, to Ellie, the car's ignition never sounded so sad, like it somehow knew it was never meant to return.