I’ll Wait For You

“That’s not the point I meant and you know it. Go on,” Tina urged.

“No,” Elinor said, disliking the disappointment that flickered in her friend’s eyes. “But maybe next week. If I am going to sing, I want to train my muscles again. It has been a really long time, Tina. And I can’t remember the words of all the songs I’ve made.”

“Just sing a famous one you know.”

“That’s not what I like to do and you know it.” She didn’t want to admit to her friend that she shared the same opinion as her parents and her former husband. Singing was something to do as a hobby. Not something she wanted to head anywhere with, or could be expected to. There was something else she preferred to do, but even then, she didn’t know if it was her passion.

There was no point chasing a dream, when Elinor didn’t even know if it was what she wanted. However, at twenty-eight years of age, with a failed marriage beside her, and a full-time job at a small café waitressing, she felt age creeping on her. Bit by bit, along with the empty realization that her life was slipping by, quietly and without preamble.

She was twenty-eight. What did she have to show for her life? Just a cold apartment, some good friends, the expected phone-call from her parents every day. She wasn’t going anywhere, not really. She stagnated in her hometown, working the same job, sticking to the same routine, without any variation whatsoever.

Of course, sitting in a bar with her friends was not the best place to have a quarter life crisis, either. Tina and Peter were here to enjoy their evening with her, not to hear her moan about the things that had gone wrong.

Just then, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Frowning, she reached for it and checked, heart sinking when she saw the message was from Aidan.

Aidan: She gave birth to a boy. Curse has ended.

Elinor’s veins turned to ice. Barely containable emotions came crashing through her, causing her to feel sick. Pale faced, she shoved the phone towards Tina, before getting up and making a hasty retreat to the woman’s bathroom.

Tears bottled up behind her eyelids, and she went into an unoccupied stall and sat on it, arms wrapped around her belly. The memories of her bloody failures came like lightning bolts in her mind, an echo of the things she had wanted to forget.

A moment later, Tina was banging on the stall door, demanding to be let in, and she joined Elinor, who could no longer control her emotions, and let them out in wailing sobs.

“That bas*ard,” Tina said, again and again, shivering in rage. “Fu*king bas*ard.”

Elinor clung onto her friend, breathless from crying, as she forced out, “Why did he have to do that?” The horrible feelings kept undulating, making her world spin. “It’s not like I could have helped what damn well happened, is it?”

“I know. Ssh. Ssh. It’s okay,” Tina said, stroking the hair of her best friend. “It’s okay.”

Stifling her tears, Elinor allowed her friend’s voice to soothe her.

Five years of marriage. Three miscarriages, and no children. That was all Elinor had to show from her relationship with Aidan. That, and his disappointment, his panic that he had married someone who might be incapable of conceiving his children.

This came to her, along with uncovering the affair, and the new woman’s pregnancy. All these things remained fresh in her heart, where a small hole had cracked open.

“Ssh. Dry up your tears, and then we’ll go out, and try and enjoy the rest of the evening? Okay? Don’t let him get to you. It’s what he wants.”

After a moment, Elinor nodded, took deep breaths, put on a smile to cover the chinks in her armor, and went back out into the bar, determined to try and salvage the rest of the evening.

She could cry later, when alone at home.