A short story about love and regret by David Tombale: Among the dust

Among the dust

The smell of dust sat around the apartment, filling the little gaps between the furniture and the floors, the picture frames and the vase where a bunch of dead roses sat. Patrick looked around the room and could only see her ghost putting up their olive green curtains or humming a little song to herself while she chopped onions by their kitchen counter.

He was lying on the floor trying to find the strength to get up but without her there seemed no point. In one hand he held a sneaker of hers he’d found at the back of their closet. It still smelled like her. Her letters were arrayed around him a little like a chalk outline around a body. She’d written such beautiful letters; not like other people did, professing love and regurgitating clichés, no she knew how to tell a story, how to capture your imagination with her passion.

Patrick only wished he’d shared her gift, maybe then he might have been able to write what was in his heart. Something like how her kiss had been the one thing he went to sleep dreaming about and was the first thing he wanted to wake up to. God how she’d laughed and fought him off complaining about his morning breath. They’d wrestle playfully until he pinned her down and kissed her all over her face lastly capturing her lips with his. She’d always lean in pressing her body against his and he’d want her all over again.

Somewhere down the hall he could hear the phone ringing. Patrick reluctantly lifted his arm and looked at his watch. It was a quarter to two, twenty minutes until the wedding. Somebody started pounding on the door and he could hear voices shouting his name but all he wanted to do was lie there with the dust. Maybe they’d find his body years from now, with the decayed remains of her letters and the rags of his black suit covering his bones.

He heard the door open and the click of heels on the wooden floors. Someone stopped by his side and sat down. When he looked up he could only see her white dress before she tore her veil from her head. She lay by his side and met his eyes. She still looked exactly the same as she had on the day he left. The same long black hair and the same intelligent blue eyes that he’d loved so much. She laid her hand on Patrick’s cheek and cried.

“Why didn’t you come?” she asked him.

“Why didn’t you wait?” he whispered.

“I did. I waited three long years for you to come back to me,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted,” Patrick said.

“And have you? Do you know what you want now?” she asked.

He moved closer to her until their foreheads met. “I want world peace, an end to starvation, the Cubs to win the World Series and that you never marry anyone but me.”

She smiled through her tears. “Is that all? So are you proposing?”

Patrick kissed her tasting her tears on her lips and felt his heart swell in his chest. “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Rebecca Cousins will you marry me?”

“Hmmm,” she seemed to think about it, “maybe,” she said, kissing him once, twice then grabbing him like she’d never let go and kissing him with all the strength she had.