Thursday, April 30, 2009

a face in the crowd

Archie could see Emily was running away. And it didn't seem fair to him as he caught up with her in the parking lot.

"You look so beautiful tonight and you're going to have one person ruin it for you, aren't you?" He wanted to comfort her, but he knew all he had to give was to just listen and she didn't even have to do that if she didn't, want too.

"Thanks," she choked. "I'm sorry. I really am. I just-just didn't know he'd be there." She rubbed her arms then and he knew she was cold. There was a winter chill lingering. He put his jacket around her.

"So. He's there." Archie nodded.

"He doesn't even know me," Emily told him. She looked away from him then as if she wanted to explain, somehow. "I just thought I could be somebody else. Then. I wanted to be since, well, nothing was working for me the way things were, and it just sort of went weird." She squinted. "But I'm not that person. I don't want to be. I don't want to be reminded, you know, how crazy I can be."

"You have to be you, that's all there is to it." His smile was so sincere.

Emily tried to smile.

"Come on, lets go back in. We'll get our picture taken and he's just a face in the crowd now. All right," Archie said.

Emily nodded.

Archie just hoped who ever it was could keep Emily a face in the crowd.

5 comments:

ellie said...

Hopefully, Emily won't go back to her ways. I think she's grown up.

diane said...

We've all done things we wish we hadn't; dirty little secrets. No one likes to be reminded of those. It's important to realize that everybody has them, and that they are history. Even the words that I spoke 5 minutes ago are already history. If we can embrace our mistakes and learn from them, then we can be truly happy.

Unknown said...

I think Archie can get her through this.

Unknown said...

I'm glad it didn't turn out too bad.

Winnie said...

I am so captivated with this story now!