Anticipation Novels & Stories

*Tristian's POV* Why is time going so fucking slow? We're still three days away from Saturday aka the day I make love to Haven. It's like God knows the sins we're gonna commit and was punishing us ahead of time for them. I had everything planned out. I was taking her to one of the nicest restaurants in town. My parents were letting me use the credit card. I told them I was dating a nice Christian girl (but not to bring it up to my grandma) and I wanted to take her on a nice date. They're so happy that I seemed to be turning over a new leaf.

She had been trying to tell him something important, but he never seemed to have the time or interest. Marianne felt her anxiety spike with every passing minute, her heart racing as if she'd been running. She had anticipated various reactions from Greg about the baby, none of which were positive. But she was prepared, thanks to her mother's advice to always be prepared for any circumstance. Her mother had always told her to expect the unexpected and to have a plan in place, and Marianne had taken that advice to heart.

She asked and I stood there holding my stern expression. "Hannah come inside and let us talk you'll catch a cold," she added "I will gladly become I'll," "You're being ridiculous," "Betty leave my property," "What is this some sort of relationship?, Hannah there is no future for this, you're both women, you'll never marry or-" she started and I stepped back closing the door growing tired of her rant.

My heart has grown fonder for sure and all I can hope is that hers has too. { Anastasia } Three days after receiving the necklace, I wake up with a strange, restless energy sitting just under my skin, something that does not feel like dread or sadness or even anxiety, but something lighter and more uncertain, something I do not want to name because naming it would make it real in a way I am not ready to deal with. Anticipation. I'm waiting for another letter and I can't pretend I'm not.

Because what they were looking at now— was no longer just an offer. It was adaptive. --- New terms had appeared. Subtle. Perfectly aligned. Addressing concerns Daniel hadn’t even voiced out loud. Removing friction. Eliminating doubt. Closing every gap that might cause refusal. Daniel stared at it. “How did they know that?” Victor answered immediately. “They didn’t.” A beat. “They predicted it.” --- Silence. Because that meant— this wasn’t reactive. It was anticipatory. A system not of control—

The reading glasses absent, which meant she was not intending to be in notebook mode today, she was intending to be fully present in the room. She sat across from me. “Nervous?” I said. She considered the word. “Anticipatory,” she said. “Which is adjacent to nervous but has a different direction.” “Forward facing,” I said. “Yes,” she said. “Nervous looks at the thing and worries about it. Anticipatory looks at the thing and moves toward it.” I thought that was one of the more precise distinctions she had drawn, which was notable given the precision she brought to most things.

Fate. They call it destiny or kismet. A time comes in life when there's so much happiness that getting something more than what you expected felt surreal, a figment of imagination. As if just the deepest yearning dream of yours comes alive. Your ear rings with a constant numbing feeling of the words that you yearned to hear for years. The words that now repeat in your head like a mantra of lullaby. Calming and serene. Then denial and disbelief kicked in. Questions raking one after the other. It was impossible but then again nothing was impossible for God. When with all your will you try to wake up from the blissful dream but nothing happens.

“At first, it was just… suggestions. ‘If you say X, this has Y% chance of escalating. If you say Z, it de‑escalates.’ Like a little coach in the corner of my eye. Then it started… anticipating.” “Anticipating what?” Mila asked gently. “When I wanted something, they didn’t,” he said. “If I thought about applying for a different job, the overlay would flood me with all the ways it could go wrong. All the fights it would cause. All the outcomes were where I ended up… alone.” His fingers curled in the blanket. “And if I stayed,” he continued, “it would show me… calm dinners. My boss is proud. My girlfriend… happy. The ‘regret index’ went down. So I stayed. Over and over.”

A snarl forms on his ruined lips. Then the world holds its breath . The wind dies. The grove’s unnatural rustling stops. Even the moans of the fallen Kin seem muffled. A pressure builds, immense, suffocating. The bruised sky darkens further, not to night, but to an absolute, devouring absence of light. The air crackles, not with energy, but with the anticipation of annihilation. He looks up. They all do. Towards the sky. Towards the vast, silent shadow now blotting out the stars entirely. Not distant anymore. Here .

I parried, deflected, and advanced, each move calculated. At one point, he leaned slightly forward, his voice almost conversational, yet sharp as a blade: “Ms. Delgado, it’s remarkable how quickly you’ve adapted. But tell me — do you ever pause to consider that anticipation alone may not suffice? That there are nuances you cannot foresee?”