It's Like I've Waited My Whole Life Novels & Stories

Like a decision someone has already made and is simply waiting to act on. I've been wanted before. This feels different. I press the tip of my pen to the page and smile, very slightly, at nothing in particular.

“Until the day you turned sixteen, which is the norm. Doesn’t really count. Name something you desperately wanted and had to wait for, or had to fight for. Something you’ve earned rather than been given?” I shifted, uncomfortable with the question because it was so accurate. I honestly couldn’t think of anything I’d had to wait or work for. School came easy to me, even my exclusive Ivy League university, where I got an MBA. Sports were also second nature, though I hadn’t been on a rugby or polo field for a few years. Women were the least challenging of all. All I had to do was look sideways at one, and she was ready to fuck me. I let out a low sigh. “Okay, I concede you might have a point. I

Maybe I had. Life had a way of taking years from you when you weren’t paying attention. At twenty-two, I felt like I had already lived a lifetime only that it wasn’t the kind of life I had imagined. It wasn’t the picture-perfect life that people dream of when they’re young, when they believe the world is full of endless opportunities and a future that’s always just within reach.

The Adam that no one else but me could see I'd woken up with a start, recalling the message and had taken my phone to check if I hadn't been hallucinating. Turns out I wasn't. "Four hours. Give me four hours,"I texted. Adam replied almost instantly, "I have waited weeks. I can wait four more hours. I'll be waiting." My heart raced with excitement and I clutched the phone to my chest. He had texted. Finally! I had waited for so long that I almost gave up. Perhaps that was the problem. Waiting.

I don’t know if you want anything from me besides drinks on weekends and those little stolen moments when it feels like the whole world is holding its breath. But if you do want more—if there’s even a sliver of you that wants to see where this thing could go—then I’ll be there. Every Friday. Every Saturday. Every Sunday. Waiting. For you. I won’t beg. I won’t push. But I need you to know: you’re the first thing in years that’s made me feel alive again. I’m not good at saying this stuff out loud. But I had to try. Because if I didn’t… I’d regret it for the rest of my goddamn life.

"Not me." "But you let her into your life. You let her into your space. While I was here, waiting, telling myself you would call." I shook my head. "I waited two years, Eden. Two years before I accepted that waiting was the same as disappearing." He said nothing for a long moment. The music from inside the hall drifted out through the walls, something slow, something sad. I recognized it without wanting to. Little Do You Know. Of all the songs.

I answer him. Apart from me, who could describe how difficult and disappointing waiting could be. Who could describe how disappointing and tiring waiting could be? But even after waiting for so long, I had never given hope. Even after it was tiring like hell, I had never given up on him. But I don't what has my waiting brought upon me. Whether it has brought me happiness or is it the disappointment that I am not being able to describe at all. "Have you ever waited for someone?" he asks me.

And considered replying. Because while part of my life had just ended, another part was quietly waiting. Patiently. Without pressure. Without expectations. Just waiting until I was ready. And somehow, that meant everything.

"That's the risk of patience too. You're treating caution like it's free. It isn't. Every day you wait to act is a day the ping keeps firing, a day whoever built this keeps knowing where you stand." "I know that better than you do. I'm the one whose coordinates it's sending." "I know you know it. I'm the one who has to stand in that terminal room every time it fires and not let the sound of it decide what I do next." He said it without raising his voice, which somehow made it land harder than if he had. "You held the compass and the letter face-down for three weeks before you could look at either one. I understand patience. I've watched you build a religion out of it since your father died.

she asks. "Survive what? What do you mean?" "Everything. The kidnapping. The media. The years apart. The silence. The pain. The uncertainty. The waiting. The not knowing. The fear. The grief." I look at Ethan. He's talking to someone else. Laughing. He looks happy. He looks free. He looks like himself. He looks whole. He looks like he's been reborn. "Because he was worth it," I say. "He was always worth it. He's always been worth it. I would have waited forever. I would have waited a lifetime. I would have waited until the end of time. I would have waited until the stars burned out."