Anxiously Waiting

She sat by the phone, anxiously awaiting his call for hours. It seemed like an eternity had passed since she last heard his voice. She had managed to finish her duties as wife and mother earlier in the night, and all she had left was to wait around for him... and pray that the baby and Adam continued in their deep sleep upstairs.

The hands on the clock seemed to move much more slowly than normal. What was with the waiting game he was playing? He had always been a night owl, but time was an hour ahead where he had gone.

*Ring*

She gasped.

The phone barely made it through the frst ring when she jumped on it.

"Hello?"

Silence.

"Hello," she repeated, listening closely to anything on the other end that might be a sign he was there. There was nothing - nothing but the sound of her heavy breathing. She slowly closed the phone and placed it carefully back on the table in front of her. For a few moments, she silently stared at the closed phone, trying hard to contain the sound of her breathing for fear that she might miss the next ring.

Only moments later, it rang again. This time, she answered a lot quicker than before. "Hello?" The number showed restricted just as it had previously.

This time she heard something different. Rather than just her breathing, she heard someone else's.But the person didn't speak. It was just breathing. But, she knew. A sense of peace washed over her for the brief moment before her heart began to pound heavily again.

The silence outside of their breathing continued for what seemed like forever. Then he let out a quiet sigh that sent her heart racing, skipping several beats along the way.

"Joey," she questioned as if somehow, she needed the reassurance that it was him.

Then, in response, she heard his voice:

I finally found the nerve to say, I'm gonna make a change in my life, starting here today. I surrender all my love, I never thought I could. I'm giving all my love away, and there's only one reason that I would, and baby, it's you...

He always knew how to win her over - how to make her fall for him over and over again. She smiled, laughed a little, almost cried, and smiled again as he belted out the rest of the song in her ear. Despite her best effors, a tear or two managed to escape, but she continued to listen. This was her favorite part of him - his uncanny ability to make her feel like she was the only thing in the world that mattered to him.

"I just wanna be yours, from this day forth," he ended. Hundreds of miles away, and he still managed to make her feel millions of buterflies without much of an effort. The fact that he could barely carry a tune didn't matter. It was his voice and the words he borrowed from someone else that made all the difference in the world.

"I love you," she managed to squeeze out between happy tears. "When are you coming home?"

"Soon. I have to be there for court in a few weeks, if we can make it by then." Seemed like he was always caught up in some kind of mess. But, she didn't care. If it meant being by his side, she would've walked across fire just to be there. "What about Adam? It's not like I can come to your house and say with you or see you."

"Don't worry about him," she foolishly replied. "I'll come to town to where you're going to be. Adam and I aren't working out real well anyway. We haven't slept in the same room together in months. I want you. I just have to finish out my lease here, and I'll be gone."

"I love you, Brandy. I'll call you again as soon as I can."

"I love you too. I'll be waiting." She couldn't help but break down when he hung up the phone. Their phone calls were usually brief and made her want to be near him that much more. They had been through hell and back over the years, and it had come to a point where she never knew which phone call might be their last. But, she kept waiting and praying for him to come back to Tennessee where he belonged - where they could start a life together and pick up where they left off, like nothing had ever gotten in their way.



Copyright 2011 Rachelle Long