The Awaited Date

As we made our way to the restaurant I had in mind, things felt kind of awkward. The silence between us was heavy. So I thought of doing something to hopefully break the ice between us. I look to my right and see Autumn looking out the window, a contemplative look on her face as if she was thinking hard about something.

"Hey, what's on your mind, if you don't mind me asking?" I ask her, which seems to snap her back to reality.

Nothing much, really. I'm just taking in the view of the city. I always take the bus so I never get to see the city through different views like this one." She responds while still looking out the window at the cityscape.

"Yeah, it really is a sight to see, especially if from afar and up in the air," I stop and think for a second. "I guess trash can be appreciated when looked from far enough that you can't really discern what it is you're looking at."

Autumn chuckles a little and I can feel her looking over at me. "This city truly is garbage, like honestly, I feel so bad for everyone who wants to come live here thinking it will be like a movie or something. Homeless people everywhere, dog poop all over the sidewalks, and oh my God, it just stinks of pee in so many places."

I chuckle for a bit before saying, "Yeah, this city is honestly a shithole, excuse my language. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why people choose this city."

The small talk died down pretty quickly after that, so I came up with the genius idea of listening to music.

"Hey, can you unlock my phone? Here," I say as I hand her my phone. "The password is 060399, open up Spotify and play any song you like."

"Wow, we haven't even started our first date and you've already given me your phone's password," she says as she waves my phone around. "Ok, but actually, I'm more interested in seeing what kind of music you like to listen to…" she trails off as she starts to look through my playlists.

"Um, sure, that's an option as well. But most of my music is on the slower pace of things." I respond, giving her an idea of what kind of music it is I listen to.

"Workout Playlist…Just Chillin'... Sad Songs. Reminiscing… Lonely… Solitude… Hopeless love… yeah you're really into some depressing music, and you're striking me as a hopeless Romantic. Let's see this 'Hopeless Love' playlist." She says as she taps on the playlist called 'Hopeless Love.'

"Actually I want to be surprised by what songs you have here, so lets just put this in shuffle mode." She says as she puts the playlist in shuffle and the music starts to play.

*🎵🎵Guitar chords playing🎵🎵*

'Oh great, this fucking app, the shuffle chose the one song that always has me thinking of her, the worst song to play out of all of them,' I think to myself.

"Oh wow, I didn't think you'd also be a Tom Odell fan, I love this song." She says as she starts to sway her head slowly side to side in rhythm with the guitar chords. She then surprises me even more as she starts to sing along "I wanna go party, I wanna have fun, I wanna be happy, could you show me how it's done?"

Her voice is angelic and it sends shivers down my spine. I decide I can't let her have all the fun so I join in with her "You look so pretty, pretty like the sun. I could watch forever while you shine on everyone." I take my eyes off the road and look at her as I sing this verse.

We then started singing together, creating a harmony that was special to this song and I had never heard before since this song was only sung by one person.

"It's Black Friday, we're in a black taxi,

You take my hand and hold it gently on the middle seat

It's all in my head, it's all in my mind

I'm so selfish, you're so kind…"

As we sing the lyrics, the song seems to connect us, maybe I was too harsh on Spotify, it chose the perfect song. The song ends and then the next plays.

'Oh God, not this song' start thinking only for my Autumn's voice to throw a wrench at my thoughts, "Oh my God, you have great taste in music, I love this song, and looking at the actual song on your playlist, we're pretty much on the same page on the music we listen to."

'What?' is all I manage to think as Reflections by The Neighborhood starts to play.

"🎵🎵Where have you been? Do you know when you're coming back?🎵🎵" Again, she starts off singing the song while I'm in stunned silence. I snap out of it and join her when the song reaches its first chorus.

"🎵🎵We were too close to the stars, I never knew somebody like you, somebody.🎵🎵"

"🎵🎵Falling just as hard, I'd rather lose somebody than use somebody.🎵🎵"

"🎵🎵Maybe it's a blessing in disguise (I sold my soul for you). I see my reflection in your eyes.🎵🎵"

By the time we finally arrived at the restaurant I had in mind, we had ended up singing along to a few other songs, something that felt like it was drawing us closer to each other. We park in a nearby parking lot and then we walk to the building where the restaurant is located in. Once inside the building, we walked for a bit before finding the entrance of the restaurant.

"Wow, this place is beautiful," Autumn says as she looks around and then up at the greenhouse-style ceiling that's made out of glass.

"You like it? It is some very fine work indeed." I say as I smile to myself.

We then walk up to the host who greets us with a smile on his face.

"Bonjour monsieur, bonjour madame, welcome to La Grande Boucherie," the host says.

"Hello, can I please have a table for 2?" I say.

"Yes, monsieur. May I know if you have a reservation?"

"*sigh* No, we do not," I sigh as I had forgotten to make a reservation. "Are you guys accepting walk-ins today?"

"Unfortunately sir, we are not accepting any walk-ins today as there are many reservations," the host replies in an understanding tone as they usually allow walk-ins, but today they were just booked.

"Let's just look for another place to eat at--" Autumn starts saying before she's interrupted by a loud whistle. We all turn and see a man who seems to be in his late 40s with a messy head of hair and a graying beard walking towards us.

"Mr. Stefkov, how may I be of service?" the host asks politely.

I smile as the man, Emil Stefkov keeps approaching us without saying a word but with a smile plastered on his face. When he finally reaches us, he extends his hand out to me for a handshake which I promptly reciprocate with a smile on my face.

"Aspen!" Emil says, "It's been some time."

"Mr. Stefkov, indeed it has. How have you been?" I reply.

"Ah, I've been doing great, I love this," he says as he opens his arms wide, clearly referring to the restaurant.

"I'm glad to see and hear how pleased you are years after the fact," I say, the smile still on my face.

"Yes, I love it," he pauses and then turns to Autumn and asks, "And who may this gorgeous madame be?"

"I'm Autumn," she replies.

"Your wife or girlfriend, I presume?" Emil asks while turning to me.

"Hopefully," I say.

"We'll see about that," Autumn says, a blush starting to spread on her cheeks.

"Ooh, I take it this is your first date then?" Emil says in a teasing tone.

"Yes, it is," I reply.

"Well then, I'll leave you two to it," he turns to the host and says to him, "Mark, this here is Mr. Aspen Del Santo, the architect behind our magnificent restaurant. He is always welcome here free of charge and without the need for a reservation. Understood?"

Mark, the host, looks a bit shocked but quickly regains his composure. "Yes, sir, understood." He then turns towards Autumn and I and says, "Please give us a minute while we arrange a table for you both," and leaves to find us a table.

I feel a light tap on my arm and turn to face Autumn who's looking at me with a slightly shocked look. "You designed this place?" she asks me.

"Yeah, I really appreciate that you find it so beautiful," I say, with a warm smile on my face. I then hear the host walking back to us and turn towards him.

"Alright madame, Mr. Del Santo, if you would please follow me," the host, Mark, says.

We follow him to a table that has been obviously set apart from the majority of the other tables and patrons and exudes elegance. As we sit down Mark hands us both a menu and says "I'll be personally attending to you this afternoon. I'll give you some time to go over the menu and I'll be returning to take your order. Just call me whenever you're ready."

As Mark takes his leave, Autumn is still looking at me with some shock on her face.

"Ernesto had told me you were an architect and that you were doing fairly well for yourself, but I never imagined this," she says.

"Well, this isn't much, honestly. This is one of the smaller projects I've worked on." I lean in closer to her and whisper "I only took this project because I was bored and had nothing to do for like a month."

"Wow, show-off," she scoffs.

"What? It's the truth," I say with a shrug of my shoulders. "Alright, let's see what we wanna get now." We both start to look at our menus and find what then I call Mark over.

"Have you decided on what you'll be having?" He asks.

"Yes, she'll be having a…" I start and wait for Autumn to answer.

"I'll have a Filet Mignon Au Poivre, well done," she orders.

"Ok, and what about you monsieur?"

"I'll also be having a Filet Mignon Au Poivre, very well done, and Prime Steak Frites, also very well done," I order.

"Ok, anything to drink?" Mark asks.

"Water, please," we both say at the same time.

"Ok, we'll be right with you in a little while," Mark says as he rips the paper he used to write down our orders from his notepad and walks towards the kitchen.

Autumn and I make small talk while we wait for our food to be brought to us.

"So, tell me about yourself," Autumn tells me.

"What would you like to know?"

"Hmm, let's see, I don't know. Parents, where you're from, where you grew up, school yadi yada, all that kind of boring stuff," she says as she starts to smile.

"Ok, ok. Well, time for me to bring the mood down. I'm an orphan, never met either one of my parents, they both died before I could even open my eyes," I start, to which Autumn reaches out and holds one of my hands with two of hers, which is kind of a funny sight since my hands are much bigger.

"Same over here," she says, a sad smile on her face.

I nod and then continue, "I wasn't wanted by either side of my family, so I was ping-ponged from home to home until I turned 16, entered college and then aged out." To this I could see her face morph into that of sympathy, I could tell we differed here. "I did Aerospace Engineering as my first bachelor's and then architecture. I started working for one of my professors and life has been good every since."

"For me, my aunt, my mother's youngest sister, took me in and raised me as her own. My Dad was a firefighter who had gone inside to try and save the dog of a family that was stuck in one of the upstairs rooms in a housefire. Everyone else was outside and the fire was supposed to have been controlled, that's what my mom (aunt) says, but an unexpected explosion that leveled the entire house took his life." She stops for a second to catch her breath, but clearly not affected emotionally by this.

"Nobody knew it at the time, but my mother was pregnant with me. She was a teacher, and mom says she was a beautiful soul, always kind and sweet, but that she seemed to have lost all of that when my dad died. And then she ended up not being strong enough to give birth to me and died while I was still inside her. They had to do an emergency C-section to take me out and I was incubated for like, the first 3 months of my life. And well, here I am, I turned out to be a Media Analyst." She said, turning the atmosphere around by smiling.

I look at her and squeeze her hands. "You know, I don't feel anything for my parents. I don't know if it's because I never met them or because I just never had anyone stepping up and taking their place. Do you find it weird?" I ask her.

"No, actually I understand you. I don't really feel anything for either one of my biological parents. I never met them, never had them. To me, it's like they never existed. But mom tells me I resemble my mother so much." She pauses and sighs, "I don't know what to think, but it's definitely not weird to not feel anything for people who are pretty much strangers to you."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I say. We just sit there for about 5 more minutes discussing other things such as hobbies we have, things we like to do, and what we like to eat. Then we spotted Mark pushing a cart with food on it and heading our way.

"Madame, monsieur, here is your meal. If you need me, you know where to find me. Please enjoy," he says as he sets down our food and water before taking his leave.

"Are you sure you're going to eat all of that?" Autumn says as she looks at my 2 orders of food and then at me questioningly.

"Yup, why you want some?"

"Yes, actually, let me take some of those fries," she says and motions to my plate with fries and steak.

"Sure, here you go," I say and start passing some fries over from my plate to hers. We then start to eat to our heart's content.

Once we were done we stood up to leave and walked to Mark.

"Here you go Mark, thank you for your excellent service and food," I say as I hand him $200, which would have been around the price of our meal if we had to pay.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Del Santo. I'm glad you were pleased with your dining experience. Please do come join us for breakfast, lunch, or dinner whenever you'd like. La Grande Boucherie will always welcome you both," Mark says in a warm and welcoming manner.

"Thank you, Mark, I'll make sure to do so," I say as we leave. I spot Emil on my way out and wave at him, expressing my gratitude. We then walked to the parking lot and were about to get in my Durango when I remembered something.

"Hey, Central Park is pretty much around the corner, why not go for a walk now? Sun is starting to set, it should be a beautiful walk."

"Yeah but I'm honestly bloated, I don't feel like going for a walk now," Autumn responds.

"Fair enough."

So we get my Durango and head out. It's about 8 pm now and the sun was starting to set. We put on some more of my depressing and love-stricken music and take Riverside Dr. and we're able to witness the sun going down to our left as we go up in street numbers. Traffic is terrible to by the time we get to her apartment, it is already 9:13 pm. We then just sit in my SUV in double parking in front of her building and start to have a conversation.

"Hey, you remember when we were at church this afternoon?" I ask

"Yeah, what about it?" she replies.

"Well, I was thinking about what you said, about having had the same experience when you came to God," I say.

"Yeah, it's quite the thing to go through, isn't it?" she asks.

"Yeah, it is," I pause for a second, debating with myself if I wanted to share what I was about to share or not. In the end, I decided to share it, because why not? "While I was in that place, God told me something. Now I know this will sound corny and cheesy as hell," I stop thinking one last time if I really want to say this, but my lips move faster than my mind thinks. "And well, He pretty much said we are destined for each other. His last 2 creations he had forged with his very own hands."

I look at Autumn who doesn't say anything but doesn't look surprised either. She seems to be taking this at face value. "You're not…surprised, or laughing, or shocked at all?" I ask, to which she shakes her head no.

"I went through the same thing," she says. "God told me I would have to go through trials and tribulations I could have never imagined before. And oh boy was He right. He said that it was all for me to become worthy of something, but never specified what. Just that this something was enough to change this entire universe and that the potential jailed within me and my future significant other was the key to it, but for that, I'd have to wait to meet him and for him to undergo his trials too," she paused for a second. "He said that I'd know who that man would be because he would share with me the same experience of having been pulled elsewhere to talk to Him and would tell me the same words you just told me."

I sat there in silence and contemplation at what Autumn had just told me. "I see," was the only thing i managed to say. I got out of the SUV and opened the door for Autumn and walked her to her apartment. Once at her door, she inserted her key into it and opened her door.

I leaned in for a hug to say goodbye to her, something inside me was telling me I wouldn't see her for a while after tonight. Maybe next Sunday at church. When we hugged, she held me tight, as if I was either a friend or family member she hadn't seen in ages.

She then spoke into my ear: "Your trials, they will be harder than you can ever imagine, make sure you pass them all. Starting tonight everything you ever thought you knew will be flipped on its head and things will get crazy and hectic," she warned me as she broke apart from me.

"Ho-how do you know that?" I ask her.

"Did you forget, I already did mine," she replied with a smile on her face. "You'll have to relearn what it means to be human, what it means to show mercy, who to show it to, and if it should be shown at all. The limits of everything that defines you as human will be stretched as thing as a hair strand, just make sure you don't lose yourself in it. This is the only advice I can give you and you don't know just how much I wish someone would have given it to me too."

I nod at her advice and look at her with a confused look on my face. I go to tell her something but only managed to say, "Autumn-" Before she promptly puts her hand over my mouth.

"Say whatever it is you want to say when you get back. Good luck." She said.

I accept what she said, confused about what she meant by 'when I get back,' but happy nonetheless. I left her apartment building and got in my Durango, which was double parked. Luckily no cop had come around in the time and given me a ticket. I put it in drive and start making my way home.

As I'm about to turn into the street of my apartment building I look at the clock on my dashboard which reads 10:10 pm. "Well, whatever it is that I have to get ready for will happen in about 2 hours. I'll just get home, shower, and relax in that time, because it seems that whatever it is I will go through, it will be stressful as hell." I say to myself as I wait for the light to turn green.

The light turns green and I turn into my street, coming to a stop about halfway through it, waiting for traffic to let me through so I can get in the parking lot of the building. I finally get the chance as I'm thinking 'wait, but I also have class tomorrow, I'm going to have to send an email asking for an excused absenc--'

*SQUEEELLLL*

*BEEP BEEP*

*SQUEELLL*

*BOOM*

*METAL TWISTING*

*BOOM*

*Third Person POV*

As Aspen is finally allowed to turn left and cross the street into his building's parking lot, a sanitation truck that was going well above the 25 miles per hour speed limit slams into the back of his Durango and sends it careening into an oncoming semi that was slowing down. Squishing the Durango between the two and ripping its frame in half, sending car parts flying everywhere over the paved street.

About 6 minutes later first response vehicles start making their way to the accident scene, with police vehicles being the first. They close off the accident scene and let the firefighters do their thing. It was a crash involving 6 vehicles: a semi-truck, a sanitation truck, Aspen's Durango, 2 cabs, and an unfortunate Rav-4 that got crushed along with its occupants when the sanitation truck flipped on top of it.

10:25 pm, the sanitation truck driver was under arrest and appeared to be under the influence of either drugs or alchohol.

10:35 pm, the occupants of the 2 cabs had been safely removed from their vehicles with firefighters still working hard on what was left of Aspen's SUV.

11:00 pm, a crane arrives at the scene to flip the sanitation truck upright. Miraculously, the 3 occupants of the Rav-4, a mother and her 2 kids, were unscathed under the immense weight of the sanitation truck.

11:30 pm, the firefighters were finally able to get Aspen out of what was left of his SUV. To everyone's shock, he is still alive, but barely hanging on. They put him in an ambulance and sent him to the nearest major hospital.

At 11:43 pm, the ambulance arrives at the hospital and Aspen is rushed into surgery. He has a collapsed lung, multiple broken bones, a fractured skull, and his heartbeat is slowing. The Operating Doctor is the same man who patched Aspen up this morning, Dr. Ivan Cabrera.

At 11:55 pm Aspen goes into cardiac arrest. Doctors try to resuscitate him.

12:00 am

"Patient Aspen Del Santo, Time of death, 12:00 am. Cause of death, trauma, collapsed lung, cardiac arrest. We did everything we could, Dr. Cabrera. I'm sorry, he was just too broken to put back together." A nurse tells Dr. Cabrera who is holding back tears.

"I saw him this morning, he was just a kid with a small concussion, and now some drunk bastard took his life." Dr. Cabrera said in between sobs.

12:01 am….

4059 Words 🙂