Book One In The Ahh-Ness Of Things Series: April & Donnie were once inseparable, but now almost six years have passed since she left NYC. What if April O'Neil could set the record straight, once & for all! The only girl down enough to chill with the...
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Donnie had fallen asleep against the wall, keeping guard over me. For a little while, I had watched him sleeping. It wasn't the usual deal. Normally, I'd wake up to him waiting & wonder how long he'd been there. He would smile his goofy smile & a giddy, dreamy look would come over him. He was a big, silly kid. Now he was the weary attendant. Dutiful, responsible, obligated.
His eyes were heavy, his high rounded brow relaxed & the downward point of his mouth; half open. He was exhausted; his cheek resting on his slumped shoulder. I stared in introspection as he slept, waiting for him to wake, like he always had before. He was all arms & legs, crossed up against the cold bricks. I laid my hand on his face & ran my thumb over the splash of lilac freckles, beneath his eyes. They made his face so boyish.
That was what I had held on to. It wasn't that I hadn't respected his intelligence; the great mental prowess he possessed. It was that I leaned more on his humor; his smart ass wit. While I always knew he had the ability to protect me, I valued more the fact that I knew he wouldn't leave me without attention. A crutch to avoid believing he had real wants & needs. He would always follow my lead, he would always agree with me. Worst of all, I viewed his sarcasm only as his propensity for impatience... & only with everyone else. Someone so sweet & attentive to me could never loose their patience with me. It could never be condescending, only a joke. I think that's why his brother's had never really taken him seriously, in concern to me. He would never lash out at me. He always listened. He was always like child. That's what I had held on to all these years that I had been gone. That's what I had expected to return to. A child waiting at the door, for me to come home.
I felt more & more ashamed of myself, sitting there looking at him; for putting my ridiculous expectations on him, & what for? Because he couldn't grow up, in my mind. He couldn't ever take responsible ownership for anything? Even the things he created. They were insane extensions of his imagination. Yet here he was; a young man with all of the dreams & desires a young man should have. The complexities & inner workings of young male confidence & bravado. The self assuredness he had gained, the waning away of indecisiveness. The ability to say with command, what he wanted & what he could accomplish. Ownership of that strength.
I had seen men without so much as a roof over their head for their own children, in war torn reaches of the world, display this. I had seen disgusting, slobs who couldn't even hold their heads up, they were so drunk; still believe whole heartedly that they had it. It was something that comes to the forefront, something they carry with them from birth, & it doesn't become suddenly realized; it just is. I had only known it to be heavy handed; I didn't trust it. I had known "men" to only push themselves forward & all things "female" to the back, without even thinking of it. In my job, in my marriage, my inability to have children, my soft voice, my full figure. I had given up on my career because I felt it was impossible to ever be taken seriously, in investigative journalism, or anything else, as a five foot nuthin "cute little girl".
