I arrived at the meeting room early, like usual. I'm chronically early. Obsessively early. Maybe even pathologically early. I can't help it. I hate being late.
I looked through the doorway and there, across an empty room, I saw her. In my head, at that instant, I heard a voice. Calm, assertive, definite.
"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."
The voice was so real, so tangible, that it never occurred to me to question its origin or purpose.
"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."
Oh, no. Not me. No way.
"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."
Relationships don't work. I've tried them. No way.
"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."
Leave me alone. I'm not interested.
"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."Is it any wonder that, eleven years later, when I found myself sitting by her bedside, watching her in her coma, listening to the machine that was forcing air into her body, praying she wouldn't die, that I would look up to the heavens and scream, "You promised me!"
