86. Choices
Rating: Not PG...maybe a G+? There's one questionable word.... :\

She sat there, waiting for his (was it really his?) response. He said nothing. Maybe mark was right, maybe there was no Higher Power in control of them, writing and planning out their fates. After all, who could be so cruel as to maintain this painful silence? Maybe it was time she took things into her own hands.

But if she left now, she would be throwing away all of those years they had spent searching. Was this the way her Quest was supposed to end? What did the Author have in mind, tossing a dilemma like this into the middle of her story?

This was lame--there was simply no way around it. She was going to take control over her own destiny from now on, Author be damned. She wanted control for once in her life. It was high time she was in charge of it.

But she was still going to leave him with the bill.

She stood; he said nothing. She left; he didn't move. Maybe all of those years hadn't meant a thing to him after all. Maybe she had been wasting her time and his, taking him all this way, bringing him this far.

She went back to their hotel room and packed up what few things she had and walked away from the building--away from Alan, whom she hadn't thought of as a sidekick for years, but not towards Mark, either. She passed the restaurant hwere she could still see Alan seated at their booth. She turned and kept on walking.

Finally, after too long, she came across an empty park. She reminded herself dimly to thank the Author later, after she was done feeling sorry for herself, for throwing in this convenient landmark. She had, after all, met Alan on the playground at school.

He had had her there--hand't he known that? All he had to do was give her some sort of an inkling that he wanted to be...not friends and yet, more than friends. Had she somehow missed some sort of monumental signal that indicated he wanted her to stay? It certainly seemed probable, she was always a step (or ten) behind, and that did seem more likely than her Alan actually just sitting back and allowing her to be with some guy she had met barely a month ago.

She glanced down at her hands, each with its own ring. On one hand, an expensive diamond ring that sat cold and distant from the rest of her life. On the other, a cheap blue bowling alley ring that turned her skin green and brought back dear memories from before (and after) they had set out on this stupid and pointless quest. One promised an end to her searching; the other would be nothing more than her living out her life continually searching for something that may or may not ever exist.

After what seemed like too long, she made her choice.