Morning all and happy Friday. I hope you have had a fabulous week. Let’s jump into the morning prompt and see where it takes us. Timers set for fifteen minutes and off we go.
Not sure of the story but I like the idea of someone dropping out of their life for twelve years and then suddenly trying to come back and pick up the threads. It gives some interesting angles to play with.
Friday, February 20th: I can’t believe you are here.
“I can’t believe you are here.” Sarah stared at him, uncertain how to react. “Everyone thinks you died.”
Ian sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was a gestures she remembered from childhood, something familiar and she found herself relaxing slightly, even though confusion remained.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Sarah hesitated but in the end nodded and stepped aside. Ian entered and stood there, looking around as though a little lost. “You know I never could picture what your house would look like,” he said finally.
Sarah realized she was still staring at him. “Really?” she said. It was a default response, meant to fill the space where she should have provided an adequate response. Her brain wasn’t finding adequate responses at the moment though, it was just stuck in shock. She closed the door and gestured towards the living room and the waiting couches and chairs.
Ian nodded and shuffled into the living room. The shuffle was familiar, like the hand through the hair. Sarah followed him in and sat opposite him, unable to sit beside him. His hair was brown instead of blond. There were contacts in his eyes making them brown instead of blue. The beard, always more reddish than blonde was shaved and his face was relatively smooth, only a slight sandpaper look showing he hadn’t shaved that morning.
The clothes were different as well. Gone was the hipster look he always cultivated. He didn’t seem like he was making cabinets or artisanal cheeses in his spare time. He looked like an office drone in generic khaki slacks and a blue polo shirt. It was disconcerting. Almost as disconcerting as the fact that he was supposed to be dead.
“Witness protection,” he said.
“Oh,” Sarah said. “I suppose that would explain it, sort of.”
“Yeah,” Ian said. “Twelve years of hiding and giving testimony and then I am no longer needed.”
“No longer needed?”
“Well the person I was testifying against died and things sort of unraveled. So there is no case. No one to testify against and no one left who would want me dead.”
“So no longer needed,” Sarah said.
“So I get to be me again,” Ian said.
“How’s that working out?” Sarah tried to imagine what would happen if she dropped out of her life and tried to come back twelve years later. She shook her head. The thought was too strange to sustain.
Ian let out a little laugh that sounded half strangled. “Turns out there isn’t much life to get back to,” he told her. “Family was gone before I left and everyone else moved on.” He frowned. “I ran into troy yesterday.”
“How did that go?” I found myself curious. The two always seemed close but Troy was not one to think too much about others.
“He seemed to think I had just been avoiding him and that I was looking for him now because I wanted something.”
Ten til Midnight 