6 Months Later
To the average person passing through the lobby of the lavish hotel, the girl standing by the elevator, in jeans, T-shirt, and loose UNC jersey would seem out of place. Among the fashionably dressed world of New York City, this petite female appeared nervous and doubtful about her decision to be at her present locale. And they would have been right.
"Damn it, am I stupid or what? What the hell am I doing here?" The girl, with strawberry blonde hair that was pulled up into a pony tail, asked herself.
For the past five months she had been receiving and sending letters to a guy named James. She wasn't exactly sure how he had come to write her, or why she even decided to write back to him, but she felt as if she had known him forever. So one could imagine her surprise when he informed her that he would be in New York the same time that she would be there visiting with family.
Of course, at the time, she had jumped in with both feet, excited to finally meet the man who had quickly become her best, and possibly her only, friend in the world. They had talked about it for months. They had planned their meeting down to the letter. They knew exactly where to meet, what they were supposed to be wearing so as to recognize one another. They had planned the day and the time and the hugs that would be given. They had planned everything, and planned for everything, from delays to blizzards in July, all but one thing. Her cold feet.
Standing in the middle of that lavishly decorated lobby, this shy, small town southern girl couldn't help but feel out of place and insignificant. When surrounded by new and old money as it walked in and out of the elevator beside her or through the doors of the nearby hotel restaurant, she felt the overwhelming sense of not belonging. She could tell from the air of the hotel that her friend obviously had money, and a lot of it. He had never told her that, and it didn't matter to her, but she had to wonder what someone of his stature would want with someone like her. To say the least the girl had some problems in the self esteem department.
She should have realized this though, that her friend had a good amount of money, seeing as he paid for her to take a cab from her relative's house upstate to the hotel where she now stood, as well as offering to pay for her hotel accommodations, not taking 'No' for an answer. So she had conceeded to letting him have his way. She had taken the cab readily from her aunt's house to NYC. She had shown up at the hotel. She had waited by the elevator, just as they had planned, in her UNC jersey.
Now, however, it was only a few minutes until he was scheduled to arrive and she didn't know if she could go through with it or not. Thoughts kept running through her ever working mind. 'What if it changes the relationship that we have now?' 'What if he takes one look at me and realizes that he has wasted his precious time on a nobody?' 'What if he doesn't like the personal me as much as he did the me he saw on paper?'
She tried to push these thoughts away, knowing that her James would never think these things about her, but still they nagged at the edge of her mind, eating away her self confidence as quickly as she ate away at her nails nervously.
"That's it. I can't do this. I'm leaving." The girl muttered to herself, picking up her bag and turning to go. She couldn't go through with something like this. She trusted her friend James with everything in her. His writing were nothing but sincere, and he had offered her nothing but friendship. She felt she owed him no less than to do the one thing he ever requested of her, yet she couldn't do that. The doubts nagging at her wouldn't let her have this one moment in time when she had truly felt, for a brief second when she had gotten his invitation, that someone really cared about her, for her.
As the younger girl hurriedly made her way through the lobby of the hotel, she was so caught up in berating herself that she failed to see the person standing in front of her. She didn't realize that they were there until she felt herself run into the strong chest of a very, very large man.
Stumbling back slightly, the girl caught herself before looking at the terribly large man in front of her. Well, over six feet tall, the man literally towered over her. He was muscular, nearing 260 easily in muscle mass.
"I'm incredibly sorry." The girl offered, blushing slightly at her clumsiness, her southern drawl prominent in the confines of the northern hotel, where more northern voiced accents could be heard all around her.
"It's quite alright miss. I was instructed to give this to you. Sorry if I scared you." Said the large man, rather gently, while holding out a piece of paper to the girl.
Confused, the smaller person looked up to the burly man in front of her. "Me? Who's it from?" she asked, taking the paper at the same time.
"I was told you would know when you read it."
She looked up at him in confusion once more before setting her bag on the floor and carefully opening the small sheet of paper.
Dawn,
I wanted you to know a few things. After you read this, if you still want to see me, tell Lonnie, the man who gave this to you to bring you upstairs.
You and I have been writing back and forth to each other for the past several months, and you can't possibly know how much that has meant to me. I found you, a true friend in my world of insanity, a link to normality, in a time when I was ready to give up on life. I know I never told you that. But it's true. I didn't want you to write back out of pity, and I didn't want you worrying about what would happen if you hadn't written back. I don't want you to do that now. I just thought you should know that you helped me long before I wrote that first letter to you. Before I met you, figuratively speaking of course, you taught me that there are people out there feeling the way I felt. You taught me that it's ok to feel that way, and that there are people out there that do care. Most importantly, you taught me that I couldn't get through it on my own. All of this I learned from you before my pen ever touched the paper that I sent to you five months ago. I know that probably doesn't make sense to you now, but it's true. For your lessons, I wanted to give something back to you in return.
I heard those voices, shouting, calling.
I fought those feelings, of drowning, of falling.
I looked at the fork in the road,
The two paths to choose.
Down one I had everything to gain
Down the other, everything to lose.
That voice that was taunting,
Whispering and haunting
Is gone now, vanished
Banished.
I refused to listen to that voice,
The one that urged me to make the wrong choice.
I chose the road to happiness,
Joy, love
Because of you, who are sent from above.
You showed me there is more to life
Friends, family, people who truly care.
How could I not choose that path,
How could I dare.
I knew which path to choose, and at the end, you were there.
James
Dawn looked up at the man above her, her blue eyes filled with unshed tears. Tears of disbelief, happiness. "Take me upstairs?"
~*~
Minutes later found Dawn standing in front of a white door, behind which she knew she would find James, her friend. Taking a deep breath, she knocked, her heart beating rapidly in her chest, in her hand she grasped the two letters that had meant so much to her. One, the first letter she had ever received from him. The other, the one that had filled her heart with such joy as she had never felt before in her life.
Seconds after she knocked, the door was slowly opened. In front of her stood a man she had never expected to see. Someone she had never expected to meet, much less to touch so deeply that he had sought her out.
"Lance, I brought her up. Now where is my food?" Lonnie said from behind her. Dawn looked questioningly at both men, raising one eyebrow. Lance had never seen a cuter expression.
"Right here big guy." Lance said, wheeling a room service cart out of his room and into the hall. Lonnie took the cart and wheeled it down to his room. Before he disappeared inside, he turned back.
"Next time you want something, get one of the other guys. You steal my food again, they aren't going to need me around here anymore." With that, he closed himself in his room, leaving the two, newly met friends to stand awkwardly in the hall.
"I got your note." Dawn offered as a way to break the ice. The simple phrase brought tears to her eyes. Sniffling, she launched herself into Lance's arms, encircling his neck with her arms.
Lance immediately embraced her, the one who had helped him through the lowest point in his life and showed him that there was something to live for.
"Thank you." Came Dawn's watery whisper from Lance's shoulder.
"No," Lance said, squeezing Dawn tighter to him. "Thank you."