Five years. It’s been five years already.
Five years since she saw him walk out that door to go to school and never come back.
Five years since she had sobbed and cried on the kitchen floor as the news played in the background.
And five years every single day, she waits for him. Dinner included.
He might be hungry when he does come, she thinks. I just have to wait a little longer.
He’s coming back. She feels it in her heart.
She knows. She’s just waiting for him to prove her right.
She waits in that kitchen, every afternoon, sometimes all night, waiting for that door to open.
Sometimes, she’ll distract herself, in paperwork and bills till the sun rises.
Sometimes she’ll sleep, maybe, for a few hours on the sofa. Or in his room.
Sometimes she passes out on the countertop by accident, but she always does the thing she avoids.
She dreams. She dreams of him, her memory still as clear as the day he disappeared.
She’ll hear something familiar