Anxiously waiting, Charles ran his palehand through his short, dark brown hair and exhaled slowly. Hestretched his thick palm across his nose to rid himself of an itch,then mumbled to himself softly, “This is it. This is finally it.After years of talking through emails and online messengers, we'regoing to finally meet.” He exhaled again, shook out his fingers asif warming them up before pressing them against his old whitekeyboard. The keys were thick, clunky and hard to press down, but itworked for everything Charles needed it for. Typing.

    Charles, known to many as a great guy,incredibly charming and fun to be around was a little over weight.Almost 60 pounds, but he considered himself a plump, lovable man,someone any real woman would take interest in. Unfortunately, as hediscovered, that was not generally true. His weight had cost himseveral relationships, mainly because he was competing against thoseother guys. The guys that work out more than they are around, theones who are so focused on themselves they barely think about theirrelationship. Why should they though, if their relationship ended,they could find another girl, even though they were total ass holes.It was just that easy.

    Not for Charles, however. His luckwith women had run dry several years ago as he began to gain weight.Once, he was an athlete too, a top class runner, one who competitorswished they were. That was before his injury. He was fine now, ofcourse, but pulling a hamstring to the point where he could barelywalk for a year set him down a path of laziness. He regretted notbeing able to force himself to get back into the groove of workingout everyday. He sighed, then brushed away the negative thoughts ofhis past and focused on the joys the next week would bring.

    He typed fantastically to Joan, thewoman he had been trying to meet for the last several years. It beganthrough simple emails from an internet dating site, a place ofrefuge, somewhere single people can mingle, yet ignore responses ifthe person does not catch his or her interest. It was the perfectplace to try to get to know someone, specifically before having toworry about appearance, which is significant.

“Hey Hon!” His fingers clankedagainst the keys with haste, “How was your day? I missed you, asalways!” After a moment of silence his messenger flashed and Joan'swords appeared across his screen.

“Hi Charles. I'm good, I missed youtoo. How was your day?”

“I'm great. Work dragged out alittle longer than I would have hoped, but that's okay, you're herenow, *smile*” Clank, his fingers smashed against the return key.

“*Smile*”

“So, I'll be leaving tomorrowmorning at 6am and should arrive there around 8:30. I'm reallylooking forward to seeing you, finally.”

“*Smile*I'm looking forward to it too, Charles. It's been a long time coming,that's for sure. It will be nice to finally be able to talk to myfriends and family about the great guy I met too.”

“For sure. Iknow how you feel about online dating, but I would have thought youwould have told them about us by now, honestly.”

“I know, butit's just awkward for me, knowing that they all frown on onlinedating, I wanted them to have a chance to meet you in person before Itold them how we met. I'm sorry.”

“Ahhh, it'sokay hon, I understand, I just wish it wasn't an issue, but it won'tbe after tomorrow, right!?”

“Yes, they willknow about us in a few days for sure, when we go to meet them. Ipromise.”

“I understand,that sounds great then hon! I'm really excited! It will be very nicethat they will finally know about us. Will you be at the airport whenI arrive or will you be there a little later?”

“I'll be thereright on time. Unless traffic slows me down, of course. I shouldn'tbe too late, even in the worse case scenario. For all you know, Imight be waiting on you. *smile*.”

“Hah, that isso true. Hopefully my flight won't have any delays and we'll be ineach others arms before lunch!” Charles ran his hands through hishair again, then loosened his navy blue tie from around his neck andunbuttoned the top three buttons of his vanilla colored shirt, dashedwith a small amount of mustard, unintentionally, from the days lunch.

    He rubbed hishands together and let out a long sigh. “Hey, listen hon, I have tofinish packing still and write up this report for work , plus getmyself some dinner. I should probably take off so I can be ready togo in the morning and then we have all of next week to ourselves!”

“*giggle* OkayCharles. I should probably finish cleaning anyway! Have a gooddinner, a safe flight and I will see you tomorrow!”

“Okay hon. I amso excited, I cannot even tell you! I love you and will see youtomorrow, Joan!”

“I love you too!”

    Charles pushed away from his desk, rolling backwards in his black leather chair,then spun around to stand up. The room was small, but clean. A couch was behind him on one wall and he had two lamps, one on each side ofthe couch, which lit up the room. The lamp shades were removed sothat more light would brighten the otherwise dark and bland area. Thewalls were painted with a shade of green comparable to the middle hue in camouflage.

    He stretched,arms reaching above his head towards the white and prickly seascapeof a ceiling. Charles yawned and then walked to his right and intohis room to pickup his suitcase, tossing it onto the perfectly madebed with a slight bounce as it landed.

    Charles thenwalked over to his dresser, dark brown and rustic looking with agiant mirror lining the back of it. The dresser only went up to hiswaist, but it was long with three drawers across and stacked two highfor a total of six drawers. The top was for accessories, such assocks, underwear, specifically boxer-briefs, and the third drawer forhis ties. The bottom row was for shirts, pants and pajamas.

    Without muchthought, Charles opened the drawers and started filling his suitcase with the necessary clothing for his trip to see Joan. A few t-shirts,some dress shirts, pants, jeans and multiple socks as well as multiple pairs of navy blue boxer-briefs. “Everything needs to beperfect,” he said softly, turning around from the dresser to make sure he had enough of everything in the case.

    Charles'seyebrows rose as the thought of what was missing perpetrated histhoughts. He quickly turned around, opened up the drawer for socksagain and pulled out a box of her pleasure condoms and tossed theminto the suitcase. “Just in case,” he said with a grin beforere-examining the contents of his suitcase one last time. “Perfect.”

    He returned tothe computer room and went into the next adjacent room. The kitchenwas small, but had ample counter space for him to prepare food andcook up his own meals. Charles opened the fridge and skirmishedthrough it quickly to find some eggs, bacon, green peppers and cherrytomatoes.

    He turned on thetop of his gas stove and threw a small pan on it to warm it up. Heprepared himself an omelet, the scent tickling his nostrils as itcooked. He put the ingredients back into the fridge and then ate hisdelicious meal.

“All right,let's get this damn report done for work so I can shower, shave andgo see my potential bride to be tomorrow!” His stomach swirled inexcitement and anticipation. He went back to his computer and openedup a black briefcase, pulled out some paperwork and started to skimthrough it, using his finger as a guide to search through informationand pages of data so that he could prepare a report for his boss.With a quick click, Excel opened up and he began to enter numbersinto a spread sheet. Once the numbers were entered he opened up Wordand wrote a brief summary of what the data meant. Click, save, close.From there he opened up his email account and sent the report andsummary to his boss. “DONE!” He exclaimed.

    Before Charlesknew it, hours had passed by and it was nearing bed time. He openedup an email from Joan with her picture attached before stepping awayfrom his desk. She was beautiful, with soft caramel colored skin,shoulder length dark brown hair, brown eyes and a wide, straighttoothed smile that pushed her cheeks out, creating dimples that anyman would adore. Joan was relatively thin, certainly not overweight,and she was full of life.

    He looked at herpicture, exhaled, and said to himself, “How the hell does a fatfuck like me get such a beautiful, amazing woman to like me. I'mreally lucky, that's for damn sure.” He put his pointer and middlefingers together, kissed them and then pressed them to Joan's photo.“I love you and will see you tomorrow morning Joan!”

    Charles moved tohis bedroom again and undressed, walking into the bathroom to shaveand shower immediately after. “A nice hot shower sounds so niceright now and will help me sleep, hopefully.” He turned on the hotwater in the shower and then the sink, used his shaving cream andbegan to shave slowly.

    After he finishedshaving he got into the shower, glass doors steamy from the heat, andscrubbed himself clean. Once he finished cleaning himself he stood inthe shower a little longer, closed his eyes and thought of Joan somemore. His mind raced to thought of them talking, sitting next to eachother on a couch, similar to his own, and kissing. He smiled andopened his eyes.

    Charles steppedout of the shower and grabbed a towel from the rack directly in frontof him and dried off. He hung the towel back up on the rack andrushed to his bed, setting his small black alarm clock to 4:00am toensure he made his flight. He lifted up his covers and slid into bed,his nakedness meeting the soft feel of his cotton sheets. His headmet his pillow and his eyes closed immediately after.

    MEEEP, MEEEP,MEEEEEP! Charles jolted upright as his alarm blared. He tossed thecovers off of him and stumbled out of bed, reaching for the alarmclock, knocking it to the floor. He picked it up and struggled toturn it off while the weight of his sleep still hung on his eyelids.He finally managed to turn it off and rushed to take another showerto remove the nights sleep and help wake him up.

    His stomachtwisted into knots. He let out a loud sigh, “Here goes nothing.”He finished showering, rushed to brush his teeth, got dressed,grabbed his suitcase and then hopped into his car, a plumb coloredSaturn Aura. He managed to get to the airport without any problemsand got onto his flight.

    After listeningto the instructions on how to use the seat belt, oxygen mask andnoting the exits, the plane was finally off. No one was sitting nextto Charles, so he was able to close his eyes and sleep through mostof the flight. He didn't open his eyes until he heard the captainspeaking, “Please Fasten your seat belts as we prepare to land.”

    Charles smiledand adjusted his seat belt as the plane got closer to itsdestination. It landed and came to a stop. A muffled voice came fromthe speakers,“At this time you may turn on any cell phone orelectronic devices. We will be able to get off momentarily, so pleasebe patient and thank you for flying with us.” Charles turned on hiscell phone and called Joan.

“Hi, this isJoan, leave me a message and I'll get back with you as soon as Ican!”

“Hi Joan! It'sme! I'm here, but on the plane still, hopefully you'll be here soon!I love you and will see you shortly!”

    The sound ofCharles's special ring tone went off, but the phone had fell onto thepassenger side seat floor as Joan was driving down the freeway so shecouldn't answer. The phone beeped to signify there was a newvoice-mail. Joan looked towards the passenger side floor and saw thephone laying in about the middle.

“I shouldreally let him know I am running late. If I could just reach theblasted phone.” She kept her feet steady, traveling at roughly 70miles per hour down the freeway and reaching for the phone could bedifficult. She looked ahead to make sure there weren't any vehiclesin front of her, then unbuckled her seat belt, leaned over towardsthe passenger side seat and stretched her arm out to try to grab thephone. It was just out of reach.

She forcedherself to lean further towards the phone and managed to flick itwith her fingers, putting it within range of her hand. “Ah hah! GOTIT!”

    She looked up tosee a semi pulling in front of her from an off-ramp as she smashedinto it, spinning her vehicle wildly, flipping it over and over. Thewindshield shattered, Joan was tossed from the vehicle, her phoneclenched tightly in her grasp as she screamed and flew towards theasphalt below. Her head hit the ground, knocking her unconscious andthe phone went flying, breaking across the road as she slid down thefreeway until pieces of it lay strewn alongside her breathless body.

Written by Kevin Numerick: Life, As I write it.