Henry
Henry stared out the restaurant window while his anxious foot tapped a rapid tattoo on the floor. Outside, flurries were swirling and muffling the hustle and bustle, as darkness fell on the city street. He took deep breaths, and his palms sweated. He put his hand in his blazer pocket and clasped his fingers around the little felt box.
“Don’t marry her,” his brother’s words blared in his brain to the beat of his foot’s staccato.
Indignant, Henry had called his best friend.
“I agree, don’t marry her,” he had replied.
Now, their shrieking fights buzzed and stung like flies, puncturing his blissful devotion to her. Those endless quarrels he had overlooked bore down on him like the falling snowflakes.
“Don’t marry her,” his brother’s voice repeated.
Henry grinned as she sauntered into the restaurant. The electric light shone on her face, yet darkened her countenance. A man walked in behind her, and Henry noticed the man’s smooth, lustful squeeze of her hand, and her surreptitious, yet seductive glance as she returned the gesture.
Like the tumbling flurries, the scales fell from Henry’s eyes, and the whirlwind of doubt settled. He stood up, then wove his way around tables and waiters as the hostess led her into the dining room. Without stopping to see where she sat, he left the restaurant and disappeared amid the falling snow.
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