Adam Can't Fly

Adam stood staring out the window from his sixth floor room at the Fremont Hotel. Looking down at the people scurrying about downtown Las Vegas, amid the noise and the lights, made him think of a story someone had told him.

***
Years ago, there was a young man who had fallen in love with his best friend. He hadn't meant for it to start out that way, but they spent so much time together. It was bound to happen.

Sometimes they would laugh and play at a park. At other times, they would just go out for moonlit walks along a quiet trail. A few times, she had even taken him to a place that she loved deeply; it was where she had grown up.

Regardless of where they went, always there was conversation mixed with laughter mixed with smiles and comfortable silences. They never held hands. They never sat too close. It was a subtle sign that they were beginning to fall in love.

And love makes you do the darnedest things. It makes dreamers of realists. It inspires poetry from even the worst writer. And it makes wise men seem foolish.

"Someday," the young man had said to her. "I will buy your old home for you and we can raise a family together."

She smiled like the sun and he felt warmed. She went dreamy eyed and imagined how it would be and she was pleased.

"Someday," the young man had said to her. "We will travel around the world together and we'll be married at an old castle in Scotland."

She loved him for that and thought of what her wedding day would look like. She was pleased.

But the young man, no matter how much he loved her, wasn't ready for any of that. They spent years together, and while they cared deeply for one another, he could never seem to get things right.

He would make bad decisions in the hopes that he could fulfill her dreams, and therefore, his own. He would get caught up in a new scheme that promised to make him a fortune easily, only to realize that it wasn't right for him and wouldn't give him all the time he wanted to take her on trips around the world. He would try, again and again, but he always let her down.

He just wasn't ready.
***

Adam thought about the story he had heard while he stared out of the window. Looking down, he imagined all of the hopes and dreams that would rise and fall on Fremont Street tonight. It made him think about the point the story teller had been trying to make. He hadn't been very clear, so Adam had asked.
***

The young man loved her with all of his heart. When he was with her, he felt like he wanted to conquer the world. He wished he could bring her every happiness that she could possibly want.

And they should have been perfect together. They could have been. But he wasn't ready. It was the right thing...at the wrong time.

And the right thing at the wrong time is still the wrong thing.

***

Adam gave a brief snort of laughter. Man, that guy was a shitty storyteller. But he definitely had a point. He thought about it as he slid open his window.

As the cool night air kissed his face, he wondered what kind of hotel lets you completely open a sixth floor window. More to the point, a casino-hotel. It made no sense to him.

"So fucking stupid," he whispered to the empty room. "Makes no sense."

Adam looked at the happy people on the street. He saw drunks stumbling. He saw some people celebrating their good luck. Others, he saw, hadn't been so lucky. But that was Vegas for you.

And then he thought of her.

The right thing at the wrong time.

He inhaled the night air and exhaled slowly. He pictured her in his mind and held her there.

And then he jumped.