That Night

         He waited for her. He waited through the cold, dark hours of that night but she did not appear. He tried to ignore the nagging voice in his head telling him to go home.
         She never meant to come, he told himself, his thoughts echoing that nagging voice. She lied to me once again when she promised she would be here. Why do I take one look at her and fall for her charms?
         The young man did not know why he waited. Perhaps it was because he sensed something different in her voice when she asked him to come. He thought that this time it would be different. Throughout the night, his fingers and toes became stiff with cold. His steamy breath created puffs of clouds in front of his face, yet he waited throughout that subzero January night.
         At dawn he finally gave up hope and returned to his apartment. As he walked into his kitchen, he saw the blinking light of his answering machine. He pushed play, ready to hear Anna's voice, giving him yet another lame excuse.
         "Robert," the voice said. Instead of Anna, he was shocked to hear her brother's emotion-filled voice. "I know that you were supposed to meet Anna tonight, but there was an accident. She was on her way to meet you, when a drunk driver slammed into her car. She was taken to the hospital, but it was too late. There was nothing the doctors could do. She died." Her brother's voice continued slowly, "I know that you loved her very much. I am so sorry."
         Robert crumpled to the floor sobbing. “She was on her way to meet you.” That phrase stuck in Robert’s mind. Anna didn’t lie to him. Once the initial shock and grief wore off, he felt guilty. Robert had been ready to believe that Anna had stood him up once again.
         Later that morning, Robert went to the morgue see her body and say goodbye. Anna's brother was there as well. "She was finally ready to make a commitment with you," he told Robert. "She was going to ask for a second chance, but she never got that chance."