A Short Story - Part One

Here's the first installment of the short story I'm working on. Hope you get hooked.......

As he crossed the street, heading toward the yellow cab, his eyes never strayed from his shoes. He had every scuff and scratch memorized, down to the frayed strings along the inside sole of the right shoe, that showed the wear and tear of seven years. The brown leather shoes that molded to his feet were his only friends, his only comfort. For months now, his eyes had been trained to see only his shoes. The sun shone down brilliantly in the sapphire sky, but he never noticed it. It was too joyous, too much a reminder that time had marched on. The heaviness of his life was like a string tied around his forehead that pulled his head down, giving him an ache that traced all along his spine, pinching muscles and tying knots. He knew that he was unable to change it. This was his life now, without her, without hope.

He opened the rear driver’s side door of the cab and climbed inside, throwing his briefcase onto the seat beside him. His eyes returned to his shoes as he mumbled his address to the cab driver. He vaguely heard the other passenger door open at the same moment. He turned his eyes, head still down, to notice the backside of a person entering the cab. What seemed like an eternity passed until the other car door was pulled shut, he could not seem to pry open his own mouth to say that the cab was occupied. He kept his eyes down. He heard a sharp intake of breath as the woman beside him realized there was already a passenger in the cab.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” she said somewhat out of breath. The cab driver headed into traffic, assuming that they were together. Just as she was reaching over to touch the cab driver on the shoulder, he saw out of the corner of his eye, her rounded, swollen belly that perched on her lap like a ball. His hand automatically went to where her left hand hung, mid-air and gently pushed it down. “We’ll share," he muttered more to his shoes than to her.

“Sam...is that you?” she asked hesitantly while turning as best she could to face him in the back seat. His head jerked upwards. The invisible string tied around his head pulling sharply at the sound of his name and her voice. Their eyes met.