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"Please let go of me, James."
"I can make you happy. Let me show you how happy I can make you," he pleads.
Oh, he can make me happy. He can make me happy like no one else. But he can also make me miserable like no one else. That I know. That's why I need to run. To leave now. Where his words can't reach me, where his eyes can't pierce me. But he's holding me as firm as ever and I know he won't let go unless I hurt him. Really hurt him. So I tell him exactly what Lara told him.
"No you can't." It rips me apart to say the next words, because there's nothing crueler I could say to him. "You'll make me miserable. You'll make my life a living hell. In fact, you have outdone yourself. In the short time you've known me, you already managed to make my life a living hell."
His arms release me. His eyes widen. Not with shock, but with pain. And I can't stand looking into them knowing that I caused it. I walk past him, out of the room. I risk a little glance over my shoulder when I'm by the elevator. He hasn't followed. Of course he hasn't.
I don't look in Daniel's direction at all as I walk to the front door, but I feel his gaze on me and I automatically raise my hand to my cheeks, thinking of wiping away the tears that are surely pouring in streams. I don't find any tears. Not one.
How can it be? How can there be no tears when my heart is shattering, bit by bit, memory after memory? Doesn't the pain want to come out? A terrifying thought strikes me. What if it will never come out? What if it will stay inside me forever, until it dismantles my heart and wrecks my soul?
I leave the building and get to the car without one tear. But as I slide inside, a tiny drop finds its way down my cheek. And then another one. I close my eyes, and lean back on the headrest, welcoming them. The liquid proof of my pain.
I was wrong. So, so wrong. Two broken souls do not make a whole one. Two broken souls cannot heal one another. They will devour, shatter each other until there's nothing left of either of them.
I felt whole for a while though. When he held me in his arms and murmured in my ear. When he guided me through the clouds and the rivers of chocolate. I press my palms on my eyes, trying to shake them off. The memories. The bad ones and the good ones—especially the good ones. They're the most shattering ones. They cling to my heart with iron hooks, making every breath, every sob an agony.
I open my eyes after some time, after the tears have dried up and my breath has evened. I need to leave this place, because the burning sensation in my chest and behind my eyelids tells me it's not long before a new wave of tears will come. And I don't want to be here when it does. Just as I start the engine, I catch something in the distance in the rearview mirror, far up in the blue sky, and for a moment I'm sure my mind is playing tricks on me, because I was just thinking of that day. A parachute. My heart skips a beat when I realize there is only one person under the parachute.
I don't know why, but the sight of that one skydiver makes me feel lighter, as if I'm up there, among the clouds as well.
I can learn to fly on my own.
I can learn to laugh on my own.
Some other day. Some other time. Because as I leave his place behind, all I manage to do is fall apart again. The place where he touched and kissed me. The place where I cried and I laughed with him. Where we traveled in fantasy worlds and created our own, sweeter and richer than all the others. The place where I tasted the heavens and forgot my nightmares.
Where I fell in love with him.
Only one thing keeps me from completely shattering after my encounter with James.
My old strategy: exhausting myself.
I exhaust myself to the point where I am so drained, I can't even think about him—or rather, his absence. During the day. The nights are an entirely different matter. Dreams invade my mind when it's most defenseless, leaving me drenched in sweat. Tears swell up in my eyes seconds after I wake up as I realize that none of the things in my dreams will ever be more than dreams again. I won't feel the touch of his lips on mine again, or hear him say my name in my ear in a low, urgent whisper.
But I never give myself time to wallow in my tears. I couldn't even if I wanted to. Three developments took care of that.
One: I was offered three interviews the day after I left James. Two of them were at banks in San Francisco last week. One was at a bank in New York yesterday. Preparing for the interviews, not to mention fretting over them every waking moment, kept me busy.
Two: I lost the part-time bookkeeping job I've had since starting college—my only source of income until graduation—because my boss unexpectedly closed down the company, so I started hunting for another job to support myself until I graduate and start a real job.
Three: disaster struck about one week after Jess's accident in that dump of a bar.
She received a letter, informing her that she owed six thousand dollars for damages to the bar and had three weeks to pay, or she would be sued. The letter was signed by the owner of the bar. I thought it was a lame attempt at a joke at first, because really, if anyone should sue for damages, it should be Jess. But when the second letter arrived, written in a severe, almost offensive tone, I knew Jess was in serious trouble. A law professor I cornered at Stanford confirmed, upon reading the letters, that the bar owner—unbelievable as it might be—had a strong case, and it would be in Jess's best interest to pay the amount rather than go to court.
Six thousand dollars.
Neither Jess nor I had that kind of money, so we… well mostly I, because Jess didn't seem half as worried as she should have been, started brainstorming ways to come up with the money. It didn't take long to realize there was no way we could raise that kind of money by ourselves, especially with my new unemployed status. Even selling Jess's car would only bring in half the amount, at most. The only solution was something I’d never considered before, no matter how broke I was, and something I would have never considered if not for the threat of the lawsuit. Borrowing money. And we only knew two people who could afford to lend that kind of money without as much as a blink.
James, who I have no intention to see or even speak with again.
And Parker.
Who is late. I am waiting for him in front of the bar, tapping my fingers on my cup of steaming hot coffee, which, given the sauna-worthy heat outside and the blinding sun, was a poor choice for a drink. But I came here directly from the airport, and the six-hour flight from New York left me drained.
Parker arrives within minutes, pulling his car right in front of me. I catch my breath when he slides out of his car. He looks so much like James . . .
