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I chuckle sarcastically. “You see these bears?” I point and everyone looks at them. The board from the camera, my parents, and Janine. “I am going to share a story with you all about the meaning of these bears and why they are a reminder for me and why I am reluctant to part with them. My senior year of high school, there was this girl I met in my own house, of all places. She had nowhere to go after her parents were killed in a car accident. My parents wanted me to be nice and make sure she fit in and be nice to her because she was just seventeen and would make a great housekeeper once she turned eighteen in three months. You know how rich people are, they take advantage of the less fortunate, but one thing that never crossed their minds was that their beloved son and heir to their company and fortune would fall in love with her. She was beautiful and had a heart made of gold. She was kind, and all she wanted was love and a normal opportunity. The only option she was given was to be a housekeeper to a rich family and had no choice but to agree. A teenage girl who was the top five in her class but had no money to go to college because her parents were tragically killed and weren’t wealthy enough to leave her money. So, my parents struck a deal with a judge to make her our housekeeper when she turned eighteen. She was alone, had no one and no family. Once my parents found out how I really felt about her and what I had planned on the day of her birthday, they decided to take matters into their own hands. Their son could not possibly want the girl that was destined to be their housekeeper. It was not allowed in their book and they sure as hell did not care how I felt about it. She was good enough to clean toilets but not for their son. I tried to hide my feelings for her the best I could so no one would notice because I had the gut feeling they would make her suffer. I really tried but then there was a good friend of mine that fell for her the same way I did. You would think the girl had a special spell she would cast on any guy that she would smile at but that wasn’t the case. She was just genuine and beautiful. Wholesome. When she would look at me, she would see the real me. What no one could see, she saw it. She didn’t care what my last name was or if I had money.”
The room falls silent, listening, waiting for what I say next. I look at the bears and the memories come flooding back to the night she left. The night I knew she would never come back to me. The night that I lost the girl I was in love with and she didn’t even know it.
“I left for a football game that night before she turned eighteen. I had a surprise, you see. I rented a cabin for the whole weekend, beginning the day she turned eighteen. The night before that, I spent hours winning her these bears you see seated in every chair in this boardroom. It wasn’t the bear she was happy to see when she woke that morning. It was the fact that I had won her the bears. I was the happiest guy alive. I was finally able to impress the girl I loved. When I came home that night of the football game, I didn’t think anything of it and didn’t want to wake her. I had no idea what my parents had done. The next morning, I found a note with these bears on her bed. My parents offered her one hundred thousand dollars to leave and never come back. They lied to her and told her rumors in the community that they took advantage of her and her situation caused them to make the decision.”
My tone lowers, and I hear Janine’s intake of breath. “They told her I would be heading away with my friends and that it was a good offer for her to go since she was eighteen and had no family and no money. What they didn’t tell her was that they didn’t want the community to know that their son was in love with the housekeeper. That he would do anything to be with her. She left that night alone with only a suitcase to her name. She left the money and a note wishing me well. Saying that she was thankful for my parents’ hospitality and that all she wished was for me to find someone to love.”
My loss and my pain are pouring out of me in front of everyone, but I don’t care. They need to know why. So, I continue.
“The guy I was afraid to lose her to found her waiting in the strip mall she would go to get groceries for my parents every week. He took her in and gave her a place to stay. I looked for her everywhere that day and her best friend was his sister. She told me not to worry, that she would be safe and her brother would look after her. She never returned to school and finished her degree online, and I never saw her again. She must have thought the worst of me, and I tried calling her to explain. To tell her that my parents didn’t understand, but she never answered my calls.”
“What happened?” Janine asks from behind me.
I don’t tell them the time I spoke with Lane about Aura and how I felt about her and what my plan was. I have never told a soul the conversation I had with him. Man to man. Friend to friend, about a girl we both loved.
I just tell them the part that ended up wrecking me and forcing me to let go because I was too late. I never stood a chance with what they did. I had nothing to offer her. I was barely graduating high school, but Lane was older than me and he was an outcast in his parents’ eyes and was already well-off. He could do for her what I couldn’t.
“She fell in love with him and ended up getting married and having a child.”
I point to my parents with their checks in hand, with both of their mouths agape.
“You took something from me. Now, I’m going to take something from you. You took what was the most important thing to me. Her. Now I want you to feel what it’s like for someone to take something from you.”
“You can’t be serious, Kalum,” my father says in disbelief. “We are your parents.”
“And she was the love of my life, and you took that away from me. You wanted me to be the CEO. I’m the CEO like both of you wanted but on my terms, not yours.”
“You have to get over it, son. She married Lane Turner.”
“Because of you!” I roar.
I sit down, trying to calm down and wipe my face. “Now you know why I can’t stand to look at both of you. You kicked her out like she was nothing because she didn’t have the right last name or a significant bank balance. You are no different than her late husband’s parents but there is something none of you counted on. And that was how much I cared for her. Now, you all understand.”
I get up and the room falls silent with Janine hot on my heels. I look up at the screen with everyone’s look of shock but an expression of understanding. “Thank you all for attending.”
“Yes, sir,” they all say.
“For the record, sir,” Timothy says, leaning forward on his camera. “I hope you find her, and you have all of our support.”
Chapter 19
Aura
The sun finishes setting, and the darkness begins to take over as I gaze out, looking at the ocean. I’m seated in a chair out by the shoreline behind the house. It is beginning to get cooler, but I need to make peace. When Lane died, his request was for his ashes to be spread in the sea. He wanted me to be able to talk to him from anywhere I was with Lane Jr. I understand it now. He never wanted to be buried in a cemetery. Lane had this inner free spirit.
I feel guilty about my feelings for Kalum and my love for Lane. I’m so confused right now, but I need to let go. I need to find myself. The waves begin to pound the shoreline and it is like a calling. Like he is listening even if I feel lost. He said I was the lightning to his tidal wave, but the shallow waters never met what I needed. I had no choice but to let go. All that is left is the silence of the eternal sea.
“I have to let you go,” I whisper. “I will always love you, Lane. I will never forget you and promise to take care of our son with everything that I am, but I confess that I love him. I think you knew I always did and always will. It doesn’t mean I have to choose. I just wanted to let you know.”
I talk to the wind, to the sea, and hope wherever he is, that he can listen and understand my bleeding heart. I get up and touch the cool water of the sea and turn to find Camila standing a few feet away with a blanket in her arms, waiting for me.
“He will understand, my love,” Camila says softly.
“I hope so.”
She knows me well enough to know what I’m doing out here. She must see it in the expression on my face, basking in the twilight.
“You’re in love with him all over again, aren’t you?”
