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Who’s Chrissy? He has never mentioned this name.
His throat bobbled, his voice slightly breaking as he spoke, “Being with you makes me miss her. I wish I could talk to her about you. She would have loved you.”
Would have loved me?
“Who’s Chrissy?” I asked softly, pressing my mouth closer to his head.
He was so still. I thought he was going to leave my question unanswered until I saw tears streaming down his face.
“She’s my sister,” he gulped in few, quick breaths. I thought it would be better if he sat up but he continued, “My older sister, by about 4 years. She would have loved you, loved hanging out with you. I could just see it, she’d pepper you with jokes about me” Tears kept flowing from his face but his eyes were still closed.“She had so much energy; she called it her ‘joie de vivre’. It’s ridiculous how many times she said that term. She learned it in her French class. I like people, but I have a hard time trusting people. Chrissy, she trusted easily, she loved freely, she did everything happily. And she loved music. She always wanted me to play for her.”
His words, the night of my first time, echoed in my head, “I haven’t played in a while.”
I put my hands to his cheeks and I felt the hot tears. He reached for my hand and held it over his heart.
“It used to annoy me. The way she thought everything was good. When I lost a game and my mom and dad weren’t there, she’d give me a hug and say, ‘At least you gave it your best shot.’ My dad called her his ‘Fairy Princess’ even when she went to high school and college. She looked like my mom, she even had her smile.”
She must have been a beautiful woman.
“My parents did not want her to go abroad for college. Chrissy was persistent though, she convinced them. She said that she wanted to learn another culture, immerse herself in it, and be with her best friend, Shana, who also wanted to study abroad.”
His eyes opened and from what I could tell, he was trying to blink back his tears. I caressed his hair. The ocean breeze was chilly. Goosebumps were starting to form on my arms and legs. I wanted to know more about Chrissy. I was afraid that if I said something, anything, Zander would not continue.
“She finally convinced my mom to let her go study in Germany for 18 months. My dad took a longer time to cave in but when he did, he made her promise that she would call or video chat every day. My dad has a business hub in Germany so he asked one of his colleagues to find a nice place for her to stay. We all flew with her to Germany,” He sucked in air and though his tears stopped, his voice hinted extreme sadness as he spoke.
“Chrissy kept her promise, she called every day. With the time difference, she’d leave video or phone messages and I either texted her or called her a few minutes a day. My parents got to visit her often because of my dad’s work. He probably used work as an excuse but I knew he wanted to make sure she was ok.”
“Then, one day, she didn’t call,” his voice broke and he started heaving, his nose flaring. He sat up on the bench. He pulled his sunglasses tighter. He was trying to compose himself as he took in huge breaths.
He held my hand tighter.
“Babe, when I say it’s been a while for me since I’ve been in a relationship, it’s the truth,” he was looking away so he must not have seen my nod.
I gripped his hand.
“You’re the first relationship I’ve had, since Chrissy died,” his jaw tight as he spoke the words that caused my heart to drop to my stomach.
My heart was breaking for him, “When did she pass away?” I managed to ask the question.
“About 2 years ago,” he removed his hand from mine, pulled me against his chest, and burrowed my head under his chin, “but it still feels like yesterday.”
“How?” I asked, “What happened?”
“Shana called my parents. She felt that something was wrong when Chrissy did not show up for dinner. They were supposed to meet up. She tried calling her Chrissy’s cell but it went straight to voicemail. Chrissy never turned off her cell. When Chrissy didn’t call back after 5 hours, Shana called my parents. My parents flew out that same day. My dad used all his connections to track her phone, to alert the authorities, to do everything that they could to locate her. My parents didn’t tell me what was going on. I had a game that day. They only told me after they found her,” his voice breaking, I felt hot liquid against my hair.
“They found her in her on the side of the road, her car parked a few feet away. She was tied and gagged.”
I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to throw up. I don’t even know how I even managed to stay in his arms.
Gruffly, he went on with this heartbreaking story, “You see, we didn’t even know that Chrissy was dating this one guy. According to Shana, Chrissy went out on a few dates with him but didn’t see it as anything serious. This guy had other plans though. He was upset when Chrissy said she wasn’t going to see him anymore because she was moving back to the U.S. Chrissy was almost done with her study abroad program so she was ready to come home. The bastard, the fucking bastard, did not take this well and they had an argument. Chrissy’s gone because of him!”
The last shred of his control broke. His voice was furious, “This guy didn’t know whose daughter or sister he killed! In court, when they asked him why he did it, he said because he couldn’t let her go. She’s gone because he couldn’t fucking let her go so he killed her instead!”
He pulled his arms away from me and stood up. He walked towards the beach. I remained in place.
When he came back to me, he removed his sunglasses, and looked at me with eyes filled with sadness and unspeakable emotion.
“Remember when I said that this tattoo was special to me?” he asked. His left hand touched the condor tattoo on his right arm.
