Ken
“Ma’am, are you okay? Ma’am, can you hear me?”
“Should we call the police?”
I slowly opened my eyes and found the girl in Margaret’s diner and another guy looking at me with worried expressions on their faces. I looked around. I realized I was seated in the driver’s seat of my car, with the seat inclined. The girl was sitting on the passenger seat, holding up a small bottle of mint balm and the guy was kneeling by my car door.
“What happened?” I asked, sitting up.
“You fainted,” the guy said to me. “You’re lucky I was passing by when you dropped your phone and passed out. I caught you before you could hit your head. I called for help. Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Th—thanks.”
“Do you want to go to the hospital?” the girl asked.
I shook my head. “I’ll be… I’ll be okay.”
“Well, I found these on the ground,” the guy said. He handed me the pieces of my phone. “I think you’re gonna need to buy a new one.”
He was right. The phone was broken that I doubt any service center could still put it together. The girl went out of the car as I pulled my seat up and started the engine.
“Hey, are you sure you’re okay to drive?” the guy asked, concern all over his face.
I nodded. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
Actually, I didn’t really care if I’ll be fine or not. I didn’t give a shit anymore. I could hit a wall, or drive over a bridge, and as long as I don’t hurt anybody else, I don’t care. Dying would be a better option for me now. If not, I would rather I hit my head and have permanent amnesia.
I would do anything for any of those options now. Any of those would be effective enough to take away the pain I felt.
I drove without a particular destination. My heart was crushed and the emotional pain I felt was as intense as the physical pain. The muscles in my stomach felt as if they were permanently constricted and I found it very difficult to breathe. But I refused to cry. He wouldn’t want me to.
I didn’t want to go home. I knew Brett would be calling for a search party pretty soon. Let him. But right now, I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone. I just wanted to be alone.
I passed by a grocery shop and then suddenly, I thought of something that would help me. Temporarily, at least.
I purchased two bottles of gin. No need for chasers and all that shit! I wanted to get drunk to oblivion as fast as I could. I started drinking as soon as I got to my car. I knew this was very irresponsible, but I don’t care. If I get caught, then I get caught. I’ll face all the consequences in the morning. But right now, I deserved this! I deserved to forget.
I drove to the beach. It was already dark, and the beach area was almost deserted. I parked my car in front of the great white wall where I could see the street graffiti on it. The whole length of the wall was almost full of graffiti now. Maybe the mayor didn’t bother to have them erased anymore. It looked better than the plain white paint it used to have.
I read the words inside the graphics in one of the sections of the wall. Come home.
I repeated the words over and over in my head. I didn’t know how many times he asked and begged me to do this. Come home. In his letters, his messages. I was too stubborn! Too stupid! And now I was too late!
Finally, I couldn’t help it anymore. I just let the tears fall.
I took a gulp of the gin in my hand. Then I approached the wall. I reached forward and touched the letters with my fingers. Tears flowed non-stop down my cheeks, knowing that Nick painted those letters. For me, as a plea for me to forgive him, to come back to him. A plea I ignored for a very long time, thinking he and I had forever.
“I’m home now, babe!” I said, taking to the wall. “Why couldn’t you have waited?”
He must have been so desperate that he vandalized these walls, knowing that when I see it, I would know immediately that it was him. He risked his reputation, his business. But I knew none of those things mattered to Nick more than I do, more than us. He loved me more. And for the last six months, I ignored him! I didn’t even tell him what was really in my heart. I never told him that I have forgiven him a long time ago. He wasn’t waiting in vain.
I sat on the ground and leaned my head against the wall. I continued drinking, and my world was spinning fast. I was feeling numb, getting drunk, but unfortunately, the pain wasn’t subsiding.
There was so much I wanted to say to Nick, so many things he deserved to hear from me. I read his letters, his text messages. He never got tired of writing them but I never wrote back, never texted back. I punished him for what he did more than I should. The consequences he suffered were more than the crime he committed. And yet, he never faltered, never got tired. He kept going. Even up to the last moments, he made me feel as if I was the most beautiful, most precious woman on Earth. He even sent me his angel, when it should have been protecting him!
Nick made such a difference in my life. He turned me around, made me feel emotions I never thought I deserved to feel. He showed me who I really was, and made me admit that there was nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be ashamed of. I could be strong and vulnerable at the same time.
I loved him so much. But I never told him. I have forgiven him, but he never knew.
And right now, I wished for nothing more than to have him beside me. And I would tell him. I would tell him how much I loved him. I would make love to him, shower him with all the love I deprived him the past months.
“Nick,” I whispered. “I love you. I was coming home today. I was coming to you. I wish you were here. I wish you could have heard all these things I should have told you. I wish you could have known that it was okay. I was okay now.”
In fact, I believed I have been fine for about two months now. I was ready to try again with him.
I took a swig of the gin. The tears were not stopping at all. I was an emotional wreck. I took another swig, hoping the kick would start working. And then I took another and another.
I felt nothing. I felt everything. I felt the guilt. I felt pain. It took every inch of my sanity not to run to the beach, dance with the waves and lose myself in them, lose myself forever.
I had taken my sweet time finding myself, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. And now that I was certain what I was going to be, the person I wanted to share my life with was gone. And everything just seemed pointless now. None of the things I achieved in the past six months seemed significant.
I had no idea how long I sat there by the wall, drinking myself to oblivion. But I felt the world move a little bit. I still felt the heartbreak but I could also feel myself slowly drifting off.
Images of Nick filled my brain when I closed my eyes. I remembered the look on his face when I first saw him. He was studying me, sizing me up. Back then, I thought he viewed me as competition. And I was hell-bent on bringing him down. But he never gave up. He was always the persistent fool who went after what he wanted.
I remembered that morning I woke up in his room, the first time I saw him shirtless. He looked so magnificent, so masculine, and so beautiful. It was the first time I ever felt a sense of curiosity about the male body. What makes it tough and yet so beautiful, so sexy.
Then he showed me the diner, the place downtown, and the things he worked for, things that he cared about. I realized he was a person of substance. He was a hero to those who knew him. He went out of his way to save others. He was Superman, not just to me but to many others.
I remembered his face when he rescued me in the streets, how furious he was with the guy who almost raped me. Then he took me in, and protected me from the father who cared nothing more than turning me into a girl, without thinking about my feelings, my safety and my happiness.
I saw Nick’s face, his boyish smiles, and the nervous look on his face when he first kissed me and asked me out on a date. I remember the frustrated look on his face when I introduced myself to his family as just his friend. I saw his face as he looked at me, claiming me, marking me as his when we first made love.
I saw the desperate look on his face when he begged me not to leave him.
I remembered his face. Every plane, every angle. And now, I would see that handsome face no matter where I turn. It was haunting me. Reminding me of the beautiful things I had, that I left behind, and now gone from me forever.
I wish he was here. Even if he was just a dream, I wanted to tell him one last time everything I should have said to him, everything he deserved to know.
The world spun and I knew I spun into the darkness of oblivion, totally wasted courtesy of the big gin bottle I singlehandedly consumed. I didn’t care who would find me passed out here. Passing out was the best hope I have of temporarily forgetting this mind-numbing pain I felt in my gut.
I was spiraling into a dream. And in my dream, I was back in Nick’s house. He was there, kneeling beside me on the bed, looking at me wearily, judging the reactions on my face.
I knew this dream, this memory. This was the time he brought me to his apartment after my father almost had me defiled. I wasn’t in love with him then, but my mind took me back in time so I could remember the terrified look on his face when he found out that my father hired a madman to rape me.
I could see his face now, the tears that almost welled up in his eyes. I realized something I haven’t seen before in his eyes. I was too naïve to recognize that emotion before. But I knew better now. During that time when Nick rescued me, he was already head over heels in love with me. And I knew if I asked him to, he would have hunted down my father for what he did to me.
How stupid of me! I was blinded by anger. I made Nick suffer for the things my father did. Because of my pride, I took so long to forgive him. Because of my stupidity, I took so long to tell him.
And now, even just in my dreams, I wanted to say what’s in my heart. To make myself just a little bit better, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me anymore, even though this was just a dream or a memory. I wanted to say it. Maybe somewhere in heaven, he just might be looking down at me.
“I love you, babe,” I whispered. “You are everything to me. Without you, I would have been nothing. I would have been the tough-looking androgynous girl who was actually a weak coward. She masked her weaknesses with anger because that was the best defense she knew. She excelled at the things she does and pretended they were enough. But in truth, she had no clue what she was going to do with her life. And then, you came. Because you made that devil deal with her father. She had every right to be furious at you but come on! Who are we kidding? The day you signed up with her father was the day you started saving her life.
“You saved her from the things that would have made her miserable for the rest of her life. Without you, she wouldn’t have known the things that she knew now. She wouldn’t have felt what it was like to love and be loved completely.”
I imagined Nick’s beautiful face, tried to memorize each and every detail because who knew when I would dream of him again? I might not get another chance. I didn’t want to waste this miracle I’ve been given, to see him in my dreams and tell him the things I should have told him a long time ago.
“I love you, Nick. I’m so sorry, I took so long to come back. I’m so sorry I didn’t write you back. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before that I never stopped loving you. I’ve always known I would come back to you. I love you so much. I wish I told you that before. I wish I didn’t run out of time. I wish I could have given you the chances you deserved.”
Tears kept rolling down my cheeks. Nick kept staring at me with a sad, somber look on his face. His expression softened but he didn’t say anything. He looked so peaceful, so ethereal. Tears were welling up in his eyes, too.
Then he reached out to wipe my cheeks with his fingers. He leaned forward and his lips gently touched mine. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t make another sound. He just kissed me, tasting the tears on my lips.
“Nick…” I whispered.
“Shh…” he said. And then he kissed me again. The memory felt so vivid, so real, I never wanted to wake up. I wanted to be lost here forever.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. If this dream was the last I would have of him, then I would make it count, and I would remember it forever.
The memory of me leaving him would not be the last. This dream would be.
He pushed me toward the bed and I felt his body on top of mine. His kisses became more urgent. He was no longer just kissing me; he was devouring my lips, pressing heat against my skin.
He sat up on the bed and pulled me up so he could remove my blouse. He kissed me again as he removed every piece of clothing on my body. We were touching skin to skin. We were speaking heart to heart and connecting soul to soul.
I felt him between my legs, his desire rigid and potent. He touched my core, making me scream. He swallowed my moans in his mouth, never allowing me to whimper.
The look he gave me was dark and somber. And then I felt him thrust forward, spearing through me in one fluid motion.
“Nicholas!” I screamed.
He moved in me, each thrust more powerful than the last as if he was marking me again, making me his when I never really belonged to anybody else but him.
He was relentless, as if he had waited so long and now, he was claiming his prize by ravishing my body underneath his. The force of his thrusts only intensified the desire within me, making my climax quicker and inevitable. When I reached the edge, he pushed me toward the river of pleasure and I screamed his name over and over. A few thrusts more, he quickly followed me to the gates of heaven.
We remained like that for a couple of minutes. Tears were rolling down my cheeks as the memories of my most intense lovemaking with Nick flooded my intoxicated mind.
Nick finally spoke. “Welcome home, kitten.”
I opened my eyes, afraid his image would disappear, that the dream was finally over. But he remained there, with a happy look on his face.
He smiled at me and then he leaned forward and kissed me, the first gentle kiss he gave me tonight since he appeared in my dream. Then finally, he pulled out of me.
“No!” I screamed, afraid to let go. I knew when I wake up from all this, I would be faced with nothing but intense, crippling pain. “Please don’t leave me.”
Nick smiled at me reassuringly. “I will never leave you, kitten. I’m yours. You’re mine. I’ll always be here to protect you, love you, and take care of you.”
I hugged him to me. Tears were rolling down my cheeks non-stop.
I felt his arms around me as he hugged me to him. “Shh. Sleep now, kitten. Things are going to be fine when you wake up in the morning.”
I wanted to believe him. But I knew, when I wake up, he would be gone and all this would just be a memory. But my exhausted body and disoriented mind got the better of me. No matter how hard I fought, darkness slowly took over and I was left with no choice but to succumb to reality.