by Dela
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kendal
The second Jessie walked out of my home I regretted it instantly. I needed her bad, and had almost run after her right that moment, but I needed to figure things out. When her headlights disappeared I hopped in my car and went for a drive to think.
What was with this girl that made me feel so different? I knew that she made me want to be a better person, but it was more than that. Being involved with her wasn’t enough. I wanted more, I needed more. I wasn’t me without her. And now I felt hopeless, dry like a sponge. I loved this girl hard. Her and only her.
Suddenly the thought popped in my mind and I swerved my car, making a sharp U-turn, and headed towards the city. If I was going down, I was going down hard. She would be my last whim.
I was going to make Jessie my wife.
After all, she did technically ask me to marry her.
I called Frank, my mother’s jeweler, and requested an immediate visit after store hours. He met me there in fifteen minutes. He was a black man with white, curly hair and nice pajamas. The ritzy store was private and quiet and gave me the space I needed to think underneath the florescent lights.
I walked down the aisle of engagement rings with a pit in my stomach. All I could think was that I hoped she said yes, and that if she didn’t, I didn’t know what I would do. I didn’t want to exist without her.
After I walked the entire case, I returned to the princess cuts and stood in the same spot for twenty minutes. I planned to spend the better part of my inheritance on this ring. I didn’t want a single dime of it. I owed it to Jessie.
Ahh, crap. I don’t feel good. What if she said no?
“Which ones are you looking at, Kendal?” Frank’s voice jolted my thoughts.
I pointed to a solitaire with diamonds running down the sides of its wide band, and then another large stone with diamonds encompassing it. That one had a much smaller band, but I thought it looked classy.
“Those are both fine choices,” he said.
I nodded, and pressed my hand into my mouth harder. It was shaking. My whole body was.
“Is something wrong, Kendal?”
I glanced up confused. “Frank, before you proposed to your wife, were things ever perfect, or did you have to work on it?”
A laugh bellowed from the depth of his gut. “Women are complicated. If you’re wondering if a ring on her finger will change that, it won’t. Men will never understand women, married or not.”
“Even if it’s your own wife?” I wondered.
His shoulders rippled with laughter. “Especially if it’s your wife.”
I stood still thinking, shooing the panic away, remembering everything that had happened over the past few weeks.
“What’s troubling you boy?”
I told him and then waited, expecting an oracle of advice but all he said was, “Boy, you’ve waited way too long to propose. That’s why she’s upset.”
“What?”
He pulled out both rings but held up the one with diamonds along the band. “Do you love her?” he asked, gazing into the ring with a microscope around his head.
“Of course I love her.”
Frank carried another deep Southern chuckle that made me hate myself even more for my mistake. I needed my Southern doe. “My mama always loved diamonds,” he began. “She told me once that every time a man buys a diamond for his woman, he is telling her he wants to spend eternity with her. See here.” He held up the ring closer to me. “This has twelve half-karat diamonds pronged in its side. That means that you want to spend twelve eternities with her. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“And this jewel here, all five karats, doesn’t mean eternity. It symbolizes her, and only her, that you will give yourself to this one woman for the rest of your life. Are you ready for that?”
“Only if it’s this one, Frank.”
His chuckle came out as a grunt through his closed lips as he tried to not laugh at everything I said. “Right answer my boy.”
“Frank, I won’t hold you up any longer. I’ll take that one.”
“That’s a fine choice, son,” Frank said, removing the device around his head.
He packaged the ring I couldn’t wait to put on Jessie’s finger inside a velveteen wooden case, and I was on my way back home. With my heart pounding so hard, I picked up the phone and called Jessie. I had to do it now. I couldn’t wait or else I wouldn’t be able to sleep. The rock was pulsing through the box, an energy urging me to be relentless until she said yes. The phone rang three times then went to voicemail. I left my first message.
She hadn’t called back when I got home, so I called three more times. Each time, her phone went straight to voicemail. So three more messages were left. I waited impatiently, nervously, pacing back and forth like a frantic lunatic.
“Jessie, it’s me again. Please pick up. I’m going to keep calling until you do.”
Two more hours passed. Okay so she was upset, really upset, and if I drove over to her house right now it probably wouldn’t produce the kind of response I wanted to my ever-so-late question.
Jessie, my wife? I sighed. If I screwed this one up I would never forgive myself.
One more call.
Nothing.
I went to bed with a headache and woke up with the same lingering headache five hours later. I swiped my toothbrush through my mouth, uninterested. Why hadn’t she called back yet? It had been nine hours now. Maybe she was still sleeping. I rushed for the door, deciding before thinking that I would wake her up. I called again on my way over there. Damn. Voicemail. I skipped the voicemail, figuring she was probably deleting all my messages.
Her car was still in its spot. I ran up to her door and knocked.
“Jessie, it’s me. Will you please open the door so we can talk?”
Silence.
I pushed the sides of my palm against the window and leaned in. It was dark inside and her bedroom door was cracked open. She was still asleep. I found the spare key and rushed inside. I pushed open her bedroom door, expecting to see her beautiful frame asleep on the bed, but it was empty . . . and made? I rushed to the kitchen in panic and started sorting through the mail when I saw a small, abused piece of wool lying on the counter. The mangled strip shook me, weakened me, and sent me to my grave. I panted when after all this time I finally recognized it.
By the look of it, she had worn it all these years. She never forgot her promise.
Suddenly I felt like an asshole. I was the one who broke the promise. She wasn’t a game, she was the one. My one. My promise. And she knew that. Frank was right. All this time all she ever wanted was for me to keep my end of the bargain. To stop running and just love her, be with her, marry her. I rubbed my palms against my cheek and moaned as my eyes filled with unwanted water. What did I do?
I got back in the car and called her again, this time with more urgency than before, afraid I’d lost her for good. I wasn’t going to quit until she picked up, or called for a restraining order. Dumbass voicemail! What was she doing for so long? Where was she? As I neared my house, the desperation sucking me dry, I called Gizelle.
“Didn’t she tell you?” Gizelle said shocked.
“What?”
“Jessie left for Ukraine for six months. She got a job teaching English out there.”
“WHAT? How come nobody told me about this?” I yelled.
“Kendal, we just found out about it last week. And don’t get mad at her, she tried to tell you.”
“Whe—” My voice snagged in my throat at the abrupt jolt and I felt my body turn pale. Then, that impromptu night in Vegas. I swerved my car around and headed to the mall. I needed one more thing: a new neck pillow.
And it will say Mrs. Vargas.
“Where?” I asked briskly.
“In a city called Klevan.”
I hung up the phone and hurried inside the mall and into a little store that sold travel accessories. When I got home I ran to my room, packed
only what I needed for a week and left for the airport. I was going to bring Jessie home.
Jessie still hadn’t returned any of my phone calls by the time I arrived in Ukraine. I was beginning to worry, my soul hollowing out little by little as each stressful minute passed.
I drove for hours—I probably should have taken a train—but eventually I pulled the rental car up to Jessie’s living quarters. I owed Gizelle a foot rub for finding the address, but I considered that a bargain.
Jessie’s place was a small home barely visible from the side of the road. It was much warmer here, but patches of snow still scattered throughout the road and trees. The hole in my soul momentarily began filling. I was so close to bringing her home.
I knocked on the door three times, my heart racing, when an old lady answered. She had a knitted shawl tied loosely around her shoulders.
“Is Jessie here?” I asked, praying that this woman understood what I was saying.
Her old, glazed eyes watched me with a blank face. “No here.”
The last sizzle of hope I had was suddenly ripped from my heart, and I crumbled. I lowered my head, confused, wondering what more I could do, when she spoke. “Tunnel.”
I looked up, startled. She was smiling and pointing to the woods behind me. “Tunnel love . . . there.”
I followed her point, confused, then across the street, hidden beneath overgrown shrubbery, I spotted a hand-painted sign that read “Tunnel of Love,” scrawled in white paint. I grinned, gave thanks, and took off across the dirt road towards the entrance into the forest.
I stopped and stared through the tunnel as far as I could see. No Jessie.
The blossoming spring ferns were bright green from the sun’s glow and overgrown like the shrubs surrounding the sign outside, but were soft against my ankles as I began my trek. This was a railroad. I could see black metal stretching in two straight lines beneath the snowy, mossy fir. I looked up in awe at the way the trees arched over me, growing stronger and deeper into one another, creating a green fortress I couldn’t have imagined. I looked back at the lengthy tunnel before me and charged.
It wasn’t very wide in here, and I had to be careful not to trip on the hidden railroad. Maybe a train fit in here at one point, but I was sure it couldn’t anymore. It would rub against the trees as it went by. But this place was romantic, no doubt.
I spotted Jessie ten minutes later, treading slowly, feeling the overgrown brush with her fingertips. I slowed so she wouldn’t be able to hear me and gained on her slowly.
Jessie was the most beautiful doe I’d ever seen, and I desired deeply to make her my mate. Nearly there, I sped quicker, quiet enough to not startle her. I wanted to watch her for as long as I could. She was calm and I worried that when she faced me all her peacefulness would leave. Finally, when I came five feet from her, I stopped.
“You asked me to marry you.” I called to her back, and when she turned I saw a deep sadness in her eyes I didn’t want to see. I wasn’t prepared for it and I faltered.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jessie
I entered the green tunnel overwrought with emotion. I walked deeper into its depth, feeling bad for the greenness at war with the cold snow. It was warm outside, but not warm enough to thaw the landscape, or to let what was trying so hard to bloom have a chance. In a way, I felt like the spring: trying to bloom through the harsh ice. The magical nature made it clearer that I was twenty-nine years old and more single than ever before. The man I loved froze my heart, and I wasn’t sure I could ever get over this much hurt.
As I continued over the tracks, each step became a painful reminder that I was here alone. This was a tunnel for lovers and a tunnel for wishes. Any couple in love that entered this tunnel and made a wish would have it granted. I had only one wish, but no lover. Would my wish still come true?
I was alone for a while until I heard soft footsteps behind me. I didn’t turn; I didn’t want my self-loathing to ruin whatever blissful moment the lovers behind me were having, so I kept walking.
“You asked me to marry you,” the voice called out. I knew that arrogant voice all too well and it seared my heart, reopening the wound I had just spent the last few minutes healing. I shivered as I turned around slowly.
Kendal was ten feet from me, eyes red.
I hadn’t realized my lip was quivering until I spoke. “What are you doing here?”
He took a step closer, staring with longing eyes, as if he were staring at a ghost.
“Did you mean it?” he asked again, closing the gap between us.
I looked to the green growth beneath our feet as a gust of air swirled my hair around me. I didn’t dare look into his demanding eyes, not when I meant every ounce of what I’d said in Vegas, not when I was here now—six more months now.
“You meant it,” he answered, an epiphany to himself rather than an I told you so. His voice was a low rasp, subtle, and unbelievably calm as he advanced to within arm’s reach of me.
“Are you here for a second chance?” I spat before he could get closer and crush my heart even more. How lame I must have looked, but I caught him moving, closer, carefully—onto the doe he’d been chasing all these years.
“No.” He shook his head, each step steady, precise, like a hunter. “I never had a first chance. When I met you seven years ago your heart was somewhere else. And same goes for recently. I’ve only had whims to get me closer to you, never chances. And then the will . . . and then your promise, your dream, that led you here. . .”
I noticed the dimple in his cheek I’d always loved when he grinned looking away, into the new world around us. “Your dream is so beautiful.”
And then he stopped and set his eyes on me. “How come you never told me about Ukraine?”
“How come you never told me about the will?”
His shoulders rose with a deep breath. “Because I knew weeks ago that I wanted to be with you for us, and not because of the stupid will.” He paused. “Jessie, I wasn’t with you for the money. I was with you because I loved you.”
I tried to keep my bearings, but I felt my face scrunch to hold in the pain. I stayed unmoving, holding in the pain for as long as I could when a whimper accidently escaped my mouth and ferocious sobs erupted.
I raised my hands and looked around us as he just had, except sniffing horribly when I said, “I kept my promise.”
He didn’t move except for the muscles of his brows that furrowed, ashamed. “I know that now.”
He advanced.
One step.
Two more.
I couldn’t bare looking at him anymore. I turned away.
“Jessie, look at me.”
When I did, he moved close enough that I could smell him, all of him. I wanted to faint at the delicious smell but I had to look up to see his eyes. The brush of his warm hands moved along my arms right as a new shiver filled me. “I am fulfilling my promise now. What I am about to say is my last whim. If I upset you and you want me to leave, I will. But if what I say pleases you, then give me, Seat 2A, the first chance that I have been through hell and back to get.” He let out a breath and smiled. “Because I love you, Jessie.”
His hand reached for his pocket, and he dug for something with his fingertips. When they emerged a white, sparkly ring was pressed between his fingers. I gasped and cried harder as he began to lower onto one knee.
“Jessie Evans.” He let out a slew of air, grinning a nervous I’ve never seen before when he looked deep into my eyes. “I have loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you. Thank you for giving me that prompting to change my seat that day on the plane, for forever changing my life for the better. I remember now the promise I made to you that day in the sleigh. I told you that I would stop taking whims when I finally found the one that makes me happy, and the thing is, that whim is you. I realized it the moment you walked out my door. And the only way I could ever stop is if I make you my wife. I am not going anywhere, Jessie, and I will wait every day for the rest of my
life until I make you mine. Let me spend an eternity making you happy, the way you do me. Please, help me fulfill my promise, give me a chance, and marry me, because I want you mine in the worst way.”
My hands swiftly wiped the tears from my eyes and rushed to cup his face right as his lips met mine. Swirls of color flashed behind my eyes as the taste of him filled me with warmth and love and understanding. Then I couldn’t breathe from the lip lock. I was still stuffy. I backed away but he clung onto my cheeks and leaned his forehead into mine and let out a long breath as he sighed with relief.
“I love you, Kendal,” I whimpered. “My answer is a million times yes, the number of stars in the sky, and eternity, my answer will always be yes.”
I breathed in deeply, feeling the burn of emotion in my lungs, trying to catch my breath as his forehead pressed into mine. He squeezed his eyes shut, took another long sigh, then backed away. There were tears in his eyes as he slid on the large diamond ring that covered nearly a third of my wedding finger. The band was encased in diamonds, glimmering in the small facets of sunlight of the tunnel. “I love you, Jessie.”
The ring truly stunned me, but for now, it only made me want to cry more. Kendal chuckled as he stood and spun me into his arms, kissing me as the salt of my tears streamed down between our kisses.
“What took you so long?” I cried, leaning my forehead to his once more. I was all out of strength but this time it would get better. He was my forever.
He shushed me with another kiss then backed away and whispered, “It doesn’t matter. I’m yours forever and always now.”
“Do you know how long I wanted to hear you say that?”
Kendal intertwined our fingers and lifted my hand. The center diamond was much bigger than I’d ever dreamed of having, and was truly spectacular, but the band kept stealing the show as the sun continued to steal peaks through the trees.
“The ring wasn’t expensive enough to cover the amount of the will, but I don’t want a dime of it, Jessie. I’m giving it all to you to spend on whatever you want, starting with this ring,” he said.