The Purple Heart

by Christie Gucker

“It is now. That’s the nicest alarm clock I’ve ever had.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you. You were sleeping so peacefully and you obviously needed to catch up.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’d rather be awake and spending time with you. It looks as though you’ve been up for awhile. I hope I didn’t snore or kick you.”

  “No, don’t be silly.” He obviously didn’t remember his second episode, and I thought it best not to mention it right now. He leaned in so his mouth was right against my ear. Waves of warmth and tingles from him being so close washed over me.

  “I’m sorry about last night. It’s not how I imagined our first night sleeping together would be,” Aiden whispered into my ear, his voice sounding slightly embarrassed, yet still in good spirits.

  “You’ve thought about that?” I was shocked. I thought it was just my little fantasy. I felt badly he was upset about it. It didn’t really bother me at all, and I was happy I hadn’t mentioned it to Cheryl.

  “I’m sorry. It’s wrong of me. We’ve just met. I’m being way too forward. Forgive me. I don’t even know if you’re thinking the same way I am.”

  I was too quick to answer him but I needed him to know. “No, I feel the same way. We keep stumbling across this same thing, this connection we have. I think we’re beyond feeling like we’re being forward and apologizing for it.”

  “Agreed.” He reached out, grabbed my shoulders and pulled me down to him. We lay face to face with our arms and legs entwined. Everything about the phone call jumped out of my head. All that mattered was right here, right now, with Aiden.

  “So, I was thinking. We actually haven’t had a proper date. If I’m going to allow things to continue at this pace, I need you to know that I want to give you everything, not just an attraction, and you’re letting me stay here with you. Don’t get me wrong, this has been wonderful, but I want to show you that you mean more to me. And I want you to enjoy having someone pursue you. You deserve to be treated the proper way. Would you like to go to the park while it’s still nice out and maybe have a picnic? The weather reports I watched yesterday said we’re in for some bad ice storms later in the week.”

  It was like he had read my mind. I know I hadn’t mentioned those thoughts on the phone with Gina or Cheryl, so he didn’t overhear me say anything to them. We were just on the same page. My heart did a little flip in my chest.

  “I’d really enjoy that.”

  “I know you must have other work you need to attend to, so you let me know when a good day is.”

  “Nope, I told you before, you’re it. A day in the park would be working for me. Today would be absolutely perfect.” I smiled and placed a soft kiss on his lips.

  “I want a job just like yours, so I can kiss you all day long. Think you can help me find one?”

  “I’d probably get fired if anyone knew we were kissing, let alone your staying here with me.”

  “Well, can we just not tell anyone? I don’t want you to get fired, but I don’t really want to be away from you, either. I feel very drawn to you, like I can’t be anywhere else but with you. Right here, right now,” he confessed to me.

  “I really feel the same way. It’s crazy, right?”

  “It’s rather surreal. Things like this only happen in the movies. It’s definitely not normal reality. It just doesn’t happen on a daily basis, and rarely ever lasts an eternity.” He had a serious expression on his face.

  “Oh, I … We don’t …” I felt my chest tighten and tears begin to well in my eyes. Cheryl was right. He was already regretting this.

  “Please don’t say it. I didn’t mean what you’re thinking. I don’t want you to pull away, and I’m certainly not pulling away on my end at all. I just meant this is special. You don’t see this in life often. This is kismet.” He gestured between us.

  I heard his words answer the fears in my head, almost as though he were reading my thoughts again; yet the tears still came. I had no idea why. I just suddenly felt relieved. In fact, I felt great relief at hearing him dispel the worries that had been planted in my head earlier that morning. He reached up and wiped a tear away and then put it to his lips. It was a very sweet gesture. He pulled me closer to him and cupped my cheek.

  “Sydney, I have waited my whole life to meet a girl like you. Actually, I think I was waiting to meet you. Now we have this one chance to have something other people search for their whole lives. It’s being handed to us. I don’t want to stop or slow down. I want to be with you. Why are you crying? Is this all too much?”

  “I want this to be real and don’t want to lose you. I don’t want this to end, and it’s barely even started.”

  “I have no intentions of leaving you. If it ends, it will be because you chose something else, a different ending to your story.”

  “To my fairytale?” I’m not sure why I used the same words from my conversation with Cheryl, but maybe it was because he played off them by using the word ‘story.’ They just seemed to fit. But this was more than a simple fairytale or story; this was real.

  “Yes, if you want to call it that. But not every fairytale has a happy ending, Sydney. It’s all about how it’s perceived. Don’t you agree? Some people think happiness is all about having money and fancy things. While others find happiness in a trailer park, barely making it by. It’s all in their perception. Happiness is a matter of perception.”

  “So, it’s what I perceive as making me happy?”

  “Yes. What you perceive as your fairytale happy ending, someone else might not think is the right ending at all, or a happy ending at that. Does that make any sense?”

  “It makes perfect sense to me. Right now, being with you … it makes me happier than I’ve ever been.” I thought about Cheryl’s perception of Aiden verses mine.

  “So you think being with me could be your happy ending?” He waited for my response with an adorable smile.

  “It’s certainly looking that way. I’ve just never connected to someone like this ever before. We click.”

  “We do click.” He tousled my hair, released me and began to get out of bed.

  “I’m going to get ready for our day. Would you like to use the bathroom first?” I wanted to share the bathroom with him this morning. Visions of showering with him dominated my head.

  “I won’t be too long. There’s a fresh pot of coffee downstairs. Bet I’ll be finished before you get back up here.” Oh, I’d be finished all right. My plan was to get myself off in the shower because he had me so turned on right now. Just his body pressed against mine was enough to do the trick. This man had a very strange effect on me. I considered taking an extra long shower so he would have time to get his coffee and join me. I smiled at myself and proceeded to do my thing.

  I wanted to look nice, but still remain casual. This was our first date and I wanted to look pretty for him. I applied my signature light make-up, straightened my hair, and wondered if he’d like it this way. I chose a pair of skinny jeans, thumbhole shirt, and a cute jacket shirt with a fleece lining. I wanted to be warm, but not too warm because I needed him to come to the rescue of the freezing damsel in distress with his hot body.

  We reconvened downstairs in the kitchen.

  I grabbed cold cuts and began making various finger sandwich scenarios so we had a few different options. Aiden diced cheese, then made wine suggestions from my rack to compliment the assortment. We packed up the bag with lunch, stemware, and a blanket, and embarked on our date to spend the entire day at the park together.

  When we got there, we looked for a spot by the river. Aiden found the most private and beautiful one that he could. I had been to this park a hundred times before and had never seen this section. It was almost like he knew exactly where it was.

  We spread out our bounty and began to nosh while chatting and occasionally pawing each other.

  “Do you believe in fate, Sydney?”

  “Why do you ask? That’s an odd question.” I didn’t really think it was odd; I just wanted to see
where he was going with it.

  “Really? Because I think it’s perfect, based on how we met and the way things are progressing,” he told me.

  “So you believe we were destined to meet?”

  “I completely believe with every essence of my being, that you and I were destined to be together.”

  “So those mythological fates are real to you?” I questioned with a hint of playfulness.

  “Please don’t make light of this. It’s something I strongly believe in. Think about it. What are the chances we would have met in regular everyday life if it hadn’t been for this war? I’m not even from this area to begin with. Had I not joined the army, I would never have been here to meet you.” His toned turned quite serious.

  “Where are you from? You haven’t said much about your past. Your files don’t say much, either. It didn’t even list your most recent address.” He now seemed uncomfortable that I was bringing work up.

  “Why does it matter? I’m here with you now. Isn’t that all that counts? Our pasts mean nothing. They’re done and over with. They’re irrelevant.”

  I was starting to hear Cheryl in my head again. He wouldn’t even tell me where he was from. Didn’t most people like to talk about their past? Was he hiding something from me? Even worse, was he hiding from someone?

  “Are you saying the past means nothing?”

  “Only the present truly exists. The past is over, and nothing can be changed or rearranged from it. The future doesn’t exist yet. There’s no reason to worry about it as everything is already decided. All that matters is right here and right now,” he stated matter-of-factly.

  “I’m not sure I agree with that. The past is what makes you who you are today. Someone might not be able to change their past, but they can certainly correct things from it, by learning from their mistakes. And the future, well you can plan for that, make it what you want it to be. Are you saying none of that matters?”

  “Not exactly. I agree you can make adjustments from the past. I also believe you can think about your future and try to plan for it. But what happens … happens. And we have no control over the consequences life throws at us. We just have to deal with it as it comes.”

  “I don’t want to fight about this.” I really didn’t want to ruin our day with our first disagreement.

  “Are we fighting? I thought we were just talking. I just want to know what you believe.” He didn’t seem upset when he said it, rather surprised instead at my thought that we were fighting. I guess he was just making conversation. I really did want to hear what his thoughts were.

  “Okay. I believe in destiny to a degree. I think there’s a reason you cross paths with certain people. They are meant to teach you something or bring something into your life that might not have been there on its own accord. Fate? I’m not sure about fate. I used to believe that if you weren’t where you were supposed to be when you died, that’s when a freak accident would happen.”

  “That’s an interesting theory. Tell me more,” he said.

  “I just don’t think fate decides this person will die of cancer or be paralyzed. I don’t think fate says this child will be stillborn, but this one gets to live. It seems unfair. I think some things just happen, maybe for scientific reasons.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “I believe in some sort of greater being. Yes, I guess if you want to say God. God is a personal experience to each individual person. I guess God is maybe one thing to me, and a different thing to someone else. What culture you were born in is also a factor that forms your personal relationship with God. I don’t think God would hold it against any of us, if say, I was taught as a Catholic, versus a Buddhist being taught who God is to them. Same being, just a different perception of what God is. There’s no way we could just exist. I’m pretty sure my belief process would have me excommunicated from my church. See, I think religion is very egocentric when it comes to man. Why would God create only man in his image? And why would he choose the most selfish and destructive of every living thing on earth if he were a righteous God? I believe that every living thing is created in His image.” I was rambling.

  “I’m enjoying your thought process on all of this. Please, go on.”

  “Okay, when you die, all the pieces of you that were there when you were alive are still there, the blood, bones, tissue. Except one thing is missing. That spark, the energy that made them all function. I think that’s the soul. And every living thing has that same energy that makes it living until it dies, and that spark is gone.”

  “So energy is your soul and every living thing has a soul?” he asked me.

  “Right, because that’s the part of us that was created in God’s image. I think heaven is a giant mass of energy. And ghosts, if they exist, are just drops of energy that never connected with the heaven mass.”

  “So you believe in ghosts?” He laughed and ran his hand through his hair.

  “Don’t make fun of me, you asked for this. Think about a residual haunting. When that person was alive, maybe they did the same routine every day. When they’re dead, and if they become a ghost, that same action continues to happen over and over again. The energy keeps repeating itself because it knows nothing else. The energy is burned into time.”

  “Really? Sydney, that’s a very interesting idea. But what if you’re wrong?”

  “So you don’t believe in ghosts, God, or afterlife?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just not sure I agree with you. What I do believe in, as I’ve mentioned, is fate. Everything that happens, happens for a reason. Your path is chosen before you’re even born. It explains déjà vu very nicely, don’t you think?” Again he was questioning me. I wasn’t sure why he was so fascinated with my thoughts on this but I was still enjoying the conversation.

  “I’ve heard a different theory on déjà vu recently.” I thought about Gina’s explanation from this morning. “So what you’re saying is we’re aware of our destiny before we’re born?”

  “I like to think so. I believe everyone chooses the path they’re supposed to take. I’m not saying it always goes as planned, so your freak accident scenario does coincide quite nicely there. I’m sure there are instances when something throws a monkey wrench into the whole thing and fate has to make adjustments.” He spoke as though he knew this information.

  “Ah, so you agree with my freak accident theory?”

  “Maybe,” he chuckled. He lay down on his back and looked up into the sky. “Do you ever look at the clouds?”

  I was a bit confused by the complete and very random change of subject. I noticed he had modified the subject a few times already.

  “Sure. I used to do it a lot as a child. I haven’t lately.”

  “Then cloud watch with me.”

  I shrugged and joined him. He reached over to hold my hand as we searched for images of animals in the sky. It wasn’t long before I realized I couldn’t care less about the clouds, and couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  “Are you staring at me, Sydney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you staring at me?”

  “Because you’re extremely hot. Plus I’m trying to send you secret telepathic messages.”

  “Damn, my psychic abilities are off today, unless you meant this.” He rolled onto his side and ran a fingertip across my cheek and down my neck. He leaned over and kissed me softly.

  “See, that’s all I’ve been able to think about. Is that what you were trying to send me?” he chuckled.

  “It worked! How about a little more? Wait, I’ll tell you with my mind.” He smirked and went to town on my lips. I was happy we were in a private spot, because our actions were not appropriate for all ages.

  We stayed at the park until the sun began to set and then headed home, stopping off only for more wine and take out, so we could continue our fun with no worries.

  Chapter Seven: Cheryl

  We
were just about to start dinner and a movie when the phone rang. I reached over Aiden to grab it and he pulled me onto his lap.

  “Hello?”

  “Sydney, I’m so sorry. I’m being a total ass about this whole thing. I mean, I still think you’re crazy for having a stranger in your house, but Gina has spent the entire day laying into me about how unfeeling I’m being. She keeps telling me how it was like that for us. Instant chemistry.”

  Cheryl didn’t apologize ever. She usually was always right, too. But today was different. Either Gina was denying her sex or she really meant it.

  “Cheryl, it’s fine, really. You’re just looking out for me. I know that, and I love you for it.”

  “No, that’s a little too generous of you. It’s seriously been bothering me all day. I must have called you a hundred times to tell you how sorry I am. There was no answer, and then that would get me going. I kept picturing you lying there murdered and in pieces.” She said the last part under her breath.

  “Cheryl, is this supposed to be you apologizing?”

  “I know, I suck at this. I’m all over the place. I want you to be happy and have you to meet someone and fall in love. I don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life. I want you to have what I have, so I don’t want to be the one holding you back from finding love. But at the same time, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Wow, Cheryl, you’re doing a fantastic job of making everything better between us.”

  “See? There I go again. I’ve been so back and forth on this all day, Gina must have whiplash by now. Don’t listen to any of the messages on your voicemail, okay? Promise me.”

  “Okay, I’ll delete them all. I forgive you.”

  “So we’re good?”

  “Of course we are. We always are.” I heard a huge sigh of relief surge through the phone.

  “Well, I still want you to be careful; you don’t know this guy.”

  “Yeah, I think you forgot to take your meds today, you silly girl. Look, I feel like I know him. Completely. It’s just so weird. It’s like he’s in my soul.” I felt Aiden’s arms tighten around me. He liked what I had said. I snuggled closer to him.