Not Giving Up on Forever

by Yana Stevelork

"So apologize to him, what's stopping you? Does he love you?"

  "I don't know, Mark. He said he loved me, and now he doesn't even want to keep in touch…"

  "Being angry and not loving are two different things. What do you want, Anna? Who do you love?"

  "I want to be with Teo... He's a great guy, and I'm sure I just need more time to love him. I tried, but…"

  Mark licked his lips. In the gesture, Anna even read a certain disgust that Mark felt for their conversation.

  "So you're in no hurry to bring back the second guy." he concluded.

  "Teo is gorgeous, he's unique, he's amazing... but I don't love him."

  "You love Randall." he opened the door and called to a passing waiter.

  "I love Randall," Anna said, almost in a whisper.

  Mark fell silent.

  Chapter 90

  A minute later a waiter came out on the balcony with a glass of vodka, which Mark, to the surprise of both Anna and the waiter, drained for a split second without even wincing.

  "It will be much easier for me to listen to all your nonsense now, Anna." He smiled, motioning the waiter to repeat.

  "What do I do now?" Anna sighed, wiping away her tears with her already wet shirt sleeve.

  "Go to your Randall and be happy, what else is there to do?"

  "Randall doesn't want to know me. He's gone nowhere, doesn't even want to talk. I never found a way to talk to him after my trip to Milan. He severed all contact with me."

  "Delirium." Mark stated, draining another glass of vodka the waiter brought.

  Anna raised an eyebrow.

  "Why do you drink?"

  Mark signaled again for more vodka and turned to Anna:

  "I'm getting married soon, remember?"

  "I remember, but..."

  "I'm so happy." Mark said with a sarcastic note in his voice. "Me and Emilia. Aren't we a match made in Heaven?"

  Anna frowned.

  "There!" Mark snapped his fingers. The shots were beginning to get into his head. "And I think so too!”

  "What?"

  "There!" he opened the door ajar and gestured toward the table where Emilia had been waiting for them. "My bride! My beautiful Emilia! Is she beautiful?"

  "Very." Anna asked suspiciously. "Mark, you're getting drunk and I don't get why."

  "No, Anna, I'm sober." Mark approached the girl. "But I still can't wrap my head around how you can suffer all this bullshit, Anna. I can't get any of this into my head!"

  "Mark..."

  "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

  "What?"

  "Why did you come?"

  "What?" Anna sat up."I have a job here!"

  "Really? From all over the world you chose exactly where I moved to poison my life?"

  "What??"

  "Do you think I'm an idiot, Anna?"

  "I'm sure you are!" cried the astonished girl.

  "You came to torment me!"

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You have come to drive me mad with your presence, you know that I love you, that I suffer for you, and yet it is not enough for you. That's who you're really taking revenge on, Anna! Here is your most insidious plan! Your plan is to ruin my whole life!"

  "That's crazy, Mark! My God, what thoughts you have in your head!" Anna covered her face with her hands in horror. "How can you think all this heresy?"

  "I tried to live every day, killing the hope that one day you would forgive me and come back to me. I regret every day of my fucking life the day I didn't have the courage to take you with me, but I was afraid. I was a coward. I didn't want to have what I just dream about now. I dreaded the thought of marriage then, and every morning I think how beautiful my life would have been if you had been my wife instead of Emily. I..."

  "Mark!"

  "I have prayed to God to turn back time, but it is impossible. I'm getting married to Emilia just because she's my last chance to touch the strings of your heart. Even if I don't feel anything for her, I..."

  "MARK!" Anna cried again.

  "I'll finish. You should know that."

  "Mark, For God's Sake! Shut up! Emilia's here!"

  Chapter 91

  Mark turned around. In the door stood dumbfounded waiter with a glass of vodka, and Emilia. She stood stock-still, the horror of what she had heard piercing her very being. They met eyes, and the next moment Emilia, turning over a tray with a glass of vodka, ran out. There were shouts and curses.

  Mark didn't run after her. He drooped and sank heavily into the corner of the balcony between the railings.

  Anna stood in utter shock. From the whole scene, she could not even move. Mark looked up and stared at her.

  "I'll tell you something, Anna. The day we called, and I invited you over for Christmas vacation, I bought a wedding ring. You didn't let me finish what I was to tell on the phone, but I was going to propose you. I had hoped so much that you would agree to come, and I would have the opportunity to ask your forgiveness for everything - for leaving you so meanly and cowardly, for chasing empty things instead of looking forward to the future with you. I prayed to God that you would forgive me, and I could make things right and beg you to marry me so I would never lose you again. But, look at how things turned out... You came, but not to me, fell in love again, but not with me, and I got so depressed. I was beside myself with jealousy and anger. So one night, when I was pretty drunk at work, I slept with Emilia, and she stayed with me that night, and in the morning she saw a box with a ring on the table, and I proposed to her. I didn't give a damn about anything."

  He looked down again and was silent.

  At that moment Anna wished the earth would open and swallow her.

  Chapter 92

  Anna walked home in the pouring rain. The rain was merciless. It looked like Heaven intended to wash the Earth from its endless sins. It poured on the streets and pavements, streaking every object on its way. It was "that rain" - the water of revival and remorse, power and transformation. Everything buckled under the force of his flow.

  Anna watched a poor, drenched, middle-aged gentleman who, to his own misfortune, had been caught in the middle of a downpour. He hurried home as fast as he could, his feet slithering, slipping and sinking in the mud, but his expression betrayed the thought at home he would find a dry bed and a hot supper, perhaps a wife and children.

  Anna ambled, as if hoping that the water would wash away the whole day with all his words and events. She had left Mark alone on the balcony, calling him names in desperation, blaming him for all the troubles of her life, and threatening that it was not him who should whine about the sad fate, but her, because everything had gone downhill when he had left her alone face to face with fate. She accused him of being a weakling and a coward, of not fighting for them. That if he loved her, he would have never given up.

  She regretted every word she uttered, but she couldn't stop herself at that moment. Mark listened with bowed head and guilty eyes full of tears. She had never seen him cry, never seen his face express so much pain.

  She was walking down the street now, rewinding the conversation over and over, over and over. Mark had brought back in one night all the heart-rending memories and dreams that Anna had buried with a superhuman effort. Her cherished dreams of marriage, children, husband, and simple domestic happiness had been forcibly drawn from the depths of her heart, and pain had again pierced her whole being.

  "Oh, Mark... How comes... Why are you..." the rain's noise swallowed her sentence.

  The man ahead of Anna ran up to the porch of his house, met by his wife and two daughters, who immediately threw a huge towel over him and joyfully hugged him.

  Chapter 93

  Over the next few days, Anna deliberately turned off her phone because the drama in her life was off the charts. She took extra time to distract herself from obsessive thoughts and worries, stayed late at work, tried to eat out of the teachers' dorm and returned only to go straight to bed and hurry back to work in the mor
ning.

  That's what happened today as well. She took on the Olympics event and the tea party for the occasion and had hundreds of copybooks to check. It was about 11 pm and a security guard, passing by, hinted that if she kept coming home at midnight, no one would believe she was a teacher but a representative of a different "night shifts only" profession. Politely assessing joke on 3 points out of 10, Anna built a semblance of smiles and started to collect things.

  When she reached the campus for the teachers, she flew up the stairs to the fifth floor and collapsed on the bed in the room.

  In a couple of minutes, pebbles began to hit her window. Anna jumped up and opened it.

  Beneath stood Mark with a huge bouquet and balloons in the form of hearts.

  "Mark! What the hell are you doing! This is a closed area!" Anna hissed from above.

  "You haven't answered for a week. That's the only way I could find you!" Mark shouted back so that a dog barked somewhere near. "Look, I bought balloons. The saleswoman said that it is from them the lady's heart melts."

  "Mark, don't shout like that, they'll hear us!"

  "Let them hear!"

  In several windows a light came on, and sleepy voices were heard.

  "I came to tell you," Mark went on, "that I'll never give up. I will fight for your heart every day until my last breath. From your life I will go nowhere, I will be anyone for you. I don't care. But we both have to be whole, and without each other, it is impossible. We are one. I will never give up now. You are everything for me, Anna. I never thought without your happiness, my own is impossible. I know you only wanted to love and be loved forever. I refused to admit to myself that I needed you. That I owe you everything. We are bound in this forever. Everything else, all these people are a game. There is only you and I. I love you, Anna! So no, I will never give up the fight for you now. I realized all my mistakes!"

  "Awwwwwwww!" came the affectionate reactions of the gawkers from the windows.

  "Mark..." Anna could only say.

  "I didn't come to pressure you. I only came to say that. And to give balloons. Because the saleswoman said that it is from the balloons the lady's heart melts."

  "Oh!" again exclaimed the colleagues. "Anna, forgive him! What had he done?" some asked. "Look at him, poor thing!" others commented. "What an asshole you are!" others grumbled.

  Mark did not put Anna in an awkward position, waiting for a response. He only asked her to come down to receive the flowers, assuring her he would disappear at once.

  Anna grabbed her cardigan and left the room. When she ran outside to Mark, everyone was cheering again, urging Anna to kiss him to make it look like a movie.

  They stood looking into each other's eyes. Mark's eyes were full of sadness, questions, and ... hope. Anna sighed:

  "I'm sorry I said so many nasty things to you in the cafe. I just..."

  "But you were right." Mark stopped her. "You were right about everything. I really am a coward and a weakling. But not now. I won't make those mistakes again. I won't lose you again."

  "Mark, I..."

  "I don't expect you to tell me you love me, Anna. I know what you're going to say. I'm just asking you to give me a chance and time to prove to you that everything can be returned. I'm ready to wait for you all my life. I'll never back down."

  Anna smiled sadly. He glanced into her eyes and repeated:

  "I'll never let you down again, Anna. I promise."

  And he kept his promise.

  Chapter 94

  The next time Teo got back in touch, a few months had passed and he had already moved to live in Sweden. Calling Anna late one night, he asked her to come back to him, that he could not forget her, that he tried to pay attention to other girls, but Anna did not go out of his head.

  "Please come back to me, Anna."

  "I can't, Teo. I'm in a relationship."

  "I don't care. Leave him and be with me."

  "I'm pregnant."

  Randall also got in touch, but much later, when he returned to Italy from China after a year's absence. Bernardo persuaded him that he must let Anna know about himself, that it was impossible to live without a restored peace.

  When they called, they talked on a friendly note.

  Anna was already married.

  The final chapter which was the first one as well.

  "And no girlfriends!" she sniggered, hearing son's protests. "Well, darling, off you go. Thank you for paying me mind. I love you. Call at the slightest opportunity."

  She finished a call and turned back to her beloved.

  "Listen."

  The husband looked inquiring.

  "I am so, so happy. " she pulled Mark into her arms and again looked in a window.

  What fine weather ...

  …

  … But IS IT FOREVER?...

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Yana Stevelork has always been passionate about writing, reading, and linguistics. Words have a sacred meaning to her and whenever she is not writing, she is learning the languages.

  In her free time she enjoys painting the surroundings while sauntering on the streets.