by Shayne Ford
In the distance, I spot George and his pooch sitting on a bench by the lake.
Joggers zoom by while moms and kids feed the ducks gliding onto the water. My eyes sweep their faces, moving swiftly from one to the other and in the end to the people standing near the handrail. A man. A woman. And older couple. A young couple kissing. Two friends taking selfies.
A dark-haired man wearing sunglasses.
My gaze flicks back.
He turns around just as I was about to get a better look at him. I have no other choice but stare at his back.
A soft white linen shirt clings to his shoulders, pants the color of the sand completing his look.
His skin is smooth as silk and has the slightest sheen of bronze. His hands are in his pockets, a metallic watch glimmering around his wrist.
Pulse racing, I prop my hands on the window sill and lean forward, trying to see more of him.
The wind sweeps the alleys, puffing colorful skirts and making the leaves rustle.
He runs his fingers through his hair.
I recognize that hand.
Hastily, I spin around and yank my phone from my desk. I lift it up and tap on the camera, zooming in on the image.
The frame is blurred in the beginning, the lens having a hard time to focus, and then it does.
No way.
I can even see the few silver strands in his hair. He turns slightly as he fights another gust of wind, and my heart starts skipping beats.
It’s him.
I can see his profile, and his jawline, the slight dip in his chin and his curved up lip.
He smiles behind his dark sunglasses, and I almost drop my phone.
Abruptly, I pull back and stumble onto the couch, startling Luna. She starts to bark, assuming that I am playing with her, her voice resonating in the street.
With one sharp motion, I slam the window closed and move away from it.
I look around, spooked. The phone starts ringing again, bringing a scream to my lips.
I pick it up with quivering hands.
“Oh. Hi, Viola. What’s up?”
I hold the phone away from my lips so that the microphone doesn’t catch the sound of my panting.
“Are you ready for some shopping?”
“Shopping?” I mutter confused.
“You said you had time to go with me downtown.”
“Oh, yes... Yes, I did. Um… Can we leave it for tomorrow?”
“Sure. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Rebecca is here, and I just walked up.”
“No problem. Call me tomorrow, then.”
I hang up and set the phone on the desk before I go back to the window. Clouds begin to cross the sky, casting shadows over the alleys. My eyes skim the lake shore, looking for a broad-shouldered man with dark hair and sunglasses.
I find no one resembling him.
15
TESS
I close the window and spin to my desk where I take a long breath, turn the reading lamp on and slide onto my chair. I type his name into the search engine and pull up the results.
A flurry of headlines fills the page, some old from a few months back connected to his wife’s death and some new speculating on his whereabouts.
The man is out of the country says most of the news, leaving me baffled. The pictures tell the same thing, and now I begin to wonder who RT is.
I give the headlines a second look, not sure what to believe.
Nothing is what it seems when it comes to Sebastien Rockford, so just to be sure I call the security company I hired to wire my home and place cameras everywhere just in case he was tempted to trespass again.
He’s never gotten in touch with me after that evening in the cemetery, and I’ve never gotten over him.
The first week was bad, the following week even worse. As the time passed by it all turned into a nightmare.
The things I felt for him cannot be easily described, so I shut a door over them and hoped that time could sort through them.
None of that happened.
The guy from the security company goes over his records and has nothing to report. There’s no evidence that anyone unauthorized entered my home.
Good to know, yet it doesn’t diminish my concerns a bit. I know what I know. Things don’t just happen.
I flip the laptop closed and toss my phone on my desk bringing the cup of coffee to my lips.
Thoughts start swirling in my head as I begin to ponder over the circumstances.
A few more moments pass by before I slide the cup of coffee onto the surface and pick up my phone again.
I place the call. It starts to ring. I wait.
“Good morning. This is Dr. Lara Jimenez’s office. How may I help you?”
I ask to speak to her directly, and seconds later I have her on the phone. I tentatively want to make an appointment sometime next week, yet she offers to squeeze me into her afternoon schedule.
It’s Friday, I argue, suggesting that she has better things to do, perhaps leave early, but she insists.
I agree halfheartedly, feeling bad for my disingenuousness but I make an effort to go through with it.
Rebecca finishes around three o’clock in the afternoon. I take a quick shower, put a pair of jeans, a white shirt and a jacket on. Slip into a pair of short boots and call a taxi.
I walk into Lara’s office at 4 PM. I spend a few minutes in the waiting area, leafing through the magazines until she finishes her session with her last patient.
Twenty minutes later, I take a seat on her couch.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she says as she slides her medical coat off and unbuttons her skirt suit jacket.
I follow her example and set my purse nearby.
Vases filled with flowers decorate her office. The rug has been replaced, and more art hangs on the walls.
“Anything to drink?”
“Water is good.”
She pulls two bottles from the fridge and sets one of them on the coffee table next to a paper cup.
She lowers herself into a chair not far from me and pushes a jar filled with candies close to me.
Her gesture makes me smile.
“We’re never too old for this,” she says, picking one herself and popping the piece of chocolate into her mouth.
She starts asking me about my mom as I munch on a piece of candy as well.
Smoothly, she veers the conversation to my life and before I know it I start talking.
“How’s life after marriage?” she asks smiling.
“Good. Different.”
I grin as well.
“In what way?”
“I have a better grasp of it.”
She smiles amused, her eyebrows arching in surprise.
“Really? That’s a nice way to put it. What makes you say that?”
I shrug.
“I paint it in the colors that I like.”
Her lips press together as she takes a gulp of water, smiling at the same time.
“Hmmm. I see. How does it make you feel?”
I breathe out a soft chuckle.
“Confident. More secure.”
She nods a couple of time.
“Mmm... Interesting. Most people would probably say they feel better when sharing their life with someone else instead of being on their own.”
“I’ve tried it. It didn’t work for me.”
“You’ve changed, perhaps,” she says.
“That’s possible.”
“You have,” she says, stating a fact. “What makes you more confident and secure in your opinion?”
“It’s pretty much everything I do. The small decisions that I make every day. The fact that I hold myself accountable when I fail and praise myself when I succeed. It feels great. I don’t have to take into account variables that I can’t control or predict.”
“Like other people?”
I tip my chin down.
“Yes, like other people.”
She scribbles somethi
ng on her notepad.
“Is your life without people more satisfying?”
“Yes. No.”
Both answers come at once. Both assertively spoken.
“Which one is it?” she asks, smiling.
“Both, I think. It’s good to take the guessing out of the daily life. I have only one person to take care of and live it. Me. On the other hand, I feel as if something is missing. But I know...” I say, just as she is about to ask me the next question. “I know that it takes a special kind of person to fill that void.”
“Have you tried to find that person?”
“No. It’s not easy to find it.”
“How can you be so sure if you are not trying? People come in different flavors.”
“I know me.”
“What makes you think you’re different?”
I smile.
“You made the assumption that I’m different. I didn’t say that.”
She grins as well.
My smile dies out.
I tip my chin down, washed with sadness.
“Aside from processing things differently... “ she starts lending me a hand. “Why do you think it’s hard to find someone who likes you, and more importantly who you like?”
I raise my eyes to her.
Neither of us smiles.
“It’s more than liking someone... There’s a whole world inside me I don’t know how to explain. It’s like a foreign language that not many people talk, or at least the ones I run into,” I say, a bitter grin tugging at my lips. “I had to hide it while I was married to Allan. We both know how that ended. It’s too big to hide it now, and I’m to immerse in it to push it back. And I can’t reveal it just to anyone without risking to be labeled crazy.”
Silent, she puts a few more words on her notepad.
“What would it take to reveal this world to someone else?” she asks as she flips her eyes up.
Slowly, my lips curve into a smile.
I ponder for a few moments.
“Nothing,” I say, suddenly washed with revelation. “I wouldn’t need to do anything. If it would be the right person for me, they’d have the same world inside them, and they’d live in it. They’d be happy to find me.”
She sets the notepad and the pen down.
“How do you think you can find that special person then?”
She leans back against the chair, my eyes drifting to the blue silk bow adorning her neckline.
“I don’t need to. He found me.”
Her eyes stay connected with mine as she studies my expression.
“Are you with him now?”
I shake my head.
“No.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“I asked him to leave.”
“Why?”
A soft, sad chuckle leaves my lips.
“His world was bigger than mine.”
Her eyes flicker with a smile, a flush of blood coloring her cheeks.
“That’s interesting,” she mutters, analyzing my expression again. “You don’t seem heartbroken.”
“I am, in fact. And that’s why I’m here. I think I want to kill him,” I say seriously.
My words can’t wipe away her smile from her lips.
“What makes you think so?”
“I’ve had this recurrent dream.”
A mask sets on her face, and she’s all business again.
She picks up the notepad and writes down three questions.
“Describe your dream,” she says.
“The circumstances are different... “ I say, pausing for a moment, waiting for her eyes to come back to me. “But in essence, it’s the same thing. It involves some type of intercourse... And in the end, I try to kill him.”
“Interesting. How do you feel about the intercourse?”
It’s my turn to blush.
“Good. Extremely satisfying.”
“How was the sex in real life?”
“Even better than in my dream,” I mutter, sifting my position and snatching another piece of candy from the jar.
“Does it make you uncomfortable?” she asks, picking up on my body language.
“Yes. No.”
I start laughing.
“We can move away from the topic.”
“No. I’m good,” I say, raising my hand.
I fill my mouth with the piece of candy and start chewing slowly, relishing the taste.
“The sex was out of this world,” I say after I swallow the chocolate and drink water.
I take a long breath and lean back in my seat.
“Sex also gave him tremendous power over me.”
“In what way?”
Our eyes connect again.
“He used it as a tool to reach a conflict resolution.”
“Explain.”
“Any time we’d argue or feel differently about things or simply clash in a debate about moral values he’d resort to sex to sway me his way.”
“Has it worked?”
“Always,” I say, nodding as well. “Except for the last time.”
“What happened then?”
“I asked him to leave.”
“I see. Do you have any regrets for doing that?”
“Yes. And that’s why I’m here as well.”
“Why did you ask him to leave?”
“I felt as if I had no choice. He didn’t give me a choice. He overpowered me and I got lost in him, and not in a good way. I had to find myself again.”
“Has he been in touch with you since?”
“No. I don’t think so,” I say, not sounding very convinced.
She observes me for a moment.
“What would you tell him if he was here with us?”
Her question takes me by surprise. I smile, yet all I feel is the lump forming in my throat.
“I’d tell him that I love him...”
I have to pause as my voice starts shaking.
“What else?” she asks with a quiet voice.
“That it’s impossible for me to be with him.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t know where to stop...”
My eyes get washed with tears as my lips crease into a twisted smile.
“Do you need a moment?” she asks.
I shake my head and wipe away my tears.
“No, I’m good.”
“Did he hurt you?”
I clench my jaw to prevent my chin from quivering and tip my chin down in a soft nod before I speak.
“Yes.”
“How?”
She no longer looks at me, trying to make me feel more comfortable.
“I trusted him.”
She raises her eyes.
“How did he break your trust?”
“He did some things that affected me and didn’t take that into account. He used me in a way, and wasn’t even remorseful about it.”
“Are you sure he hurt you purposely?”
“I didn’t say that. All I said was that he didn’t care if his actions had made me suffer.”
“Have you thought that perhaps he had no choice?”
I stay silent.
“There’s no way I can tell that for sure.”
“But there is that possibility.”
“Yes, there is,” I admit.
“Would it make you feel better if that was the case?”
I muse over her words for a moment.
“I would feel hurt anyway.”
“Do you ever feel hurt in the world you have inside you?”
“No.”
“Do you think he feels hurt in the world he has inside him?”
My eyebrows lift, unsure of where she is going with this.
“No. I don’t think so. That is the whole purpose of this alternate world. Not to get hurt. Unlike what happens in the outside world.”
“What if he gets just as hurt as you do in the real world and he had to build this world inside him in order to survive?”
We share
a few moments of silence.
“That’s a possibility.”
“What if he had no choice, and just like you he had to find a special person, to share that world with?”
“He said something along those lines to me, but his actions have contradicted his words.”
“Are you sure they have?’
“He’s not here with me, is he?”
“You sent him away.”
“And he didn’t do anything to change my mind.”
A sigh leaves her lips.
She slants her gaze down to her notepad and purses her lips as she gathers her thoughts.
“There are three questions I want you to answer for me truthfully.”
She seeks my approval before she speaks.
I nod softly.
“Okay.”
“Did you ever feel that you needed to explain your inner world to him?”
“No. He always knew what was inside me.”
“Did you ever feel uninterested in his world and thoughts? His feelings?”
“Never. If anything I always wanted to experience more of him.”
“Did he empower you when he had sex with you? Did he make you feel as if you had as much power over him as he had over you?”
I weigh my words for a moment, a few memories flashing in front of my eyes.
“Yes, he did.”
She finishes writing the answers on the piece of paper before she flicks her gaze at me.
“Do you still feel connected to him despite being away from each other and not communicating?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay...” she says with a soft voice as if I just passed a test. “It looks to me that this is more than a matter of broken trust. Based on your answers, it seems that you two are very much alike. It’s possible that you’ve experienced the same type of traumatic events in the past. It’s also possible that you felt that instant connection and mutual attraction for each other because of that. That kind of instant click between two people is extremely rare, and despite some popular beliefs, it’s strong and durable, and often times is that rare, highly sought quality of a connection that we all crave in our lives. Beside dating and socializing and having sex, what we long for the most is someone who gets us. A lover who knows us inside out, who can also be our best friend and not hurt us. This is the big jackpot in the lottery of life. Not many win the big prize, but most people want it, even those who dispel it as myth. There’s a high possibility that he is your man. But you have to find a way to have him close to you without getting hurt by him. From what I can tell, you two are caught in a power struggle right now. This struggle is not about winning. It’s about finding that perfect balance before you start twirling in the most grandiose dance of life, the tango of love. You have to be able to sway smoothly, and not step on each other toes, leading and enjoying to be led while making sure that you don’t let each other fall. He took a few risks with you, and he lost. He may or may not come back to you, but if he does you have to be ready to take some risks as well. Love is not perfect. It’s not what the books say. Or movies. That’s what distorts the expectations. Love is messy and dirty and imperfect in so many ways. Love sheds light on the best in people but also brings out the worst. Love is tumbling and hitting the ground with the other person. Picking yourself up and be willing to start all over. What you see in a relationship that has passed the test of time is just that. It’s the smooth sailing after the rocky years of the beginning. It’s the clear sky after the storm. It’s truce and peace after the war. Love often needs a war to bind two people together. Otherwise, the tie is loose, the bind is fragile, and the risk to get untangled from each other, real. Humans may be evolved but they are immensely stubborn. Each of them is too big to be part of a real couple but once they get their scars and learn their lessons, they realize how much power lies in that truce, and how much stronger they become when they are truly together.”