"Come here." I pulled him closer to me, and he bent over, awkwardly laying his head on my lap. He didn't let go of my hand. I ran my fingers through his hair, teasing the curls at the nape of his neck. He relaxed against me, melting and settling.
His breathing had become so even, I thought he had fallen asleep. He surprised me when he spoke.
"Are we going to be there soon?" he asked quietly, like a little boy. He turned on his back and met my gaze – brown eyes so deep and warm, I wanted to lose myself in them. I wanted to keep him. I really did.
"Yes, except we're going on a bit of a detour. There's something I want to share with you before you go."
I felt him nod a little before he sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes, falling into a little cat nap.
I woke him about forty-five minutes later.
"Jacob, wake up," I said, gently shaking his shoulder.
His eyes fluttered open, and he slowly sat up, stretching his arms up and yawning.
"Where are we?" he asked, voice gravelly with sleep. He glanced out the window.
Tito had opened the door by then. I patted Jacob's hand and tried to smile, but my mouth wouldn't cooperate. "You'll see."
I stepped out of the car and went straight for the dirt road, heading for the small buildings not too far away. I heard Jacob's quicker steps following closely behind me. A beat later, he was holding my hand again.
Once a busy thoroughfare, the road was almost empty, save for an odd car or motorbike passing through. The construction of the multi-lane highway barely a kilometer away had rendered the tiny village largely abandoned.
We walked the short distance towards a tall, concrete wall. Behind it was a matrix of houses, a veritable makeshift city, none of which were any sturdier than shacks of plywood. We wandered through the tight alleyway. There were few people left in this shantytown. More than half the houses were boarded over or collapsed and in disrepair. We stopped in front of one such house.
On the side of the house stood a tall mango tree. It once bore dozens of juicy, ripe fruits all year long, but now its gnarled branches and brown leaves would never sustain that abundance. The remnants of a tiny fence, held together by sticks and broken string, surrounded a turned-up garden, traces of roots and stray leaves poking up from the dry, but fertile earth.
Beside the garden, the house's cardboard walls were leaning to the left, tipping precariously on a non-existent foundation. The corrugated tin roof was brown, rusty and pocked with holes. It was bent in the middle, falling into what I knew was only one small room in the shack's interior.
Even though my eyes were set on the house, I could feel Jacob's eyes looking down on me, confusion etched on his face. "Maeva? What is this place?"
Jacob
Maeva stood in front of the house, looking intently at its walls and tilting roof. Her bottom lip quivered a little, ebony eyes turning dark and glassy.
She gestured towards the house. "This is…" Pause for a deep breath. "…is my childhood home. Where I was born, where I lived until I was seven and where Mr. Owen found me."
We were quiet for a long time. Words seemed to be beyond me. On the trip down, I had sensed something significant was going to happen. I had felt it from her, how she was bit on edge, but resolved somehow, all at the same time. I had no idea she was going to share *this* with me, something so inherent as her family history. To say I was deeply touched could only begin to describe my feelings accurately.
"I come back here whenever I feel lost. It reminds me of who I am, where I came from."
She let go of my hand then and walked over to the tree flanking the side of the house. She touched the trunk, running her fingers delicately over the white gouges marks – barely readable initials carved so carefully into the deep, brown bark.
She began shakily, but gained strength as she continued to talk. "There were seven of us. I had three older brothers and a baby sister. I haven't seen them since that day I left. I came back here when I was twelve, hoping to see them, but they were long gone. I never found out what happened - if they moved or if my parents gave up my siblings as well."
"What do you remember about them?"
"I don't know if my father worked. I think he was home more than he wasn't. He's the one that taught me how to draw. We'd play this game. He'd trace pictures on the sand and make me guess what he was drawing.
My siblings…my brothers. They were completely rambunctious. I guess that's how little boys are, right?"
I smiled, nodding, thinking back to the impromptu wrestling matches and horseplay between my brother and me.
"I didn't really play with them very much. I was a quiet child. I liked just sitting and drawing, not running around and chasing each other."
She paused for a long moment, closing her eyes and remembering. "I can't even remember my baby sister's name. Of if she even had one. I think we just called her 'baby.'
There are so many things. So many stupid insignificant things that I remember. Like how it used to feel to lie on a cold, concrete floor, how my baby sister's hair smelled or how my mother's cooking tasted. But there's so many big things that I've forgotten too. I don't remember what if felt like to fall asleep with the pain of hunger in my belly. I don't remember what it was like to want a new something and know that I could never have it. I don't remember those things, and I should."
"Why should you remember pain and poverty, Maeva?"
"I don't know…because it was a part of me. Part of what makes me who I am." She said all this with a sense of certainty, like she had been thinking about the answers to all my questions all her life. "I know they did what was best for me. I know that. But sometimes I just want to remember.
Every time I'm here I imagine that my mother is going to come out of that little house and call me inside for dinner. But she never does. And now my memory of her is so faint, I can barely picture what she looks like. I probably couldn't even recognize her if she was walking down this street."
Although I had avoided it, perhaps in the back of my mind I still entertained the possibility that I wouldn't have to leave her, that somehow by some stroke of fate or luck, she would be with me always.
Despite everything, the contentment, the togetherness I had been feeling these past days, something I knew she shared, that wasn't a possibility. It was never a possibility. It was beyond explanation or conviction. I had never felt closer and further away from her.
One thing I knew for certain – she had laid herself out for me, shared and given so much, more than anyone had ever done before. I couldn't ask her for more.
I approached her and took her hands in each of mine, looking into her face. She looked down at my feet, lush eyelashes brushing against flushed cheeks, her lips pressed tightly together in a straight line. Something inside her came undone. I could feel it. She looked up, midnight eyes glistening. I couldn't handle it. I pulled her into my chest, stroking her hair.
"Please don't forget," she pleaded, her voice so quiet I could barely hear.
I nodded, kissing her forehead.
I don't think I could, even if I wanted to.
Nineteen
Maeva
Pangasinan, Philippines, Owen Estate, 9:39 pm
It was well past dusk by the time we arrived back at the Estate. Instead of the cool ocean breeze wafting around us, the air was muggy and stifling. Twilight had failed to burn off the heat.
Rosa greeted us at the foyer, and we exchanged a few brief greetings, but she knew we were tired from the trip. Wordlessly, I followed Jacob up the winding staircase. He stopped and turned to me, uncertainty painting his troubled eyes. I only nodded, answering his unspoken question.
I dropped my bag off in my bedroom and padded down the hall to Jacob's room. His door was open a crack. I pushed it slowly, cautiously like always. He was leaning over the night table, lighting candles. In the background, I could hear the whoosh of water, the slight smell of steam from the shower turned on in the bathroom. He had shed hi
s shirt, and I spotted it draped across the wicker chair in the corner of the room, on top of my robe. The orange glow cast an eerie, soft light on his skin, darker and golden from our afternoon on the beach.
He looked up at me, staring so intently I could feel the heat creeping up my cheeks. He approached, pressing his tall frame against me. His fingers glided down my arms, leaving behind trails of tingling sensation. They circled around my wrists, and he lifted my arms up over my head, leaning forward to press delicate kisses along them.
His hands grabbed hold on the thin material of my dress and flicked it over my head. I closed my eyes for a second, catching the brief flash of white fabric flitting past my eyes.
His hands were on my waist then, guiding me to the bathroom. We stepped into the warm water, clinging to each other, shivering despite the heat. He washed my hair my back, my belly, my sex, soapy slick fingers gliding along my skin.
We made love in the shower, my back shifting against the cold tile, water pelting my face, his heat between my legs.
Afterwards, we lay on his bed, sheets damp from our wet skin. He was laying opposite me, propped up on a pillow, the orange light dancing shadows on his cheeks. He held my foot in on hand, tracing the sole with one calloused fingertip. I wanted to laugh, little tickles of sensation clambering up my leg, but instead I watched him, too caught up in his intensity.
He took my calf in his palm, squeezing the relaxed muscle. I tensed a little at the sensation, concentrating on the pressure of his touch. I seemed hyper-aware of everything, A little pressure in a certain spot would tingle, another would hurt, like I was learning about my own body right along with his exploration.
The way he touched my skin I knew he was trying to memorize me - every bump, every curve, every ripple. And the details would return to him at the most unexpected moments, just as they would return to me, like latent fingerprints in the mind's eye, never to be brushed away.
He moved up my legs to my thighs and pressed them wide against the bed. With practiced delicacy, his fingers brushed across the hairs of my sex, spreading the lips to reveal what he sought. I was already so ready for him, the cool air touching the heat and wetness there. He looked up at me once, and I knew he caught the anticipation in my expression.
Leaning forward, his tongue snaked out to brush against my tender clit, sending spasms of sensation across my middle. I gasped, wantonly grinding myself against his mouth, unable to fight the involuntary thrusts of my hips. His mouth closed over my pussy, alternating between petal-soft licks against the moist pink flesh, and pressing, almost brutal sucking over the throbbing little organ within.
He had his eyes shut tight as his mouth moved unceasing against me, like he was committing to memory the feeling, the texture, the taste.
I didn't want it to end. I wanted it to build and build, trapping all the sweet tension inside my gut for all eternity. It didn't make sense. That was what I wanted, but I knew that this would end, and I would be letting him go - the battle between soul's desire and intellect's logic.
He came into me then, hard and fast, pumping repeatedly like he wanted to fuse our bodies together. Perhaps it was the turmoil that made this so different. Churning, bubbling, emotional energy infusing heated, pulsing loins. It felt like dying a violent, rapturous death.
I came so hard and fast that when I opened my mouth, no sound escaped, my cry completely silenced by the pounding, pulsing of my sex.
Spent and panting, he rolled us over, my body draped over his, his cock still buried in me.
"Stay like this, okay?" he whispered. "I want to be inside you."
I nodded against his chest. I would not have moved for the world. It was the last time we would ever do this. Share our bodies with each other. The thought squeezed my heart, forcing the sadness out of me. I wanted to live in this moment, pretend that I never had to wake up in the morning, never had to move on. I could crawl into Jacob's chest and linger there for all eternity, wrapped up inside him.
"I will never feel like this again." I didn't want to believe those words because I knew in my heart they were true for me as well. He pressed his lips against my forehead. "Tell me you love me."
"I love you," I whispered.
"Say it again. It sounds like music." His voice turned raspy, heavy with coming sleep.
"I love you."
I listened as his breathing turned shallow, then deep and even. I kissed his chin. "Mahal na mahal kita."
Twenty
Pangasinan, Philippines, Owen Estate, 8:17 am
Maeva
I didn't want to open my eyes because I knew he'd be gone. I turned over and felt beside me, my eyes still shrouded in semi-darkness, orange light threatening to spill between the cracks on my lids. The pillow was still warm, his heat lingering on the wrinkled sheets.
When I finally did, the sight of the empty pillow, the turned over sheets, the feeling of his warmth left behind, brought an immediate sting behind my eyes. I fought it. I would not shed a singer tear over this. I couldn't give myself the luxury.
He didn't even wake me. I wasn't sure whether to be angry or happy with his decision. The only thing I knew is that my heart ached.
I forced myself to get up. The thought of staying in that bed, his bed, without him made me feel sick with grief. Perhaps if I pretended that he never came here, never touched my life never captured my heart, I could just go on like before.
I found my robe still draped across the wicker chair like it always was. I couldn't touch it. When I reached for it, my breathing grew shallow and ragged, the beginnings of a panic attack. I had to will myself to calm down.
I looked around the room, leaning against the chair. The bed, once crisp white sheets all rumpled and messy, dents still on the pillows. The drapes half open, early morning sunshine pouring in. I wanted to remember this somehow. The life still lingering.
The first thing I did was to run downstairs. I told Rosa and ordered the servants not to touch that room.
* * *
Painting feels like escape. For a few hours, days, months, however long it takes to complete a project, you can lose yourself in it. Existence gets broken down into one image, made up of mixed pigments and the strokes of a brush. A vignette, a picture, a snapshot, a smaller piece of something so much larger and much more complicated. Life in a painting is so much easier to handle.
That's how I felt, capturing that room. I felt like I was prolonging the moment, or whatever was left of the moment. Grasping and clinging to whatever I had left of him.
I knew Rosa was behind me even without taking my eyes off the canvas. I could feel her warmth, that comforting glow that always made me feel safe. Though today, it couldn't touch the icy feeling in my chest.
"You haven't come downstairs all day," she said, hardening her voice. I could still hear the motherly sympathy, though.
"No, I haven't. There's been no need to."
"You need to eat. You cannot just sit in this room and starve yourself."
"It's not going to kill me to not eat for one day. I'll be fine, Rosa."
She was quiet for a long time. I could hear her nervous shuffling, the little squeak of her clean, but rough hands wringing together. "You capture emotion so well," she whispered. I could hear the tears lacing her voice. Tears I could not shed.
"How is there emotion in it?" I replied. "It's only an empty room."
"Denying whatever you're feeling is not going to help you, iha," she said, placing a hand on my shoulder. It almost worked, that comforting gesture pulled at the sting behind my eyes again, but I only drew my shoulders up, strengthening the dam.
"It's not worth it," I said, willing my voice to stay strong and icy. "He…he's not worth it."
Rosa was quiet for a long time. "You don't mean that."
I shifted towards the canvas, turning my back to her. I couldn't face Rosa right now. She knew me too well.
I heaved a sigh of relief when she left the room. I hoped I hadn't hurt her feelings, but I kne
w I was being selfish. I needed to be selfish.
Twenty-One
Maeva
Pangasinan, Philippines, Owen Estate, 4:25 pm
Six weeks later, finishing the painting had to have been one of the hardest things I had ever done. In reality, it was physically finished. It was probably completely finished that same day. Everything was there, the brush strokes, the lighting, the forms and object captured on canvas. I had messed with it more times that I could count, touching up, redoing sections, and sometimes wiping away brushstrokes. It was more that I didn't want to admit it was finished. Because stopping meant that it was another thing I had completed, the first tiny little step to moving on. And maybe I didn't want to take it.
Space For Breathing: A Rock Star Romance Page 16