Never Say Goodbye

by Angie Merriam

  A socialite you were

  Born and bred

  My daddy bled blue

  While yours bled red

  The princess with a tiara of gold

  They said I wasn’t the man for you

  Didn’t matter how our love was sold

  Your parents would never approve

  I don’t care what your daddy thinks

  I don’t care what they want to do

  It’s only us when this ship sinks

  I only ever wanted you

  I only ever wanted you

  You begged me to take you away

  To show you a new life

  One where your tiara didn’t sway

  One where you could be my wife

  But fate and daddy’s hands had other plans

  The red blood overpowered the blue

  For too long your powerful clan

  Thought they could hide the truth

  I don’t care what your daddy thinks

  I don’t care what they want to do

  It’s only us when this ship sinks

  I only ever wanted you

  I only ever wanted you

  Years have passed and time has gone

  The memories refused to fade

  The game they thought that they’d won

  The one I didn’t know I to had play

  That game of royals is over now

  We’ve risen above the pain

  So for the King and Queen, take a bow

  A new man will take the reign

  I don’t care what your daddy thinks

  I don’t care what they want to do

  It’s only us when this ship sinks

  Now all I need is you

  All I’ll ever need is you

  I put the guitar down and stood to stretch. I was shocked to see that I’d been writing for four hours. The sun was beginning to set, and I felt a chill sweep through the house. This would be my last night but unlike the other times I had to leave, I was excited. This time it was with the hopes that I would see her again. I was hoping she’d meet me in L.A. I picked up the small mess I’d made then drove into town to call Elsie. I needed to hammer out the meeting details in L.A.

  It was a fifteen minute drive into town and was nearly dark by the time I got there. I pulled into an empty parking lot and dialed Elsie. She picked up on the first ring, her tone frantic.

  “Elijah, it’s about damn time you called me!” She spat.

  “Whoa, Els, I talked to you yesterday. Is something wrong?” Something inside me told me there was something terribly wrong, and my gut was twisted in knots.

  “You haven’t seen it?” She asked, surprised.

  “Seen what? Jesus, Elsie, what the fuck is going on?” I hated it when she was cryptic. “Get to the fucking point!”

  “Are you near a store?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Go inside, get any rag mag, Elijah, and call me back.” She didn’t say anything else. She just hung up the phone. Shit, this was bad. I got out of my car and walked into the small store, thankful that the only person inside was the store clerk. I walked around the place looking for its magazine stand and froze in place when I saw it. There on the cover of one of the tabloids was a picture of Chinda and a boy next to a picture of me.

  “Florida socialite seen getting cozy with rock star Elijah Briston, who looks strangely like her ten year old son. Coincidence?”

  I felt bile rise in my throat and tears sting my eyes. I grabbed the magazine and threw a twenty on the counter before running like hell back to my car. I flipped through the pages until I found the story. There it was, Chinda and a little boy, Chinda and another man, Chinda and me in Vegas. I looked at the little boy. I studied him. It was like looking into my own eyes. I set the magazine down and picked up my car phone dialing Elsie.

  “You okay?” She asked in greeting.

  “Is that my son, Elsie? Was she fucking pregnant when they took her away from me?”

  “I don’t know, El, but he does look like you and if you’re convinced that she’s Chinda then the timing is right. I’m so sorry, Elijah.”

  I was openly crying now. Anger and resentment mixed through my tears. It was bad enough that they took her from me, gave her a new identity but to take my child? Ten years lost with my child.

  “Elijah?” I heard my sister say, somewhere faintly and remembered she was on the phone.

  “Cancel the rest of the tour, Elsie. I can’t do this right now.”

  “But, El…”

  “Cancel the rest of the fucking tour, Elsie! We will make it up later. Tell them whatever you fucking want, I don’t care. Just cancel the show. I’m going to Florida.”

  I didn’t give her a chance to talk me out of it. I hung up the phone and drove back to the house. I packed my shit as fast as possible and drove to Portland International Airport. “One ticket to Tampa, Florida, please.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kendra

  When I woke in a hospital bed the sun was shining brightly through the window making it difficult to open my eyes. They felt heavy, swollen, and sticky. I was disoriented and felt a sudden flash of fear. Where was I? Who was I? I heard voices in the distance, murmuring words that sounded of excitement. I remembered hearing those voices while I was sleeping. They were far away and foreign but I heard them. My dreams had been filled with varying elements of horror and beauty. One minute I was walking through sea of red flowers with a feeling of joy. The next I was floating in the middle of the ocean, a storm looming and I was alone, afraid. I’d traveled many paths in my unconscious state but I always felt the pull to get somewhere. To something. To someone. But to where. To what? To Who?

  At times I’d see a hand reaching for me, urging to me to move on. Begging me to stay. There was a voice, a deep, sad voice always talking to me. The mystery voice filled me with love and despair at the same time. Other voices would break through his voice though. Angry voices. They frightened me. When I regained consciousness those angry voices were those that I heard, the deep, sad voice was nowhere to be heard. This time the angry voices weren’t angry. They were happy. Happy to see me awake.

  “Where am I?” I whispered, unable to speak any louder. I began to feel frantic as their faces came into view. Three of them. An older man and women and a younger man stood above me, watching me, with great interest.

  “Chinda, you’re awake,” the woman said through tears. “Kendra dear, she’s Kendra.” I heard the man say, scolding. “Yes, yes. Kendra, my love you’re awake.”

  “Who are you?” I asked confused.

  “It’s me, Mom and Dad. Charlie is here too. We are all here for you, sweetheart.”

  My eyes began to focus more on the three people standing above me. I recognized them but they were older than I remembered. I didn’t remember the boy though. He was a new face but he seemed happy to see me awake. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said sweetly.

  “Hi,” I muttered quietly, confused. Seconds later the nurse was at my bedside followed by a doctor.

  “Well, hello, Kendra. We have been waiting for you to wake up,” the nurse said and every moment after that, for the next few months I underwent test after test and through it all, Charlie was there.

  The next few weeks flew by with doctor visits and rehab. I’d been told that I’d been in a coma for six weeks but as far as they could tell I’d only suffered short term memory loss. I’d lost the last ten years of my life. I remembered my parents though and the boy they called Charlie was my boyfriend before the accident. Charlie was there every day of my rehab, encouraging me and supporting me. I didn’t know who he was before that day I woke, but I’d come to care about him greatly.

  I’d also learned that I was pregnant. I assumed it was with Charlie’s baby since I had no memory of another man. By the time I was released I’d been able to gain weight and muscle mass and was four months pregnant. I asked questions about who I’d been before the accident but all I ever got was “Don’t worry abo
ut that. You’re here and we love you. Let’s just move on.” So after a while of no answers I gave up and settled on being happy to be alive.

  I was encouraged to marry Charlie. He seemed to want to marry me, but I couldn’t marry him. Not yet. I wasn’t even sure I loved him. I liked him well enough, but love? I didn’t know. I had to get to know him all over again. His father worked with my father, and he was in line to join their company, which meant he was a very wealthy young man. He was three years older than me and extremely handsome in that clean cut, country club boy way. At twenty one, he seemed eager to settle down but was respectful of my wishes to wait.

  I did agree to go home with him when I was finally released from the hospital. I never questioned my parents for pushing me to marry a man when I was only eighteen years old. I had no reason not to trust them. It was my only choice really as they were the only ones that seemed to know me before my accident. I thought it was strange that I woke up and had no friends. At eighteen, I thought I would’ve had girlfriends but my parents said that we’d just moved to Florida when the accident happened and moved a lot before that making it difficult to make friends.

  It didn’t make sense but again, I didn’t question. They were my parents. You are supposed to trust your parents. Five months later, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy that I named Aaron. Charlie begged me to name him Charles after him, but I fought it. I don’t know why but I needed to call my boy Aaron and he looked like an Aaron. After his birth, I become encompassed with my child. The first year of Aaron’s life I spent every possible moment with him. After he turned one, Charlie encouraged me to do something other than sit with Aaron.

  “You’re a great mother, Kendra, but you have to have some time to yourself. Go shopping, or go to the spa, or join a book club, or something. It’s not healthy for you to stay at the house day after day.”

  “I don’t like any of those things, Charlie, you know that. But you’re right. I have to do something. Maybe I will take some classes at the college.”

  “Your parents won’t like that,” he warned and I knew he was right but I didn’t care. As much as I tried to be a part of their world, I couldn’t.

  “I know, but they will get over it,” I told him and after an initial fight with my father, they did get over it. I got a degree in early education but that was as far as I got. Life got busy being Aaron’s mom. I was on the PTA and drove him from one lesson to another. I never found time to begin my career but felt good knowing I could when life slowed down.

  As the years passed, Charlie and I built a loving home for Aaron but the love I had hoped would magically appear just never did. Charlie and I got along great. He was always attentive, caring and loving. He worked hard to provide for us and did so happily. I didn’t love him like that and despite Charlie’s efforts to prove his love to me, I knew he didn’t love me any more than I loved him. He’d grown to be one of my best friends, but we didn’t even sleep together. The few times we had sex it was forced and awkward. After the last time, we never tried again. We were roommates and not much more. However, with Charlie climbing the corporate ladder and years passing by the pressure for us to marry finally was weighing down on both of us. The time was coming, and I didn’t see a way out of it.

  Years before I began having dreams of another man. He was handsome and rugged. He was the owner of the voice that kept me alive while I was in the coma. He shared the same eyes as my son. I had no idea who he was, but I fell in love with him. I kept my dreams of him to myself. It was during those times with the stranger that I felt happiest and most like myself. The life I was living seemed fake to me. Money flew around as though it was worthless. Status was everything to my family and to Charlie’s, but I didn’t care about money or status I just wanted to feel like me again. If only I knew who it was I was trying to be.

  Not long after I started having my dreams, I heard the voice from my dreams on the radio. The band Briston was apparently the biggest thing in rock and roll. I wasn’t a fan of rock and roll, so I had never heard them until driving Aaron to school one day. I was flipping through the radio stations after dropping Aaron off when I heard them. I felt a wave of nausea wash over me when I realized the same voice that made my dreams so sweet was now flooding my car. Warm tears washed over my face as I sat there listening to Briston and the man who’d been invading my conscious and unconscious thoughts for years. The lead singer, Elijah Briston, sang with the same voice that had spoken to me while I was in a coma and since then in my dreams. The song he sang was dark and heavy but beautiful. After that day in the car, I became obsessed with Briston. I played their music through the house all day every day. I fell asleep listening to their music every night. Charlie was surprisingly supportive and left me to my own devices when I turned up that haunting and hypnotic voice that I’d fallen in love with before I knew it belonged to a living, breathing man.

  I’d never seen what the band, or what the owner of that voice looked like, but I was obsessed with Briston. I guess just knowing that voice was real was enough for me at the moment. I think I was afraid that he wouldn’t look like the man in my dreams. Living in a world I didn’t feel I belonged in, those dreams kept me content to live the lie. I didn’t want my vision of the man tainted. Charlie didn’t think it was healthy and tried to show me photos of Briston on more than one occasion, but I refused to look. Stupid, I know, but when the only thing you remember of your past is a voice, you want to hold onto that. At least that’s what I thought until Charlie showed me I was wrong.

  “Hey, Kendra, come here please,” Charlie called to me from the movie room. It was fairly early in the morning on a warm summer day. Aaron had just left for summer camp and we’d given the staff the summer off. It was just Charlie and me for the summer.

  “Be right there,” I hollered back. I filled two mugs of coffee and went to join him in the movie room. Charlie had the sound muted so I wouldn’t hear the music before entering the room and actually seeing Elijah Briston. The moment Charlie saw me he resumed the volume on the giant screen, and I stood there, unable to move, watching the man in my dreams. The fear that he would be different or a letdown was gone and replaced by something else.

  “How is that possible, Charlie?” I asked, still stunned as I finally made my legs move to sit beside him on the long couch.

  “How is what possible, Kendra?” he replied, taking his cup out of my hands. Even though Charlie was suspicious and knew that my obsession with Briston was more than just a love of their music, he didn’t know about the dreams.

  I turned to him and felt my eyes mist over and my heart break. “I’ve been having dreams for years, Charlie, and before I woke from my coma I heard a voice. It was his voice. It’s him in my dreams.” I sat my cup down beside Charlie’s and let him hold me while I cried.

  “What’s going on, Charlie? Why am I dreaming of him? How do I know him?”

  “I don’t know, sweets, but we need to figure it out. Our families are pushing for us to set a date. It is coming. I don’t think we can prolong it much longer, but I know that this Elijah Briston is a part of you. I don’t know why or how, but he is.”

  “Oh God, Charlie, I know it’s coming. I know I can’t keep pushing it further but I feel like something is missing. I am so sorry you are a part of this. I said I would marry you and I will,” I said between tears. I didn’t want to hurt Charlie or his family. I knew I had an obligation and intended to live up to it but it was hard.

  “Kendra, look at me please.” He knelt in front of me, a sad look in his eyes. I looked down at him.

  “What?” I dried my face with my free hand and looked him. Those intense green eyes had been so good to me for so long. I knew he wasn’t Aaron’s dad. They looked nothing alike. Charlie’s hair was dark and his face soft but pretty and inviting while Aaron’s hair was lighter and his face was strong with soft blue eyes like the man on the screen in front of me.

  “I know you don’t love me and if I’m being honest I don’t love you e
ither. I mean I love you as a friend but not as a lover.” He paused and took my hand in his.

  “We’ve been together what, ten years?” I shook my head yes, unable to speak.

  “In that ten years we’ve only made love maybe five times and it wasn’t lovemaking. It was forced. I know that and you know that. I also know you are in love with him,” he said quietly, looking from me to the screen that was now paused on Elijah’s face. I looked at my feet, unable to meet his gaze. All these years Charlie had been patient. He didn’t deserve a woman who was in love with another man. A man she never met.