Standing in front of her house, he pauses.
A lot of things ran though his head in the past 2 weeks. It took him that long to muster up the courage to even say something related to her, not to mention to come see her. As the wind blows, he pulls his coat closed tighter. He can't figure out why it's taking him too long to go up to the Victorian-styled home. Her black Chevy is parked out front; he knows she's home, so that's not it.
He's scared.
Is it rejection? Maybe. What about some resentment still lingering inside of him? Possibly. Or is he just remorseful for what he's done? Oh yeah.
Taking a deep breath, he goes up front to ring the bell. As soon as he places his finger on the bell, the door pops open. And there she was. Standing 5 feet even, she was even more beautiful than he remembered. Not seeing her for six months would do it to any number of people, but her beauty rivaled even Aphrodite. Beautiful shoulder-length dark brown chestnut hair, small freckles around her nose and peppered on her cheeks, kittenish dark brown eyes, and a beautiful smile.
Of course, that smile quickly disappeared.
She sneered. "What are you doing here?"
Stammering, he spoke. "I-I need to talk to you."
"For what? I don't have anything to say to someone who lies. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go-"
He cuts her off. "Will you just hear me out? Please? I'm begging you."
She looks at her watch. "You've got 3 minutes. Go."
He sighs. He can't even look her in the face, much less her eyes. Staring at the ground, he didn't know really where to begin. 2 weeks of practicing what he was going to say, and now, in the moment of truth, it gets thrown out the window. So he starts from the only logical place he could. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for lying to you. I didn't know that my... I didn't mean...
I just wanted to be everything you were looking for in a man, you know? And I wanted to be what you wanted, so I tried my hardest to be that. And along the way, I made some mistakes, did things I shouldn't have to, and then tried to cover them up. But I've always been there for you, no matter what it was. I even tried to help you get with someone else knowing that it was breaking my heart-"
She twists her face into disgust. "Breaking your heart? Is that what this is all about, how I broke YOUR heart? What about my heart? What about what I was feeling about you? You LEFT me. Gone, vanished without a trace for 6 months, and now, all of a sudden you show back up on my doorstep like I'm supposed to say 'You're forgiven'? Hell no. I won't subject myself to that kind of pain anymore. I gotta go."
His eyes widen, he gets nervous. "Wait! Wait. Yes, I left. I left, not only you, but everybody! My family, my friends, EVERYBODY. I cared about you enough to leave, remember? I secluded myself from everybody, it wasn't just you."
"Seclusion? Is that what this was?"
He shakes his head. "No, but you can call it that."
"I call it being irresponsible. Unappreciative. And most of all, selfish."
"How could you call ME selfish? I lied to try to please YOU. I made myself a new person for YOU. I did everything possible to spend the rest of my life with YOU. I loved you! I-"
"Loved?" She scoffs. "So, you don't love me anymore?"
He replies, "About as much as you love me. Tel me something, do you love me? Did you ever?"
She shakes her head and starts to walk towards her car. "Ant, I don't have-" She stops in mid-sentence and looks at him. She whispers, "Oh, no."
He craned his head towards her. He walks with his ear leading the way to her. "Wait. What did you say?"
"I didn't say-"
"No, have I been away that long that you don't even know my name? It certainly isn't Ant." He laughs quietly. "Is that what this was all about? I reminded you so much of him, you started thinking I was him! And then, when I made myself into a image that you wanted, I made myself into him, am I right? Then all of a sudden, I'm just like him, a liar, a cheat, argumentative, violent, hmm? Am I getting warm? Is THIS why you never wanted a relationship with me? Did you ever consider what you were doing to me, day in and day out? One day you love me, the next day Ant is making you consider staying married, Bobby wants back in, you call Joesph and tell him you miss him, and these guys treated you a LOT worse than I did. But you'll call me for all the advice in the world. When your best friend suggested that you forget them and get with me, what did you tell her? You didn't love me. But you ran to me every day. My family saw the toll it was taking on me, and when I finally snapped and burned down every bridge leading to my island, you stood back and said 'Oh well' instead of coming to rescue me! You could've-"
She stops me. "Rescue you? It wasn't my JOB to rescue you! I thought that I had a better chance at a relationship with those guys than you, can you understand that?"
"So why didn't you come tell me that, instead of going to dinner with me, sitting in my lap, going with me to the riverbank and making out all night, having me parade you in front of my mother like you were somebody special, when all you wanted was free advice?!? I could've given you that without you playing with my heart!"
"I couldn't come tell you that..." Tears was flowing down her face. "... because I didn't... I mean, I did... but I..."
A voice spoke to her, seeming out of nowhere. "Tell him. Tell him you love him, or you'll lose him. We'll all lose him." She recognized the voice as the caller from 2 weeks ago. She looked around wildly, twisting her head this way and that, trying to find out where it came from. He looked at her as if she was watching a fly buzz around her head, or that she finally lost it. She spoke out loud, "Where are you? Show yourself! You can't make me tell him that I love him! You can't make me forgive him. I have a choice to be happy, to not get stares from people because of who he is! I have a choice to not tell anybody about him! Why should I? He's mine! What if I don't want to share him with anyone else, did you ever think of that?!?"
"Oh yes, I did. And believe me, I want to do the same thing."
His mouth fell open. The first thing that hit him, even before the voice was heard and recognized by his brain was the smell of jasmine. He turned around and saw the same woman from the library. She was wearing all white, her Décolletage dress showing off some skin. She was the prettiest caramel color he had ever witnessed, and her eyes was as green as an emerald. Her long, dark auburn hair fell over her shoulders, she had a beautiful face, and those eyes... it was like she was staring right into him.
They spoke at the same time.
"You. You were the person that called me the other night!" "You're the woman from the library!"
Serendipity turned and answered her first. "Yes, yes I was the woman on the phone. And you've just made a mistake. What did I tell you? I told you to be honest with him, tell him you love him, tell him you forgive him, because in reality it was stupid anyway, the reason for you being mad. And you couldn't do it." Serendipity glared at her, she glowered right back.
He interrupted the stare down between the two ladies. "Ma'am, who are you? More importantly, where did you come from?"
Serendipity looked at him, and for the first time in his life, he saw the personification of Love staring at him. She smiled sweetly and said, "My name is Serendipity. And to answer your second question, if I told you, you wouldn't believe me."
A male voice shouted out, "Why don't you try him, you've come this far, haven't you?"
Serendipity's smile faded quickly. She looked behind the other woman and saw Alan. "Alan, what are you doing here?"
Alan smiled faintly but morbidly. "Watching an angel return to Earth to become human. That is what you're about to do, aren't you?"
No comments:
Post a Comment