Always HIS

Chapter 3

[ Anna ]

It was very early in the morning, and I was still awake. 

After I called Zach last evening, he never called back. But here's who did: Jay. He told me he was coming over and spending the last few hours he had in Sun Valley with me (he had a flight at dawn), and true to his word, he did come. For the first time in the past six days, I had dinner in the living room outside, with my Dad and Jay mostly doing all the talking but I knew my Dad was just happy to see me out and about. I still hadn't had the conversation with him yet about everything that was going on, and while that lurked around like an impending doom, I was just fine to live in a bubble and pretend like everything in my life was absolutely alright for that one hour of having dinner, which was all smiles and jokes, from how much the town had changed over the years to Jay's grandparents (whom he now remembered very little about, unlike my father, who was on good terms with them), and then we even spoke about work and we even joked about how I and him had gone on a silly hangout- if you could even call it a date.

After dinner, Jay has left and I and my Dad had sat on the swing, only for one small conversation, but one conversation led to another until we were up all night, and I had ended up talking to him about me and Zach, only very briefly of course.

In the end, he was just laughing as was I, the only difference being there were slight tears glazing my eyes, and I was undecided if it was because of laughing too much, or because of reliving the memories I was so convinced to bury deep inside me.

"I cannot believe that was your boss!" My dad was still laughing. "Did he actually tell his best friend that?"

"Yes." I said, and my laugh slowly vanished, but the sad smile still remained. "I couldn't believe it was him too."

"Anna..." he looked at me, pursing his lips. "If there's anything I've taken from what you've just told me, it's his decision of not giving you up even when he thought it was the right thing to do. And now, when he knows it isn't the right thing to do, you really think he's doing to let you go?"

I turn my head towards him. "I don't know, Dad. It's like, I don't know anything anymore. I mean, I know him and I know his heart but I think every thing that is happening around me has left me so uncertain that I don't know what to believe in anymore."

"Believe in him." He tells me, firmly, "Now, I'm not gonna lie. Reading those articles was a low blow to me, and I couldn't even imagine what you were going through. Hell, the only thought in my head was to take a gun and go to Brooklyn to shoot him for hurting my daughter like that–"

I cut him off, "Dad, you know it wasn't his fault."

He ignored what I said, going on, "...But if the you I'm seeing right now is the real you and if he makes you happy in the way your eyes sparkle when you talk about him, then I can't f*****g believe I'm saying this, but just hold on. Believe in him. If it's a love the way you describe it to be, then it doesn't deserve to end in goodbye."

"I do," I nod, looking at him. "I do believe in him."

"There's a question in my head, actually."

"Go on."

"So, now, you're still in the middle of your story. You don't know how it's going to end. Nothing's definitive, right? But, if this goodbye was definite, and you knew the story would end in goodbye no matter what you did... and then, if you had the chance to do it all over again, would you still want to fall in love with him?"

"I... I don't know," I raise my shoulders gently, being honest.

"Think again," he insisted, "If you could do it all again, right from the first day you met him, not knowing where it'll take you at all, would you choose to fall in love with Zach the day you did?"

I take a deep breath, "Here's the thing, Dad. I never decided to fall in love with him. Right from the day I got to know the real him, I knew he was different. I never believed in the saying that broken people love the hardest until I met him. He has lost so much in life, that it has given him the greatest capacity to love that I've ever seen. Falling in love with him was not a decision at all, it just happened, slowly and dangerously, and long before I realised, my heart was already his."

"And, do you regret that?" He asked me.

"Never. Not for a moment, no," I answer instantly, "No matter what the outcome was, whether or not I want to do it again, I would never regret any moment I spent with him. Ever."

"Then why can't you make up your mind on if you'd like to do it all again or not?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know," I sigh, biting my lower lip, "It's like... as it is, it's hard to love someone when the fear of losing them is so high. And I can't fall in love with someone again if I know how it will end, to know  that all the time, all the laughter, all the memories and all that love ends in a goodbye..."

"But that isn't a someone, is it? It's Zach. The guy you love now, and the man you know." He reminds me.

I take a deep breath. "You're right. It's him. And, uh, I don't know. I'll... I'll tell you when I make up my mind about it."

He nods, and silence spreads between us.

"How can you really tell when a story isn't supposed to end in goodbye, Dad?" I turn to him. "You and mom ended tragically. Did you always know?"

"Picture this," He replied, "Imagine a rubber band, or a stretched elastic, held on two ends by two different people. One one person gives up, and leaves the elastic, and the other one holds on, the one who left gets to walk away, while the one who held on gets hurt. Now, replace that elastic with love. That is a relationship. And while I don't know if it was supposed to end in goodbye, but Hilton left the elastic a long time ago, and not wanting to be the one who gets hurt, I didn't hold on either."

"So you were afraid of being hurt in love?"

"Maybe," He shakes his head, "But who isn't? Why would you let yourself intentionally walk into something when you know it's going to hurt?"

I did. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, not because Zach was tough person but because I and Zach were to very different people who were scarred with demons of our past and no matter how it ended, the journey was going to hurt despite even living the good moments. And I still got in it anyway, hoping it will all be worth in the end.

"I've heard real love always finds a way back," I say, "But mom fell in love with someone else and you didn't. Didn't that ever bother you?"

 Open communication had never been my family's forte. Over ten years since my parents parted and not once I spoke to my Mom about my Dad. Hell, I barely ever had such heart-to-hearts with him and I think a part of me was actually desperate to keep the conversation going, afraid this moment would never return, and so I wanted to make most of what I had.

"It's a myth," he corrects me, "You can be in love with someone for just a few days, and never see them again, move on, get married and have a new family, but just because you love someone new, doesn't mean that an old love was not love. If you give your heart to someone even if only for a moment, and want nothing but the best for them, so much that you're willing to hurt yourself to let them be happy, it's real. And you can fall in love a hundred more times after that, each different in intensity, and that love would still be real. Here's where soulmates come in."

"Soulmates?" I chuckle under my breath. "I didn't know you believe in soulmates."

"Science doesn't really believe in soulmates," he tells me, "But I've been an eternal dreamer, so here's what I think– Soulmate isn't a lover or someone you spend the rest of your life with. That's another myth. Soulmate is someone you connect to, someone you can count on in the darkest nights, someone who'd inspire you to be a better person, someone who's presence makes an ordinary day fun. You may not even know you've met your soulmate, but know this: no matter how much you fight with your soulmate or how far the two of you move, you'd always find your way back to each other. Not necessarily romantically, it could just be platonically. But if you're lucky enough to be in love with your soulmate and be loved by them, even the worst tragedies cannot make the love die, or keep the two of you away."

I stay quiet.

"Did Zach ever make an ordinary day fun for you?" He asked me after a while.

"I did look forward to Mondays," I mumble, looking away.

"Did you look forward to grocery shopping with him?"

I stay quiet. I looked forward to any and every thing as long as I could do it with him.

"Did you ever believe he was your soulmate?"

I keep quiet for a long time again, "I never gave it much thought, actually. So, I don't know."

"You will," he replied, "Hopefully, you will get the answer to that question soon, sweety."

"Do you think Zach is my soulmate?" I look up at him, gulping.

A small smile breaks on his lips, "I don't think I get a say in that at all. Only time can tell." 

*        * 

"I don't usually do this for anyone! You rather be extremely grateful that I am here." Giving Jay a mocking cross eye, I chuckle under my breath.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," he mocked back, "You've literally only walked a lane away to say goodbye to me."

"At the break of dawn," I remind him, my eyes flickering to the twilight overhead. "I skipped sleep for you. Does that count for nothing?"

He laughs along with me. "It does. Come here, you." With that, he engulfs me into a hug.

"Take care," he says firmly, when we break away. "And remember, I'm just a call away."

"I will, thank you," I nod hastily. "You take care too. And have a safe journey, and ping me when you land in Brooklyn, okay?"

"I will," he nods. "Only if you get your phone back until then."

"Hopefully, I will have it by tomorrow night." I say.

He nods, looking around and back to the white car waiting for him. "Well...."

I sigh too.

"It's time," he adds. I nod.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drop you to the airport?" I ask him.

"I have an Uber, Anna. I'll manage," he promises. "If you do want to do anything for me, please just walk back home and straight away go to sleep. For a girl who has barely gotten out of her room in the past one week, you look miserable."

I laughed under my breath, faintly remembering him telling me something similar when I was unwell at work a few months ago and called for medicine. As far as my memory took me, it was the day we actually became friends, drinking coffee by the side while the floor was down at lunch break.

"You sure do know how to wipe a girl right off her feet..." I reply with a smug smile as well.

He laughs, as if recollecting the same thing as I had. "Well, to be fair, this time, I wasn't hoping for that..."

My smile widened, and I chuckled. "Take care, Jay."

"You too, Collins," he said, nodding, and gave me a parting hug again. "Hold on, alright?" He whispered in my ears before breaking away and I gave him a nod, watching him get into his car and then watching the Uber until it got completely out of sight.

Then, sighing to myself and with the ghost of a smile lingering on my lips, I started walking back home.

The time was nearly five, and unlike a regular winter morning, the sun was almost already up. The sky was a blend between azure and sapphire blue, and the stars had faded away as had the moon, letting rays of yellow sunlight scatter around, the wind being the perfect amount of cold. It was mid February, and I guess it was safe to say that winter was finally giving way to spring- my favourite time of the year.

Hugging my arms closer to myself, I could see my house at the end of the street. I wondered if my Dad had slept yet. It had only been an hour since I left to say goodbye to Jay, and he'd told me he'd wait until I get back home. In his words, 'no matter how old my daughter gets, in my eyes she'll always be a little girl.. so how can I sleep until I know she's home safe?'. I hadn't argued. I'd be lying if I say I didn't like that, in fact. As a girl who was abandoned by her mother as a kid and was never close to her Dad growing up, it felt good to bridge the gap. It felt good to know that despite everything, he's still my father and he'd still always have my back.

As I got closer to my house, I realised there was a black van parked outside the gates, with a logo I recognised well. Octave Motel. This was Taylor's car.

While Taylor was in Idaho since a week now when he'd come to drop Aurora back home, I doubted he'd show up at my house and five in the morning, no matter what the emergency.

Could it have been.....?

My breath hitched, and my feet fastened to move quicker. I felt my throat dry at the mere possibility of what I was thinking, and yet, at the same time, my heart was scared of being disappointed and shattering the little hope I had left in me.

I had been so lost in my reverie, that a screech behind me made me flinch in my place. It was loud and almost the sound of a sports car or a bike stopping with sudden breaks.

I had only turned behind to give an annoyed glare to whoever decided it was alright to disturb the calmness at five in the morning, when instead, I felt a strong grip on my hand and my mouth being covered by a handkerchief.

The handkerchief has an odd scent to it. It was sweet and trickle and I could almost feel it immediately moving through my veins when I tried struggling out of the strong grip with wide eyes and all the force I had, my scream being stifled into a sweet nothing as I could thrown into the car and the door shut behind me.

I shouted, and I shouted as loud as I could as soon as the handkerchief dropped beside me but it was as if no one heard me even when I could see with droopy eyes, my house being left far behind.

I suddenly felt weak, and fragile and even as I tried to fight it all, I felt a sudden pull towards the darkness.

And so, I shut my eyes when letting go seemed like the only option.

*