Chapter Forty-Four (Tears Dry On Their Own)

Previously, on "Memoirs Of A City Girl":
 Ch. 43 (So Close)
-I woke up in my bedroom with Luke next to me.
-He told me that I passed out.
-After asking him what he was doing here, he said
that he needed to tell me something.
-The moment our eyes locked, everything started
 coming back to me. 
-When I asked him if he was Jesse, he said yes.
-Even though my heart leaped in joy at this possibility, I became 
bombarded by memories of him dying in my arms.
-The pain came back, and I ran out of the bedroom screaming.
-By the time I got to the living room, Brad was
came in, so I ran into his arms.
-Luke followed right behind me, witnessing the whole thing.
-I told Luke that I just couldn't deal with it.
-He asked if I was going back to Brad after everything
 that's happened.
-I couldn't even respond, let alone speak.
-Luke walked out the door.

*Strong language*



Location: 1012 Pomona Promenade
Date: Saturday, 11/6/2011
Time: 7:46 p.m.

Nothing, not even the restlessness of my own thoughts can drown out the hammering of my own heart as I sit up on the bed, trying to make sense of what just happened. It's not possible, it just can't be! But how do I explain what I saw earlier, when I looked into Luke's pale green eyes? It felt as if this blue streak of electricity penetrated through my whole being, as if my soul was getting a jump start. How do I explain the memories that flashed through his eyes, everything that happened since 1904? The love, the pain and that moment when I held him in my arms as he was dying---as if it just happened yesterday? The promise we made to each other, as he took his last breath, the immense guilt and the desperate wish for time to move faster? 

I had forgotten it all, until now. Now that the blueprint of my DNA has unraveled, now that my heart remembers its first beat and now that my soul recognizes the man that just walked out the door.  The man that I loved beyond human reason, the man that I've searched my whole life for---came back. Jesse actually came back...as Luke. Holy shit. As petrified as I am at this realization---my body trembling, my tears continuing to fall---something is changing in me. I can feel it to my very core.

"Are you okay?" Brad's voice, along with his footsteps, startle me as he walks into the room. 

 I nod, wiping my face as I try to regain my composure. For a moment, I had forgotten his presence. As soon as I heard the front door slam, I rushed upstairs, knowing I just pushed Luke away. The guilt, on top of the painful memories of our past life, was too much and I just didn't have the heart to watch him leave. "It's just...a lot to take in."

"I'm sorry."

"Is he gone?"

"Yeah."



He's gone. Just like that. A minute ago, he was sitting here next to me, in the same spot where Brad is, rubbing my back. The person that took me home and waited patiently until I regained consciousness---is gone. Now, more than ever, I feel even more confused. I can still feel Luke's presence in this room, hovering around us, refusing to leave my sight. He's probably on the road as I speak, back to Bridgeport, but I can still feel him. God, I feel him. And I wish I hadn't let him walk away so easily. Sensing my silence, Brad searches my face solemnly and asks, "How did he know where we were?"

"I don't know." My eyes quickly spot the stars returning in the indigo sky as I look out the window, now that the rain stopped and took the clouds with it. Like Luke, it's almost hard to believe that they were here at all, as if they didn't leave any traces behind, not even one raindrop or speck of fog on the window. Everything is perfectly still, perfectly quiet, and I want to scream, just to break the silence---and erase this void that Luke left behind. "He never told me he was coming." 

"Why was he here?"

"He said he needed to tell me something...but..."

"What?"

"It's going to sound crazy," I turn to Brad, hesitating if I should tell him what happened, but at this point, he's the only person I can talk to. "I've been having flashbacks of my past life and---"

His eyes simmer down into a steel blue shade as the soft glow of the lamp soaks through them, unveiling a sort of sadness, an undeniable knowing. "And Luke...is Jesse?"

My heart, as well as my mind, comes to a screeching halt, forgetting how to function."What?? How do you---"

"I saw everything."

"All I can ever be
To you
Is a darkness
That we knew
And this regret
I got accustomed to"



Too imprisoned by shock to speak, my bottom slides off the bed as I blankly stare into space, merely blinking once I hit the floor. I can feel my body sink even more, wondering why I haven't crashed through the living room---with all of my weight bearing down on the wooden floor like a wrecking ball. Brad slides down along with me. He would look at my face, appear to say something, but end up looking away and changing his mind. After what seems to be an eternal silence, he softly mutters, "I killed him....and you....and myself."

"Oh my God..." It feels like a car just broke through the window and pummeled me on the back, knocking out my breath---along with the rest of the organs in my body. "William..."

"I can't...I just...I don't even know where to begin."

"So it's true...it's all true." With my trembling hands covering my face, all I can do is look down at the floor as I connect the shattered pieces of my past. A past that has long been left behind in the cosmos, confined at the center of time, clinging to every tendril of dark space in the universe. In one instant, they come flooding down in this very same room, on this very same floor, on this very same lavender rug. I came back. Jesse came back. And now...William. He was not part of the plan. He was not part of the promise. But he came back somehow, and found me again. "Oh my God..."

"It all makes sense. That night you two met. You finally found each---"

"Stop. I don't wanna talk about it anymore."

"Why not? You couldn't even look at him tonight. You say you're friends, but---"

"Oh, so you want me to be honest?" My hands drop down to my lap as I search his eyes, enraged that he wants to push for the truth all of a sudden, especially about me and Luke. I'm not ready for any of this. I can't even...think about Luke...and the fact that he's...no, I won't. Or the fact that Brad is the same man that killed...no. And having to leave Abby and John as...no, no! The pain comes back, and all I can do is shift my state of mind to the present---in an attempt to alleviate it. "Let's start with you. Why didn't you tell me about your alcoholic father?"

"Lyn...let's not go there." He protests, looking away.

"No, let's go there. I was with you for two years. Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"What do you wanna know?" He meets my gaze again, but this time, with cold, distant eyes under bunched up eyebrows---his nostrils flaring. "That my dad beat the shit out of me and my brother? That he was never sober? That he treated my mom like shit and fucked her up too? That---"

"Brad---"



"Or how about the fact that my mom left us when I was 10 and never came back? Maybe you wanna hear about the part where I've had to work since I was 14 since my dad could barely hold down a job?" His words bombard me like physical onslaughts emanating from his icy eyes, which are now flashing at me, glistening. He hasn't raised his voice once, but the pain and regret amplifies them ten-fold, making me shrink away in remorse, as if I just opened a door that should have been left closed. "Or the part where I had to take care of my brother just so CPS didn't separate us? Or that I envied Luke because he had such a perfect life?"

I watch him bury his face in his hands as he tries unsuccessfully to conceal his sobs---and broken voice---but they still emerge forcefully from a deep, dark place. I have never seen Brad like this. So damaged, so desolate, so transparent. Unable to fight my own tears, I place my hand on his arm and whisper, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know..."

"Of course you didn't know," He quickly interjects, shaking his head. Then he stares blankly at the window, as if the truth is behind the shutters, waving at him, waiting to be invited inside. It's clear that he's wrestling with something. It's written all over his face, the way his eyelids close shut, counting the seconds as they pass---waiting for the right moment. Finally, they open slowly, flashing their baby blues, directly into me. "If you did, you probably would have left. Just like my mom. How can anybody love such a fucked up person?"

Bricks. Crashing through the roof like giant pieces of hail. Leaving dents on everything: the wooden floor, the bed, the desk, the sofa and the top of my head. In the dusty aftermath of this thing called truth, I find my voice. "Is that what you thought? That I would leave you?"

Silence.

"You couldn't have been more wrong," I explain, searching his eyes, which are now red and soaked in tears, ready to fall. He looks away, but I grab his face and force him to look at me, watching the liquid leak down his flushed cheeks. All this time, I thought I could never make him happy, that I would never be good enough and he stopped trying because he got bored. In reality, he was sabotaging the relationship before it had the chance to sabotage him---plagued by his own abandonment issues. "I would have loved you more because of it. Because I would have seen the real you, and I would have hurt for that little boy that went through so much pain....because I understand."

Silence.

"But we will never know now, will we?" I continue, hearing Luke's gentle voice of reason in my head,"You didn't give me a chance to prove you wrong. Instead, you cheated on me."

"We could have
Never had it all
We had to hit a wall
So this is inevitable 
Withdrawal"



He cheated on me. And somehow, he's still here. Luke was there, through everything, helping me pick up the pieces of my broken heart, and I pushed him away. Why did I do that? Suddenly, I'm recognizing the anomaly---and irony in this picture. Brad's once comforting presence becomes more of a nuisance now, a burden that I want to extricate myself from. I push myself off the floor and say solemnly, "I need to be alone right now."

"I'm sorry," He places his hands on my waist as he gets up, leaning close enough for his breath to brush the side of my neck. "I should have been more honest with you."

Normally, I would melt at how painstakingly close his body is to mine. This time, I am too clearly reminded of what had gone wrong---and Brad's responsibility in it---as well as mine. Without moving an inch, I reply, "Yeah...I wish things could have been different."

"I'll leave," He squeezes my waist, the disappointment in his voice evident. "If you need anything, you have my number. Call me, okay?"

"Okay."

"Get some rest. I love you."

"You too."

"By the way, about what I asked you earlier. Will you at least think about it?"

"I'll think about it."



After hearing Brad's car drive off, the silence in the room becomes even more apparent. Not because I'm alone again or the fact that Brad left. It's because I miss Luke. It hit me so unexpectedly that I couldn't quite pinpoint what I was feeling---wishing he was still here, aching to hear his voice, the need to talk to him about everything. Just when I reach for my cellphone, a bolt of fear prevents me from dialing his number. What if he doesn't answer? How could I possibly explain myself, when I didn't even give him a chance to talk?

I need to be alone right now, I remind myself. With this realization, I grab Smokey from the floor and climb on the bed. As I sink on the plush duvet, squeezing my beloved teddy bear tight, Luke's earthy cologne lingers on my nose like a soft caress---evoking wistful memories of him. 

Damn it, he could have been here.

"He walks away
The sun goes down
He takes the day
But I'm grown
And in your way
In this blue shade
My tears dry
On their own"

*Copyright 2013 Lyn C.S.*
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"Tears Dry On Their Own" by Amy Winehouse
(Original Version)
Video by: Macarena Doll