Chapter Sixteen

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

“Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot?” George Eliot, Middlemarch.

 

 

 

My mother was coming home today from her business trip to Toronto and I sat on my bed reading Braille at a painfully slow pace while I waited. Jayce’s book was open to the first page, my fingers exploring the feel of each letter and punctuation carefully not to misread. It took me a while just to decipher the first paragraph; I had to continually reread lines further up to remember what they said in accordance to the ones further down. So far what I had read was,

 

For Sisi on her twenty second birthday, a book of twisted words thrown into the confines of these tightly bound pages. I hope to shed some meaning into your world of ambiguity; Lord knows you have done the same for me. From your pest of a friend, Jayce Oryan.

 

I flipped the page and let my fingers wander over the tiny bumps.

 

In this Earth many strangers are near, but none we pass overlooked. Look in the eyes of those you pass and feel the life they hold. We care not of those we don’t know, shoving them down on our meaningless lists, forgetting their faces in a single breath and letting their words drain from our memories which had no intention to keep them at all. But every once in a while, one of these strangers we glance absently, stays in the mind for good. The face engraves along with their voice, claiming a domain inside your breast. These strangers whose image stains your mind steal a piece to take with themselves, and it’s only when you meet again do they fill the hole with the borrowed and again you feel whole.

 

“Quinn?” I threw the book closed, startled, and gathered my breath back.

“Hey mom, how did it go?” I asked, trying to force out a smile.

She moved across the carpet and sat across from me on the bed, “well,” Her voice was flat and I feared the worst, “They have decided to invest in my store!” Her voice rose up at the end, unable to conceal her excitement and I hugged her tightly.

“That’s great mom, really. So when do you get to open?”

“Well, now I have to go find a place to lease, then the fun part starts; the redecorating, hiring, training, setting up, all of that stuff that’s bound to give me a migraine.”

“Well hopefully it all goes smoothly for you.” I said genuinely.

“Yeah fingers crossed. They asked me if I would be willing to open one in the States.” She paused, “but I don’t think the timing is quite right.”

You mean you don’t think I could handle the move. I thought to myself, “They must have really liked your presentation then.”

“What can I say; your momma’s got some pretty good luck.”

I nodded, “I wish that luck was genetic.”

 

She was silent for a moment, “is everything alright?”

I shook my head, “Jayce is ignoring me.”

“Oh honey, I’m sure he’s just been busy, I’ve seen the way he is around you, he really likes you chicky.”

“Well he doesn’t anymore. We got in an argument the day after you left. I haven’t talked to him since.”

“Quinn, listen to me. Once he realizes how much he misses you he will be asking himself why he even tried being without you in the first place.”

I sighed exasperated, I knew she was only trying to help but she didn’t understand. I didn’t need fake assurances; I needed someone to listen, to understand. “I’m not naive; it’s been a week mom. I’ve come to terms with the fact I screwed up and he’s gone. I just wish it was different.”

She grabbed my hand, “It will be different, just be patient.” She assured.

 

“How can you say that? How can you be so set on the fact it will be okay? This isn’t a story book mom, and that’s the only place where there’s happy endings.”

She sighed, “Quinn. Trust me. If he cares about you the way I think he does and the way you know he does, then he will be back.” She got to her feet, “in the meantime, try to be happy for the people you do have. After all you still have a mother and a best friend who love you to no end.”

I shrugged, “I know I do... I just- I don’t know.” I let my shoulders slump defeated.

“You love him” My mother finished my sentence for me and I nodded limply.

“But I do love you guys too, I can’t even explain how much, don’t think that I don’t-“

She sat back down on the bed, “But it’s a different kind of love.”

 

I tilted my head down in unjustified embarrassment, “Were you in love mom? I mean with my dad or just anyone?”

She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to her; I rest my head in her lap as she played affectionately with my hair. “Let me tell you something about your father.” She chose her words carefully, “He was a great man, he really was. I loved him more then I loved myself. He had this adorable little dimple just on one side of his cheek when he either smiled or frowned,” she laughed airily, “anyway, he asked me to marry him. I said no.”

 

I wriggled out of her lap and sat up across from her once again, “you said no?” I asked incredulously, “but why? If you loved him so much.”

“I thought we were too young, I was too focused on what other people would think or say; my parents, peers, his family.” Her voice held a soft edge of sadness now, a slight twinge of buried regret. “He tried to convince me that everyone else didn’t matter, that if people wanted to gossip he would stand up on a rooftop and make our marriage known to the whole world. We were constantly arguing over this, I kept saying in another few years, once we finished all our schooling and had our lives lain out all neat and organized, but he didn’t want organized, he wanted spontaneity,” She paused and laughed softly, “ he said that I made him crazy and that’s the way he wanted to act.

 

“One night he came over for dinner, my parents didn’t care much for him- well more so they didn’t care so much for the thought of me being in love at my age, although I was eighteen at the time. So He came over for dinner and just after dessert was served, when we were nursing cups of steaming tea and coffee, your father turned to me and without a moment of hesitation, he proposed to me once again.”

 

“What happened?” I asked intrigued.

“Well my parents’ faces went red with disbelief; we all got to our feet, waiting out the very brief calm before the storm. Curses were sent flying into the room without a particular target and soon my parents stood, fuming, between the two of us.

 

“They warned me how I would be throwing my life away if I agreed to the proposal, they thought it would distract me from reaching my goals and we would end up living in a small apartment working for minimum wage to just barely scrape by. Well. That did not go over well with your dad; he would stand up to absolutely anyone for whatever he believed in, once he got his mind set around something there was no way of picking it away.” She was thoughtful, “you remind me a lot of him in that way. He basically told my parents off; he said that even if we did live in a small apartment with no spending money, we would be completely content and that we weren’t like them with their material and social standing needs.

 

“Anyway. The argument went back and forth for a while, with me listening carefully to each opposing side’s arguments. When the discussion’s ruling came to me to be decided I froze. Your dad asked me one more time if I wanted to marry him. Oh Lord knows much I wanted to! But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready yet, a few more years and I wouldn’t have hesitated a single moment. All three of them were looking at me, my parents silently urging me to decline, your dad standing neutral, I could never read his expressions. He always hid his feelings beneath that blank exterior whenever things were uncertain.

 

“I wanted to hold him so bad, to go back to the way things were; less complicated. He was patient and waited unwavering for me to answer, I wish I could say the same for my parents who fidgeted and perspired and repeated the question several times, prompting me to answer. I told them all that I did want to marry him, but that I wouldn’t. After that he nodded and left silently, that blank expression painting his face except for a small hint of the pain and disappointment that lay in pinched his eyes.” Her voice was noticeably pained.

 

“So that’s it?” I asked appalled, “you let him go?”

“I did. I thought he would come to me. I was wrong. Two weeks later I went away to university and never saw him again.” She paused a moment, “I found out I was pregnant with you almost a month after I started school, after that I tried to find him but he was gone.”

 

Frustration boiled inside me, “you mean you just gave up? You could have had a completely different life- the one you wanted.”

“Oh trust me, I know. I regret not going after him every day of my life.” She shuffled on the bed, “and I don’t want you to have the same regrets.”

 

I nodded jerkily, “how did you know you loved him? I mean how can you tell the difference between loving him in your mind and loving him in your heart?”

She grabbed my hand, her warm palm soothing to my cold skin, “You just know sweetie. Every time you think about him or hear his name it gives you shivers- but not the bad kind- the kind that releases the butterflies in your abdomen or gives you Goosebumps. You wake up in the middle of the night or stop dead in your tracks when you swear you smell his unique scent, you feel him even when he’s miles away, and probably the most important tell tale sign of love; you can argue tooth and nail and a moment later you’re going out for pizza. You know, that’s the one sure way to find out if you’re truly comfortable and trusting with someone; you can argue with them because you know they will still be there no matter what.”

 

“Why didn’t you tell me all of this stuff before?” I asked with a slight squeak in my voice.

She sighed, “I didn’t know how, I thought you wouldn’t forgive me for taking your dad away from you.”

I shook my head in protest, “Don’t be stupid.”

She climbed to her feet once again, “I should give you the same advice.”

 

                       ***

 

I stood on the sidewalk in front of the building, my heart beating so hard against my rib cage I was afraid it was going to break out. It wasn’t pounding from high strung nerves alone, but by a numbing sense of right accompanied by elated happiness which was the result of the beaming grin that refused to diminish even as I shook the jitters from my limbs in preparation.

 

My mother’s words had given me the courage and the final push to do something about my predicament; it was after all, my fault. I refused to sit still and do nothing to get Jayce back; I wouldn’t end up with a lifetime regret like my mother had all because of one stupid mistake. No. I was going to fight. He fought to save me from my own bubble of pessimism, he fought to gain my friendship although I made it exceedingly difficult for him and now it was my turn to fight for him; for his forgiveness.

 

I was going to tell him I loved him, lay everything out on the playing field and let him make the final move that would either join our two sides or corner me with check mate. And I would accept either fate.

 

I took in a deep breath, squaring my shoulders and approached the door. I knocked hard and waited eagerly, rocking back and forth on my feet a few times with anticipation. I knocked again and after a few more minutes anxiety and alarm began to bubble inside me and turn my own thoughts against me. My face was hot, my head pounding. He could be out… I thought to myself, trying to convince my stretching imagination that it was delusional.

 

Finally I reached out for the door handle and cautiously turned the knob while holding my breath. The door opened silently and I let out my breath as I stepped inside.  A shock of cold air hit me like I had crossed some invisible wall into a heatless barrier and nearly knocked the breath out of me as it would if you were to jump into an arctic body of water. His apartment had been very comfortably warm the last time I had been in this building, my stomach turned nervously with the contrast.

 

“Jayce?” I called out. The walls bounced my voice back to me without offering a response from the inhabitant. “Hello?” I asked as my voice cracked, “It’s Quinn.” Silence. Too much silence. I strained my ears; there was no humming of a refrigerator, no ticking clocks or buzzing computer. I carefully, slowly, walked the interior of the apartment; the kitchen which Jayce had cooked me Kraft Dinner on my birthday, the living room where I had tried not to laugh at his smart a*s antics, not once did I stub my toe or brush against a single stick of furniture. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach and I slumped onto the floor feeling completely lost as to what to do.

 

“You’re gone.” I whispered to the silence. The apartment was vacant, he had left. The whole atmosphere even felt vacant. The realisation that I had lost someone so dear to me was only seeping into the corners of my brain just yet and I dreaded the inevitable horror when it would burst in eventually, interloping my soul.

 

When Jayce had come along I had felt a sense of worth, of reason and purpose. He made me look forward to something each day and when our relationship grew he made me feel like life was something that could offer such wonders, such gratification. He had shown me that life was not something to be afraid of, but to enjoy and appreciate. I was blinded, yes, but there was so much more to life then eyesight and he had shown me that I could in fact be content without it. He had changed my world and I screwed it up and now all that was gone. I didn’t know how to be content without him; I didn’t know how to be alive.

 

I sighed and lay back on the cold, tiled floor, my arms spread out to my sides. Would I ever be able to have that feeling again? Or was it something Jayce had taken with him when he had gone? My mind went back to the book he had written me, I had read a little bit more while I was struggling over the decision to come or not. The words he had written on those pages were beautiful and honest and held so much worth and baring to me. I closed my eyes and recited some of those words- words I had read over so many times they were now engraved in my mind-out loud, continuing from the first paragraph.

 

“Upon a walk I met such a stranger who like this, imprinted my mind. A person whom cursed and swore, fighting fiercely against needed help. One look in those angry eyes told me secrets of sadness masked by that fury, secrets of pain and loneliness and for a fraction I felt pity… that is until I stole a second glance that revealed to me so much more .I saw strength and courage that would not crumble beneath anyone’s iron boot, I saw determination and a bright gleam of kindness, all buried beneath an opaque cloak of someone lost. I saw then the help she repelled was rejected with good reason, it was not needed for her to be, for she had more strength then I.”

 

A tear rolled from the corner of my eye and across my cheek bone to the floor of which I laid. His words held so much power. They meant so much to me but it only made this situation worse. I craved to hold him, my chest ached to hear his voice but I would never have that again. If I could take back that foolish kiss, if Austin could hand it back, maybe Jayce would still be here with me.

 

I kept my eyes closed, listening to the swishing of my steady breath, trying to steady my shaking nerves. I didn’t want to end up like my mother. I wouldn’t end up like her…

 

A loud booming startled me from sleep and I sat up quickly, shivering and confused at first as to where I was. When the initial shock faded away I remembered I was in Jayce’s apartment- or his old apartment. I must have fallen asleep for an hour or so. The booming cracked through the air once again and made me jump.

 

Carefully I made my way to the front door after making a few wrong turns and opened it wide. The smell was what hit me first, the wonderful aroma rain always seemed to bring with it, intoxicated me the moment the door opened. The sound was next to capture my senses. The sound of it rushing from the sky in sleek sheets, the tinging as it struck tin roofs and gutters, rumbling and pattering when it stampeded into overflowing potholes in the road and hissing as it rammed into the small, glass window pane that occupied the door. The thunder cracked nearby, trailing behind bright lightning no doubt.

 

I sighed, pulling the hood of my zip up sweater over my head as a shield and stepped out into the storm. Time to go home, I thought to myself unenthusiastically. I began down the sidewalk, there were no other people out in this weather and I took note of the lack of vehicles that, if it had been early evening like I had first assumed, would have been bouncing through deep puddles almost consistently. It must have been later then I had originally guessed.

 

The wind whipped by me, struggling to change direction of my course but I bent my knees slightly, planting myself to my destinations path. Within a matter of a few minutes the rain had penetrated my layers of clothing and my skin, hair and boots were soaked through. I thought the sudden storm was peculiar; it was fairly early in the spring season to have more than a little sprinkle of rain. I quickened my pace, my guide now rolling ineffectively quick over all divots and snags in the sidewalk but the wind soon took the control of that tool away from me anyway. 

 

I frowned at the thought of my mother pacing the house wondering where I was. She didn`t deserve the stress I quite often caused her and I felt incredible guilt for treating her so badly for the first few months after my accident. She was an amazing mom, she managed to raise me all on her own without creating a low life or police radar frequenter. She had managed to instill a fine set of moral codes in me which I genuinely was thankful for.

 

I was in awe of her strength, the strength she carried with her even after she lost the man she was one moment away from marrying. I too would survive, somehow I would excavate the strength that must have been passed down with her genes, and I would stop making life more difficult for the people who were always the brunt of my emotional downfalls. I sighed once again, it would be much easier with Jayce, without that aching constantly reminding me of something I would never have, but somehow I would do it. From now on, I would be a different person.

 

I became aware of two sets of footsteps thumping sloppily in the rain behind me and I strained my ears. Their pace was much quicker than mine and I listened for them to draw close so I could step off to the side and allow them to pass. There were no voices to accompany the steps to help me hear how close they were so I ambled close to the edge of the sidewalk prematurely.

 

Water splashed up the back of my legs as one of them stepped into a deep puddle and I gasped startled at how cold the water was.

“Awe, I’m sorry, did I get you wet?” One of them spoke as they came up beside me.

I forced an uneasy smile, “I don’t think a little puddle could make me more wet then I already am.”

 I slowed my pace to allow them to pass and the two men laughed, “I suppose.” One man did pass, moving in front of me while the other slowed beside me. My heart thumped hard and fast in my chest.

 

“Nice necklace you got there.” Said the one beside me, and I reflexively clutched the small blue gem at my throat.

“Thank you.” I gulped down hard, my feet no longer moving.

“Mind if I take a look?” He grabbed my arm above my elbow and shoved me into the other man who wrapped his arms around me, trapping my arms tight against my sides.

 

My heart was now thrumming so fast I was surprised it didn’t beat right through my rib cage. Why wasn’t there anyone around to help? There was a solid lump in my throat that blocked my dry tongue from forming words and I could feel hot bile burning its way up my throat.

 

“You don’t look so good,” Chimed the man in front of me, “what’s the matter? Scared?” I swallowed hard and begged my mind to calm down enough to come up with a logical plan of action; my body was tingling with fear and adrenaline.

“Grab the merchandise Jimmy.” The one who held me said annoyed, “before someone sees us.”

“Shut up.” He hissed, “no one’s gonna’ see us. It’s damn near two.” He moved in close to my face and I could smell the stale beer and cigarettes on his breath, “and you’re not gonna’ tell anyone either.” He laughed, “Because you can’t see us to give a description.”

 

I cringed away from his rotten breath and my eyes stung with tears, “please.” I croaked.

“Please?” He reached out to me and snatched the pendant that hung from my neck, “how much do you think this is worth?”

“Enough.” Said the man behind me.

 

My brain rung itself out in an attempt to leak a helpful idea but none came. I weighed my options. If I tried to fight, I might be able to wriggle free long enough to run to a nearby house, but if I didn’t break free then it could make the situation so much worse. Then again, if I didn’t fight at all then they would steal all my possessions and then what…?

 

He fingered the gem carefully, no doubt calculating pawning profit and I took the moment to act. I kicked the man behind me hard in the knee cap and he cried out in pain. He staggered backwards, his arms still wrapped tightly around me and the necklace snapped away from my neck. I squirmed and kicked, trying everything to loosen his grip.

 

“F**k!” He yelled as he the man called Jimmy grabbed a fistful of my hair. He yanked me from his friend’s arms and threw me to the ground, the skin from my elbows down my forearms scraped against the sidewalk, stinging.

“What the hell was that?” He asked, almost laughing. He knelt down and shoved his hands in my pockets, coming up empty handed. “Nothing? S**t.”

“Just grab the necklace and let’s beat it.”

“Hold on.”

I scrambled to my feet and they didn’t stop me. I began to back away from the sounds of them.

“You wearing a watch? Rings?” I didn’t answer as they followed my while I backed up, “let’s check.”

 

I turned around to run just as they came at me and I stumbled over the curb and onto the road, falling to my hands and knees. I could hear them hurrying over and I scrambled to get away.

 

The footsteps halted, “S**t watch out!” One of them called to me. Tires squealed and before I had the chance to move I was struck hard. Incredible pain shot through my back as I rolled on the asphalt a few times before stopping in a heap. I screamed as the sharp pain cut through me, overwhelming me to the point of unconsciousness. My head grew fuzzy and all surrounding sounds finally faded out.

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[Luna Northstar]

Whoa.... wait, this can't be the ending, right? THIS ISN'T THE ENDING RIGHT!!!! she can't be dead or I'm going to cry.....