★ Leonard ★
It is amazing how you get used to living with strangers but feel like you are a part of a big family. These girls and I are an outlawed family, yet we start to care for each other. My feeling for Sara-Marie grows stronger each day. Even though we can rarely spend our time alone, I really care for her, and I think she feels the same for me. Whenever we can be alone in the car, she holds me from behind and kisses me on the cheek. She tells me how much she misses talking to me. Tonight, she is melancholic.
"I wish I could show you my town in southern France. I want to take you to a wonderful restaurant for a nice romantic dinner. The fish is excellent there, and we can sip a glass of rosé from Camargue."
"After dinner, we can walk on the white sandy beach and look for some wild white horses. I have a small house on the beach my mother left for me so we can live together. The weather is always nice, and we will be so happy there."
She talks as if we are already there, and I am almost buying the idea. My mind is in this magical land in South France where I have never been before. The bright light from the hotel lobby wakes us up from our daydream.
My feelings for Sara-Marie increase daily. I know that she wants to spend more time together. Our opportunities arrive very sparsely. Whenever we are together, we steal kisses so passionately because there is no place to make love in the middle of the streets. And we are always chased by time for picking up and dropping off the other girls.
More and more, Sara-Marie talks about going home to France and living together in this lost land of fantasy. I desire to realize her dream becomes stronger and stronger, so I secretly plan for her escape to freedom.
One evening, I seize the opportunity to end her sex slavery. I have been working for Liu for more than five months now. He trusts me enough to open the safe to store the money I picked up from the clients because I have never cheated him on the payments, and I always deliver the girls on time.
Before my shift starts, he tells me to pick up five thousand dollars from the safe and bring it to the Chinese restaurant. When I take out the money, I happen to notice a drawer I have never touched. Something tells me to open it, and all the girls' passports and ID cards are lying at the bottom.
I quickly search for Sara-Marie's passport and put it in my pocket. I close the safe and walk out of Liu's office. I go back to the restaurant and hand him the money. Then, I quickly browse the internet on my phone, and I find out there is a plane leaving at midnight from San Francisco to Paris.
I buy the airplane ticket for Sara-Marie, using my parents' credit card for the first time. Liu usually doesn't check the safe until the end of the evening. By then, Sara-Marie will be gone from this country.
I pick the girls up at the massage parlor and dispatch them one by one. Sara-Marie is the last one to be dropped off. As soon as the last girl leaves the car, I tell her that she is going back to Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and kiss her.
I hand her the printed e-ticket and her passport. She is beyond shocked. I drive quickly back to the parking lot and exchange the Mercedes for my truck. Bianco was patiently waiting for me to come back.
I drive out of the parking lot and head for San Francisco International Airport. When I arrive in the departure lane, I hand her a few thousand bucks to start over in France. She looks at me and asks me with disbelief.
"What about you? Aren't you coming with me?"
"I can't come with you."
"Why not?" she begs me.
"Don't you love me? Aren't we going to live together?"
I couldn't say the important words. I couldn't tell her that I love her.
"I really care for you, and I want you to be happy."
She sobs hysterically.
"You don't love me. You are not in love with me. There is nothing I need other than someone to love me."
She breaks down and falls onto the pavement. I take her in my arms and try to console her. She is in tears and whispers her last words to me.
"You don't understand! I can't leave and live alone. At least here in Chinatown, Liu will take care of me!"
Sara-Marie let go of my hand and walks to the taxi stand alone. She catches a cab and asks to go back to Chinatown's massage parlor without ever turning her head around.
This is the last time I see Sara-Marie.
I am so confused, but I need to leave this town as quickly as possible before Liu figures out what happened. So I drive up north, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, and keep on driving fast. All I am thinking about is how I had to leave Sara-Marie behind.
She went back to the massage parlor instead of catching the airplane home. My heart is aching, as if someone ripped it wide open. I am crying for Sara-Marie. Poor Sara-Marie. Why couldn't I tell her that I love her, even if it was a small lie? She would have taken an airplane to Paris. Why did she choose to go back to Liu? Why?
As my thoughts are immersed with what happened to Sara-Marie, I am driving on northbound Highway 101 and pass Eureka, Coos Bay, and New Port. I drive all night long and finally have the self-control to stop the truck.
After coasting the car on the side of the street, I get out of the truck to get some air. I realize that I drove all the way to Astoria at the southern shore of the Columbia River, the border of Washington state.
When I look at the opposite shore in the distance, I hear the voice of Beth speaking to me.
"My love, please come find me in New York. I am waiting for you. I love you always, always, always."
It wasn't a hallucination. Beth spoke to me.
YOU ARE READING
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
Romance"Remember me." "When I come back to you, please remember me." While Leo is waiting for his bride at the altar, Beth has a car accident on the way to the church and dies whispering some mysterious words. They just graduated from high school in Weath...
