A LEAP OF FAITH

Seventh Step

Seventh Step

April 23, 2002

1:17 a.m.

Jung Jin

Over and above the melody I played I felt her presence envelop me, her footsteps light on the floor. I knew the moment that she stood beside the piano, her scent drifting over me, as if I had known it all my life, as if I had known her all my life.

<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We're after the same rainbow's end...

<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Waiting 'round the bend...

<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moon river and me...

The words came back to me now, as I had so often heard my mother sing. I didn't know it then, what those words meant, but I think I may do now.

I opened my eyes when the song finished and there she was. Awash in soft light, wearing a flimsy robe, her eyes soft and unguarded as she regarded me. I blew a breath out at the vision she made. Her hair flowing behind her, her mouth opened just slightly, no sign of the temper that I had seen twice over, boiling and spilling over her normally controlled facade. And yet she looked like an angel. A fallen one, but an angel nevertheless.

Was I dreaming again?

If so I prayed that this be a dream that I never wake up from.

She sat next to me, silent as a ghost, her eyes searching and questioning though I know not what she seeks. She looked at me as if she knew me, and I realized that I wanted her to. I wanted her to know me.

I wanted her to love me.

I wanted her to take me as I am now, without regard to whom I might have been or to whom I should have been. It made absolutely no sense... I haven't wanted that kind of acceptance in a long time, had rejected it outright from others, but from her, I wanted it. I needed it. I needed to know that wrong or right, good or bad, that she would still love me.

Something about the way she looked at me made me feel exposed. As if I had just opened up a wound that I had convinced myself had closed up so long ago. The doubts came then, as if I was but a young man again, fearing that I will never be good enough no matter how much I tried. The fear, as well, that I had somehow made myself into someone undeserving and unworthy of the love she would give.

I imagined her future with someone else, someone who would love her with the wholeness that I no longer had, someone who might actually deserve her, and the pain that closed around my heart was so sharp I was tempted to close my eyes to shield myself from her.

As if in doing so I could unlove her.

As if in doing so I could unmake me.

As if I still had a choice.

She makes me want to be another version of myself, one I wasn't sure was still possible. And it scared me. I had worked hard to be who I am. I had worked even harder to accept who I am.

But what if... she can never accept me?

The questions swirling in my head, I was about to turn away when she reached a hand out to touch my face. I remained frozen, unable to deny myself her touch. Given freely, offered without force.

It wasn't New Year's Eve. There was no one else here. We neither had excuse nor reason to be sharing this moment, but we are. In the same space, in the same pocket of time. Here. Still. Now.