Eleven Years

CHAPTER 29

SADIE

Back before I left my luggage in the foyer, my instinct reminded me to free the guilt and come over to see him. I sat for almost an hour just to learned things and repeat them again in my head. When you're in the battle between staying and leaving, you don't actually go and focus on what's beneficial, somehow, you turn your whole sense of life with that decision that can make you happy even though you knew that the consequences would shatter your future like fucking promises that left behind. I failed the entrance exam, that was one of the most chaotic shits I'd been but this time ... I never wanted to fail in love. Being nineteen, it should be all about aiming for the better future but deep inside a future would be filled with regrets if I won't make the best of these present days.

I took a taxicab and headed to his place. I'd brought all the handwritten letters he had given to me. When I watched the whole street in a foggy window of this cab, I wasn't only observing the shops around ... I studied the people. Each one of them had their own daily challenges, one of them might be failing or succeeding and maybe one of them would die unpredictably. That's the naked truth about these strangers we see around, we smile at them, we make short conversation with them and we never got to see them again. One thing also, we never know that it would be our final moment with each and one of them.

There was this piercing ache as I held these handwritten letters. The ache that was casually entering in my flesh and I had no any idea how to free them out. I'd spent my whole night reading them, analyzing, laughing, wondering, intruding, regretting and crying.

'Jared and Rosie', I had no choice but to admire their story and even if I love the man so bad ... I had never any choice at all, I had at first though, but I never thought it would disappear swiftly just like how our moments slipped away.


*

Just one simple but endearing doorbell and his whole existence appeared to me again. He looked surprise and messed up. Just in his normal clothes. I couldn't help myself but to give him my tormenting smile. He took notice of my eyes and I did the same to him. Those turquoise eyes meant so much to me as if those were an ocean and he let me drowned and it was in his hand to save me or let me die. But I guessed, he let me lose my breath until I couldn't see myself.

"Hi", he whispered.

I pushed it all in my head, what if this would be the last? What if this would be the finale? What if this would be our ending? The thought of it made me ill and I had to make this moment as remarkable as I wanted to remember it in the future.

"Hi", I said in my softest voice. I saw him closing his eyes and opened them up again.

"Welcome"

The brevity of his word traveled to my ears, mind, heart and every veins of my body. It felt like I'm home ... because when I'm closer to him, it feels like home.

I followed him in the living room. The atmosphere in his apartment would always be superb and luminous but my attention brought me to the bottles of whiskey. It was all over in the tiny desk near the couch.

"I bet you have hangover, today", I said to him.

"Yeah but umm ... it's bearable, should I say I had a fun time with it, yesterday's night, and I never thought about the consequence"

I watched him scratching his head and he asked if I wanted a coffee but I said no. We both sat in different places. I was in the bigger couch and he was in his navy-blue chair which he placed both of his hands in the armrest of it.

I placed the bag of handwritten letters on the table. Jared frowned and he stood up.
"Your letters", I said.

He touched them one by one and put them back to where they belonged ... in his wooden cabinet.

"You read 'em?"

"I did", I simply answered.
"All of 'em?", he assured, raising his forehead vaguely.

"Yes Mr. Jared Boston"

I caught the rare gaze of him. He was surprised by me calling him in his formal and punctilious name. With the uncertainty of the moment, I crawled my fingers to my knees and squeezed it.

"Why was that?", he utilized his strangest tone in his voice.

"Because I had to", I shortly replied and gathered my energy from feet to my upper body just to stood up and took a glance to the promising city. Philly.

"Sadie"

"Yes?"

"Are you leaving?"

I wasn't looking at him but I imagined his face and how they formed into something forlorn now.
"Yes"

Jared asked me why and my mind went rumble.

"I had to Jared"

"Give me a reason", he begged.

"You have a wife. You have a life to continue and I have lots of dreams to pursue"

I heard him sighed and a slow-footsteps came along. He was walking towards me. If he would ask for another reason, I would lose my mind.

"You are giving me away - "
"I'm not giving you away Jared ... I'm doing this for you, for me, for Rosie, for the people around us for our future"

He moved his thumb in my cheek and God knew how much I wanted him. I faced him with all the woebegone that had been written on my face. It was all about time now.

"Future would be fucked up without you", he proclaimed while closing his turquoise eyes.

"I had to let you go and you had to do same thing. If I were to ask you, who would you choose? Is it me or Rosie?"

He couldn't say anything. It felt like there had been a total ghost that entered in his existence. He moved away from me and now we were both standing five feet apart.

"Choosing isn't my thing", he simply said while pressing his lips. His whole body was now mirroring in the huge glass window and by looking at his reflection ... it was scary. Deadly scary.

"Because you can't choose me Jared, am I right? Once again is it me or Rosie? If it's me then I'll stay with you, here in this city"

He never said anything and I understood it. He loved her too much. Too much that it kept hurting me.

"You're choosing Rosie. I have to go now - "

"So, you came here to say goodbye?", he grunted and positioned his palm on his chest. I badly wanted to hold it ... I'd been dying these nights to even touch his hand or an inch of him.

"You had her for eleven years and I don't even know if you love me for eleven seconds. So, who do you think would win?"

My last words went bomb to him. Ironically, my own words crashed me too.

"Rosie and I might look alike. When I saw her for the first time, I felt like I'm looking in my own twin but Jared ... we will never ever be the same. I read your letters, you promised to love her, to make her smile, to be with her, to give her the whole world and you promised - "

"Fuck it. She forgot about me, she can't remember me ... no matter what I do, she can’t fucking recognize me"

Jared covered his face with his hands and groaned. I took one step forward, four steps to go.

"You're not being forgotten by Rosie. It's just like, her own thoughts are searching its own way back home ... "

Now, his dazzling turquoise eyes connected in mine.
"Back to you", I added and he sobbed.

I felt so bad for what Rosie had been through. An abusive father, a mother who suffered with psychosis, and a mind that caged her in the informalities and parallel imaginary world. She should've been an incredible mother, a good wife, a normal human being and a living individual in this planet where she could breathe not just in freedom but also in the essence that came along with it.

"Sadie", he wiped his tears while giving me the smile that I would literally miss so bad, "eleven years doesn't matter to me anymore, it is you and me, the two of us and our memories. We only have a short time but those were fantastic that I never thought would happen in my whole thirty years of existence"

My eyes went blurry but I held myself back and be ready for this moment. I took another step, three more to go.

"Eleven years from now ... I will come back Jared. I'll be back here in Philly and maybe have a coffee with you. That sounds exciting, right? Even though this farewell seems a little distracting, it's breaking me"

"I hope that eleven years from now ... your smile would never change Sadie, and your heart would remain brave. After those said years, I knew you'll be successful because you're not a failure ... you are more than the word successful. Eleven years, if time would allow us, again, I would be grateful to celebrate my 41st with you"

And it all went down … my tears had been falling. It flooded in my face. It created a hole in my heart. It fucked me so aggressively.

I took another step again, two more to go.

"My wish would still be the same Jared. I hope you will always find what you're looking for. Always", I grinned while covering my aching face and pointed that word ‘always’.

"I found it", he held his breath for a second and looked at me, "it's you"

Those words made me sobbed even more.

"You, who changed my life. You, whom I had the best time listening to my favorite Coldplay's song. You, who gave me a big part of your life. You, who watched me breaking down. You, who never judged me. It's you, Sadie, even though it's tormenting for me to see us being like this, because you know what? I'd rather have this painful farewell than to see you walking away without any words to punch me".

I took another heart-wrenching step, one more to go.

"I've had so much memories here, in your apartment. We made love here, you call it love or make out? I called it love ... from the very beginning I gave my youth to you Jared, it was all about making love."

He shook his head and peeked down, "Remember what I've told you that night? You got me and I got you, right?", I heard him groaned, "but we never got each other, it was just you and I"

The whole living room filled with tears, sobbing and sniffing by two people who couldn't be together

"Jared, I will always love you"

"Please don't say that", he kept shaking his head, "don't you ever say that again"
The painful part of his heart had been transferred to mine. I wanted to be this final moment to be that 'final moment'.

"This is a great story for my future kids to learn, that their mom fell in love with a thirty year-old man ... a man who's eleven years apart, and an extraordinary man their mom had ever met. Isn't it a great story Jared?"

"Only if I'll became part of it", he blew a little sad chuckle and realized that it was more bearable to poker face than to give a little laugh.

I took my final step, this is it.

"I want to kiss you Jared, is that okay?"

He studied my gaze. His nose was just an inch away from mine. His mesmerizing breath was all over my face. His hands were in my waist and rubbed it gently.

"No need to ask, my love"

I felt his lips clashed mine. The imaginary confetti had fallen from the ceiling, celebrating this farewell as remarkable as it needed to be.

We kissed for so damn long. It wasn't a kiss of goodbye … it was a kiss of something gratefulness and once in a lifetime. When we pulled away our lips from each other, there was nothing again but ...  flooding tears.

"How's your moving on process sounds like?", he asked as if I could actually move on. I thought for a while till I gave my answer.

"Regret, let go and forget"

"Regret?", he raised his eyebrow

"There's so much to regret Jared but I don't hate each and one of them. It's normal to regret because such people hurt us more than we could hurt ourselves"

"Why'd you let go after? I think you have to forget then let go", he explained.

"I need to let go firstly rather than to forget because I know in myself that if I forget you first, then ... I will never ever have the chance to let you go. I can't let go easily. "

"You know what my love", he fixed my hair just like he used to before, "I think the bravest thing doesn't come from those who stayed...it comes from those who let go...it comes from you"

He kissed my lips again and again and again until we slightly lose our breaths.

"I want you to be successful soon Sadie. Build your own career, company, business or whatever that makes you happy. I want you to create a family, find a husband, even though I want to fill that position but I know this fate won't allow us. I want you to see the world as yellow, as brighter than the sun and moon, as beautiful as you. I want you to live your life. If there's any chance, I hope you will never ever forget about me"

I caressed his soft cheeks and buried my face in his chest where I heard the beating of his heart. The beating of his lifeline.

"And I want you to be happy too Jared. I want you to continue your life with Rosie and believe that she will come back to you.  Believe in this power of your love, you didn't give up for so many years and I know you're still not giving up because...because you love her. I wanted to thank you for letting me read those letters from 11th Street Mailbox, because of those, I know you even more, the teenage you, the twenties you, the happy you, the sad you and your love stories. Promise me one thing Jared?"

"What is it, my love?"

Him calling me 'my love' had wrecked my life in happiness but also in painfulness.

"When you release your arms in my waist, I want you to focus your eyes in the city of Philadelphia. Don't look at me as I walk out of that door, promise?"

"Will I ever see you again?", he tried to hide the burst in his voice but he failed.

"I don't think so", I admitted

He kissed my lips one last fucking time and said, "promise"

As he let go of his arms in my waist, his turquoise eyes dive into mine ... I will miss those oceanic view ever and evermore ...

Jared blinked and seconds after, he moved his gaze to the glass window, to the city of where we started and ended it all. Philadelphia.

I hurriedly moved my steps and took a glance in his luxurious apartment. I watched him not looking back which was the thing I wanted the most. As I reached eleven steps away from his final door, he called my name:

"Sadie?"

All I could see was the breathtakingly figure of his back, but I pictured in my head how he was squeezing his eyes now. How torturing they were right now.

"Goodbye, my love"

"Goodbye", I mumbled.

When I closed his door, the pain was undefinable. That was it ... that was me and him. I asked myself, how can I move on? I think it would take me forever to move on from this man who gave me so much to remember ....

Jared Boston.