Bad Romance(BOOK 5)

Chapter 20-The Wedding Gift

"And do you still think love is a laserquest...or do you wanna take it all more seriously..."

Jared frowned as he recognized his own handwriting on the DVD. He took it from Anka's hand and got up from the piano. A part of him didn't want to even open it, but the other part was curious.

He placed the DVD in the DVD player that Shannon had in the house and turned on the television. He poured himself a glass of whiskey as the whole film loaded.

Anka took a seat on the couch and put the small coffee table aside. She waited patiently for Jared and she leaned her head onto his shoulder as Jared pressed play. The title 'Our Life' appeared on the screen and then a younger version of Jared appeared on a dark background.

Anka recognized the younger version of Jared. He had this haircut when he filmed 'The Outsider'. She felt her eyes fill with tears as she remembered their first encounter in Tokyo.

"What is love? I never knew until now...I'm happy...I'm happy now...today, I realized I was in love. I've met this girl, and she changed my life completely...I love her...I love her from the bottom of my heart. Because she's made from the same thing as I am. As much as I wanted to think that Tokyo would be just another movie deal, it was more than that. And this girl showed it to me in all the possible ways. This is our story."

The Jared on screen slowly disappeared and he was replaced by a narration of his and a series of short videos of them he assembled into a larger piece. In the background was playing an acoustic, instrumental version of 'A Beautiful Lie'.

"Come on don't tell me you don't like sushi! Everyone loves sushi!",they heard Jared telling Anka.

"I love it. It's the rest of the things you ordered that I don't really get."

"Do you trust me?

"I do trust you...",they heard Anka's reply loud and clear.

That conversation was followed by other videos of them that Jared stored. It was one of her playing the piano, one of them while visiting a museum, another one of them trying on different Halloween costumes. As the song ended they saw Jared's face reappear on the screen. They also heard another voice asking him how he felt in those moments.

"I never knew that so many simple things would make me happy. I always said that I gave up on love a long time ago. I always thought that I would end up alone. After all I spent most of my time feeling lonely. She changed me completely and turned my world upside down."

Shannon appeared on screen. Anka felt Jared's palm slowly pressing on hers.

"It was always me and Jared, or Jared and me. We never saw things otherwise. Jared was always very serious about his work and we always joked that he married to his job. Until Anka came around. She changed him completely. She made him have faith in love again..."

A few photos of the two at the beginning of their relationship appeared. Photos that Anka forgot existed. Then Jared appeared once more on screen.

"She made things easy for me. She made me believe. I don't know...I felt like a piece of a puzzle. And she, she...was the one that always made things count...little things...I remember the time I gave her this diamond choker. She just looked at it like it was a poisonous snake. It was her birthday. I've always been surrounded by people that loved expensive stuff. But she didn't want anything like that from me. She just wanted me."

Jared leaned in closer to her, drawing circles with her index finger on her palm. He watched Tomo appear on screen.

"With Anka and Jared it was always a lot of fun. Anka always gave me this impression of this cool chick that never let herself influenced by others. I remember their first Christmas together after Anka recovered. Jared thought for a second that he lost her. And in the same time we thought we lost Jared. He had so many feelings for this one girl, this simple girl from Romania, and we knew that if he lost her he would never be the same. Anyway, I remember their first Christmas, Jared wanted to buy a very expensive gift for her. But she ended up making this fifty dollar rule. Everyone had to spend fifty bucks on gifts. The funnier the better. I thought it was the coolest idea ever."