Totally Clueless

Chapter 34

Josh dragged his feet out of the office.

He felt lost.

Automatically his eyes roamed to the top of the stairs where he had last seen Chrisy. The flowers were gone now. Easily discarded of. Just like the feelings Chrisy had felt for him.

Just gone.

This wasn't him. He never took to feeling sorry for himself. He didnt accept defeat. He was a winner. He always won. There had to be a way to win her back.

He found her alone in a sitting room.

Just sitting.

The room boasted no bright colors. The dark chairs, sofas and mahogony furnishings sat against bone white walls. An antique gold and brown chandellier hung from the ceiling adding sufistication and a bit of elegance to the room. Books rested on dark brown shelves with pale orange lighting in the background. A soft flickering fire burnt in the hearth and above the mantlepeice hung one of the many paintings that added to the decor of the room. A diaganol glass-top table in the center brought everything together.
It was a room her father often entertained in. Because of its organized features and what Horace had called "perfect lighting".

Funny how she'd picked the dullest room in the house to be in at that moment. She sat knees to chin, hugging her hands around her legs. She scrolled through her phone, ignoring him as he joined her on the contemporary style sofa.

"Hi..." He greeted.

She did not reply to him. She just continued staring into her phone.

"...I see you got the flowers I left you..." he continued.

She glared at him and rolled her eyes wickedly. If looks could kill he would have dropped dead where he sat.

"Can we talk.....please?" he asked.

"I can...can you..."she spat back.

He slid closer to her, she slid farther away.

"I'm sorry I hurt you C.J, I really am. If I could go back in time there are so many things I would have done differently. "

"I doubt that Josh...You are who you are...whoever that is...frankly I don't give a damn."

Her words spat in his face, insulted him, shamed him.

"Chrisy...I told you, I'm not getting married. I never wanted to..."

"So you know now for sure, that your not going back..."

He hung his head a bit.

"I...Im working on it...Im not going back...no matter what..."

He looked at her now with renewed assurance. He promised now.

"...I won't go back"

"It isn't even about that Josh..."

"I don't understand....what then? Why are you so mad. I apologized time and time again...told you I'm sorry the way things happened..."

"...And I heard you all ten thousand times." she felt like saying, but she hesitated. She saw frustration in him. He seemed genuinely sorry but she couldn't know for sure. He had seemed genuine all the times he lied to her, touched her, kissed her. Her eyes filled with tears.

"We just...we won't work Josh."

And there it was again. That feeling where he swore his heart stopped. It would have felt the same if she had pierced his heart straight through with a dagger or clobbered him over the head with a blunt object.

He swore he had just died.

"Don't do this. Please?" He begged.
His voice scraped along the sudden dryness of his throat and it came out in a low croak.

He moved closer to her again. She didn't move away this time.
" Tell me what to do...I'll do it...whatever you want. "

She glared at him again.
She didn't understand why he couldn't have seen it as clear as she did. The depth of what he had done to her.

"Unbelievable... "she laughed, but not from fun or happiness. It was low and dry. It was disappointment he heard in it.

"...You really don't get it? Do you have any idea how it felt when your mother told me you were engaged..."
Her voice trailed of and she exhaled sharply to regain control of it.
"... I felt like she tore my heart right out of my chest. She actually said there is no way you could be interested in me...do you have any idea how those words sounded coming from your mother? She is supposed to know you Josh... better than anyone.... I felt like I'm the one that didn't know you at all...I swore we were talking about two different people. I trusted you Josh, but your a stranger to me. I've known you for almost four months and yet I have no idea who you are..." she placed her palm against the flushed skin of his cheek. She traced her fingers along his familiar lips and then to the other cheek. She let it linger for a while. He rested his hands on top of hers and held it in place on his cheek as if it was his last chance to keep her next to him.

"It's the same me...I'm the same as I always was."

she pulled her hands away from his grip.

"That's my point Josh, I never knew who you were... I tried but you wouldn't let me. Do you even know how I knew that you and Reid were on your own? Kerry. I had to hear it from her and now...now I just feel like such a fool."
She made the bitter laugh again."...of course you wouldn't tell me anything because you were already promised to someone else...how could I not see it....how could I have been so blind...so stupid..." tears escaped her eyes and she quickly wiped them away.

" What do you want to know? Ask me anything... I'll tell you."

"Anything? just like that?"

"Ask away..."

Fear gripped him as he set foot into deep waters. He hoped he wouldn't drown, but he would do anything for her. Even treading terrifying territory.

He'd fix this.

"Okay I will... tell me about India...why do you hate it so much?"

He got up from where he sat. His hands clasped around his Neckless pendant breifly, it seemed almost involuntarily, then he let it go. His hands fell to his sides. He went to the fire place and looked at the painting there. It's dusty unpaved roads with green shrubs erect alongside it. The thin veil of clouds that covered blue skies and the sunlight that seemed to seep through, adding light, warmth and beauty. But it was the dusty unpaved road that lead further and further away from him that caught his thoughts the most. It reminded him of the road Chrisy had just now ask him to treck. A road he didn't wish to go down, a road that lead to a place he wished he didn't have to go. He deliberately let out a long hard breath that until then, he didn't realize he held. He didnt turn around to face her.

"I don't....India is home. My Family...my father, my mother, my sister " he made a long deep sigh. His voice shook when he said it again. "...my sister...."

He felt queasy. He saw Kirans face right in front of him and he felt queasy because he saw her but he knew she wasnt really there. He hadn't seen his sister in a year almost. He missed her badly.

He came back to sit in the spot next to her. It hurt but he would tell her everything she wanted to know.

Chrisy didn't expect this.

She suddenly realized she had all right to be mad at him. She truly didn't know him. He had missed home. The home he made seem taboo. The home he never talked about. The home she thought he hated. Her heart raced as he turned to look into her vivid blue eyes. And he opened himself up to her like a book.