I've Found You

Chapter 16

I awoke the following morning to an empty bed, aside from myself, and a hollow feeling in my chest. After Jai had stormed out yesterday, he’d made no effort to contact me or see me again. I tried calling his cellphone to no avail; it had gone straight to voice mail. I could physically feel the piece of my heart that belonged to him shatter into tiny little pieces, unable to be fixed by any set of hands other than his own.

If he didn’t want me here anymore, I had absolutely no other tying factors encouraging me to stay. It seemed impossible, but I knew exactly what had to be done. Stepping out of my bed, I dragged my suitcase out of my closet and began packing my belongings until the room before me was bereft of any trace I’d ever existed here. Nothing was left but the furniture.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the apartment, but I knew that it could be dealt with when I got home. I had to get away from Melbourne. On a sudden whim, I remembered that Jai still had a key to the place, and that there was a chance he might come looking for me today, tomorrow, the day after; it didn’t matter when, but there was a possibility he would stop by in search of me, and as upset as I was with him, I couldn’t let him discover an empty apartment with no trace of me to be found. He deserved an explanation, at the very least.

I sat down at the kitchen table, grabbed a piece of stationary, and started writing. I poured my heart out into every line, the dampness of my fallen tears smudging the ink in certain places. I told him how I felt about him, and that I wished I’d had a chance to explain it all in person. I told him I’d miss him more than I’d ever missed any other human being in the world, but it was time for me to go. I asked him to always remember me.

Holding the piece of paper close to my chest, I walked back upstairs and placed my note on the pillow of the bed.  I took a good long look around the room, remembering the happy moments Jai and I had shared in here, the love we’d spent countless hours making. I would forever remember those moments as being the best of my life.

A glimmering object sitting on the nightstand caught my eye. I slowly made my way over to where it sat and picked it up. It was the locket I’d bought a few weeks ago when Jai and I had gone shopping downtown. Inside was a little picture of me and him, taken by holding the camera out in front of us and smooshing our faces together while we laughed like carefree children. It was my favourite picture of us. Stifling a sob, I set the locket down on top of the note. I had a feeling he would find it eventually.

I turned on my heel and walked back downstairs again, grabbing my luggage from the living room and heading out the door without glancing backwards. As I waited for the elevator, I fished my cellphone out of my pocket and dialed the number for the airport.

“Hello? Yes, I need a ticket for the next flight from Melbourne to Toronto…Yes, just one way ma’am…alright, I’ll be there to pick it up in twenty minutes.”

I tried not to think of the time the elevator broke down with jai and I inside of it as I rode it down to the lobby for the final time. On my way out, I stopped to hug Norman, the doorman, and say my goodbyes to him before I hailed a taxi and directed the driver towards the airport. He courteously ignored the fact that my tear streaked face was pressed against his back window the whole way.

Many hours later

The flight home was a long one; however I managed to catch a significant amount of sleep on the way. I felt numb and dazed as I stumbled through the Toronto airport at a zombie-like pace, not fully processing the fact that I was home. There was no going back. Melbourne was a thing of the past, and so was he. It was time to move on.

I arrived home to an empty house. Both of my parents were still on their vacation, which suited me just fine. I needed some alone time. Picking up the phone, I dialed the familiar number of the pizza parlour down the street from my house. I ordered a large pepperoni for myself. I was in need of some comfort food.

When my dinner arrived, I seated myself on the couch and flicked on the television. I was seriously behind on my favourite shows, and reality TV was a welcome distraction. I set the channel to fifty-two, the MTV station, and immediately regretted doing so. There, on the screen in front of me, was the face of the boy I loved and his four best friends acting like idiots in their first official music video. The food I was chewing fell out of my mouth and onto the plate in my lap.

The dam I had built around myself to hold back the emotions that threatened to overtake my body at any moment finally broke, and within a minute I found myself curled up in my bed sobbing into my pillow.

There was nothing I could do now. I had left him behind in a spur of the moment decision, and I regretted it so much that it hurt. There was a giant hole in my chest, fit just to the shape of his heart, and there was no way for him to fill it. We were on polar opposite sides of the planet. I’d never felt so alone in my life.

Eventually, I ran out of tears to cry, and just sat in my bed, staring out the window as I watched the sun rise. It was funny, as I’d cried myself to sleep without giving my body permission so many times in the past couple of days, but now, when all I wanted was the relief of a few hours slumber, I couldn’t shut my brain off. Funny was probably a bad word to describe it. It was depressing.

Finally, though, sometime in the early morning, sleep did find me, and I welcomed it with open arms. I dreamt of running my fingers through the thickness of curly brown hair that adorned the face I’d become so attached to, as he made passionate love to me in a dark, bare room. Suddenly, the dream changed. I was still in the same room, although I was beginning to realize that it wasn’t so much a room, but more of an eternal blackness that stretched out infinitely in all directions. Looking up, I wasn’t surprised to see him standing in front of me, staring at me with cold, calculating eyes.

“Jai,” I whispered, as I took a step towards him, reaching out to him with my hand.

Just when I’d gotten close enough to touch him, he took a step back, and my outstretched hand clutched at open air. This process repeated a few times, until my dreaming brain realized I would never reach him, never hold him in my arms again. He would always be there, but he would remain out of my reach. I stared into his eyes, trying to read his face, but he just shook his head at me.

I awoke covered in a cold sweat, my heart ready to pound out of my chest. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Even in my dreams, the one place I thought I would find refuge, he followed me. I couldn’t get him out of my head.