After Eternity

Chapter 42

I.

Cliff paced around his bedroom hotel with his cell in his hands absolutely uncertain of what he should do. On one hand, he wanted to talk to her, for she had been in his mind ever since they encountered again. Deep inside, he knew he had never really forgotten her, but life had turned out so different from his initial plan. The inability to end a marriage he was not happy in had determined most of his life. Alex had been a great wife; he could not deny that. She had been taking care of him when he most needed, being in his days for almost more than half of his life. She had given him three beautiful children and it had been exactly the children that kept him with her. He has been incapable to abandon his children.

Seeing Pam and being with her so many years later made him realize that some feelings are never gone. This was the case. Though they had been apart, each one leaving their own lives, and not seeing or talking to each other, that casual meeting at the bar turned out as if they had never been separated or living different lives all these years. The moment Diana left, and they were alone, all the feelings became alive and it was as if they had never been asleep. Because in the end, they both had just put their feelings to sleep, and the monster had been awaken that night.

They talked and that was their only goal while there enjoying that warm night, was to talk, to catch up with all the years where they were forbidden to contact each other. They talked and laughed as if the years had never been between them. He caught himself knowing each one of her gestures, knowing what words she was going to say, knowing what she liked and how to make her laugh easily. He didn't know if Pam was feeling as he was, but his heart was beating fast and the stupid butterflies in the stomach the teenagers feel, he was feeling them too. The butterflies in the stomach were part of his 52 years old condition.

When they left to end their night, nothing of what happened had been planned, but when they entered her car the urge to kiss her was stronger than anything else. He didn't know how she was going to react, but he risked it and advanced for her lips. When his lips touched hers, Cliff thought she was going to push him away, but instead, he felt her hands cupping his face so gently and her lips responding to his kiss with the same loving manner he was kissing her. Her lips were still soft and still tasted of Cherrie as he remembered. From that kiss everything was very quickly. Last thing, he was cheating on his wife once again with the woman she feared the most. Only Pam had been the greatest menace for their marriage. Pam still was the only menace for their marriage.

They had ignited their bodies on fire. He hadn't felt that much alive in many years and he was sure that even if not many words were shared, there was still love between them. Intense and burning love. Proof was he was pacing around his hotel room while waiting for James to have dinner with him, thinking if he should reach for her or not, even if every pore on his body was yelling for her.

Cliff stopped by the window and looked at the busy street outside. Cars crossing over and people running around in their busy lives and his head was in San Francisco, in James's office. His heart telling him to do so and his head yelling at him to be still. To what part should he listen to? What part should command his willing? What part should be the biggest force in this? Would she talk to him?

"Fuck..." He whispered resting with his forehead against the glass. Cliff closed his eyes trying to get some sense of mental health, some sense of truth, some good advice. "Fuck it..." He said in the end opening his eyes.

He looked at his cell and dialed James's office number. It took a few seconds for the lines process the long-distance call, but his hands started shaking immediately when the beep sounded for the first time.

"Hello..." The familiar voice answered the call at the third beep. Cliff almost jumped surprised. It had been Pam the one picking up the call and he wasn't prepared for that initial shock. "Hello?" Pam said again hoping someone would say anything.