THE PROMISE

Chapter Seven--Until I Find Myself Again

The afternoon sun was brimming down in the west, directly reflecting from the fiber-glass pane of the café to where Dr. Gerald Zarate and Charles sat, opposite each other.  Two cups of steaming black coffees are on the table, wisps of smoke rising from it.  Desolate silence filled this first ten minutes of their encounter, week after Charles's recovery from the hospital.

Still drowned with terrible guilt and heartache, Dr. Zarate couldn't even bear to utter sentences of apology he practiced before their meeting.  On the other hand, Charles's silence was not borne of anger rather the calm demeanor of indifference and a newly found maturity--or at least resembling it.  

"You don't have to ask forgiveness.  Although, I can't give you the consoling statement that my accident is not your fault.  Well, not the accident directly.  I blame you for being a jackass but just a little now."  Charles said coolly, smiling even upon reminiscing the event.

"I know."  Dr. Zarate replied, forcing a chuckle but avoiding Charles's eyes.

"You didn't visit me once.  Busy schedule?" 

"Guilty conscience--

The doctor looked back on all the attempts he had made to visit Charles.  But always, when the door-handle is in his hand, he couldn't gather the courage to twist it, burrowing in his mind the awful wrong he had done Charles.

"Cowardice." the doctor added, a truer answer.

The doctor's mind flew back to the night of the party when Charles surprised him with his sudden appearance.  Charles wasn't supposed to be there.  All of Dr. Zarate's kin were present in the party, including a secret that had been gnawing at him since he and Charles hooked up.  That is why, Charles shouldn't have been at the party.  He wasn't supposed to know just yet.

"Fiancé?"   Charles clarified, eyes wide with confusion and hate at the blonde, bodacious woman, whose long arms are forcibly linked into Dr. Zarate's.  

"Yes.  Didn't he tell you?  I thought you guys are friends?" Nathalie Smith replied, clearly unaware of the relationship between his 'fiancé' and Charles.

Dr. Gerald didn't know what to do now.  He thought he was going to cry when Charles dropped the bomb of his wanting to end the relationship.  But that was disturbed by Nathalie.  The doctor couldn't move.  

"Charles." he uttered, hiding the pleading in his voice.

Charles looked at him directly in the eye and said, "Congratulations on your engagement, doc."  Then he walked away.

It did not do the doctor good, remembering that.  His succumb to the heavy feeling of guilt and cowardice became final and real.  But the acceptance of those weaknesses is the start of his unrealized change.

Charles smiled, seeing such start of the progress of the doctor's character.  And now, the purpose of their conversation will push the doctor to that change.  His alas.  It is almost funny how a blow to his head put everything in clear perspective for him. 

"Karma's a bitch, right?"  Charles commented which received a fake grin from the doctor.  "Doc, I wanna thank you for everything.  For being an important part of my life.  And I'm sorry if I have to leave you."

Dr. Gerald Zarate is a sensitive man.  Be that as it may, he does not cry in public.  But the direction to which Charles's statement is going burrowed deep in him, that tears began to cascade down his cheeks, void of his control.

Charles saw this and consoled the doctor by holding his hand--one last comforting before his plan to disappear again.

"It's not just you, Doc.  It's not just you.  I am leaving for my sake and for every people I care truly.  But I will not come back for you, doc.  I will not come back unless you become brave."