Paul
I sat here all night, out on the terrace, watching night turn to day.
I sat motionless, just staring and feeling like a coward.
No, I’m worse than that. I’m so much worse than a coward. At least a true coward runs away and never looks back. I did worse than that. I stirred the pot and stirred secrets.
My girl was pregnant, lost our child, and went through what I could only imagine was hell, and I wasn’t there for her.
I wasn’t there when she needed me because I was stuck in my feelings over my father.
Jia’s right about trust, and I’ve sat here all night contemplating.
Years ago, if she’d broken up with me because she thought she could do better, that would have been better than what I did. Now it’s time to man up.
It’s a new day, and whether or not I ruined my chances with her is on me. She needs to know the truth. This isn’t about us as a couple anymore. It’s about moving forward.
The thought makes me stand. I grab her ring before I jump in my car and head to her house. It’s part of the story, part of what happened. A prop.
When I get to her house, I try to steady my emotions and make my way up the steps. I ring the doorbell, and wait. When I hear the pad of her footsteps on the other side of the door, my spirits lift.
The door opens, and she’s there, standing before me with swollen eyes and her skin blotchy from crying.
“Jia, can I come in?”
She doesn’t answer. She just steps away from the door, allowing me passage to go inside.
I walk in and close the door then focus on her. I need to tell her everything as it was. It doesn’t matter how I say it. It needs to be said. I don’t have a plan, but I realize now this isn’t the kind of thing you can plan.
The first thing I do is pull the velvet box from my back pocket and hold it up. It’s ironic this is a version of how I wanted to propose to her. I was going to take her on a moonlit walk by the river and do exactly what I just did.
“What is that?” she asks.
“The ring I was going to give you if you agreed to marry me.”
Confusion settles in her beautiful face, and a tear runs down her cheek.
“Paul, you were going to ask me to marry you?”
I nod. “Yeah. This ring was probably the only thing that kept me from going crazy as I lied to you and told you I needed to focus on my career. It reminded me that you were real and what I felt for you was real. When you asked me if I loved you and I said nothing, I felt evil, truly evil, because I was doing the opposite to what I really wanted to do.”
She steps forward and searches my eyes, then looks from me to the ring.
“What happened? What the hell happened? Why are we standing here like this, when I should be your wife?”
My lips part, and I home in on whatever strength I can find to get me through the next few minutes.
“I wanted you to do better. I wanted you to be with someone better than me.”
“How can you say that to me?” she gasps, and her hands ball at her sides.
“Because my father was a murdering bastard, and you deserved to be with someone better than his son.” As I say the words, the air around me feels tense and tight. Taut and stretched to the limit.
Jia’s face turns pale, and her lips part. “Paul…” is all she says.
“My father died months before we broke up, and I probably acted like I didn’t care. That was just how I dealt with it. But what you never knew was that he didn’t just die. It wasn’t like that. He put his girlfriend and their child in a car and drove off the side of a cliff with them, killing himself and them too. He did that because she wanted to leave him. I didn’t need to be told that in his warped brain, that must have felt like when Ethan rescued me and Mom and practically took us away from him. So, rather than watch them leave him, he killed them.” Jesus Christ, my damn head feels light, and as a tear tracks down my cheek, it feels like ice against the heat flair from beneath my skin. “I didn’t want you to think I was anything like him, so I took the coward’s way out and left you when you needed me the most.”
More tears stream down Jia’s cheeks, and I don’t know what she’s thinking.
I told her the truth. My secret, my horrible big secret that makes me sick to think of.
I continue to stare back at her. When she shakes her head, my heart stills in my chest. It stops beating and starts up instantly, skipping several beats when she comes closer and reaches out to touch my face.
As she does, I promise myself that if she can forgive me, I’ll spend the rest of my life doing exactly what I always wanted to do.
Love her.