“Heart? Soul? Biological clock?” I shrugged my shoulders and let a mouthful of beer slide into my throat before swallowing. “Yeah, I get that.”
“People handle it in different ways, but what I’ve learned from my years of helping people find their way is that our heart never truly forgets. You can drown the past with booze, crush it with drugs, or find someone new that overpowers your memories, but it rarely erases what is left behind.” Angelina picked up her tablet again. “When you leave a chapter of your life open, like you did with Harmony, it never truly closes. The problem is that most people never address it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Look at the divorce rate in our country. Half the people that try get it wrong.”
“I guess that’s true.” I nodded and sighed. “I still think this is going to freak her the fuck out. It would freak me the fuck out if someone popped up after six years and tried to convince me they still had feelings that never went away.”
“Maybe, but again—you have to be honest with her. Tell her the truth from the beginning. Don’t try to conceal the path or make it seem like anything it isn’t.” She turned her tablet back towards me and I saw a picture of a heart that was splintered into multiple shards. “But, I have to show you this—while you might carry a candle for Harmony, I don’t think her future lies entirely with you.”
“What do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes and stared at the picture.
“In order to determine if this would be a successful venture or just create more pain for you, I had to create a profile for Harmony. She has a lot of love inside her that has been untapped, but it’ll never belong to you entirely.” Angelina put the tablet down and reached for her drink. “You need to know that going into this.”
“Then why even go back to Bakersfield? I don’t want to show up out of the blue and be nothing more than a fling.” I scoffed and shook my head.
“You won’t be a fling, but you have to understand that Harmony is special. I’ve seen a profile like this before and the road to eternal happiness was forked in multiple directions. I believe that is why Harmony has never found what she was looking for. Her forked path leads down different roads and the only way to bring it together is to let her walk each one.” Angelina sipped her drink and put it back down on the table. “If you truly trust me, you’ll have to let me come with you to Bakersfield and personally oversee Harmony’s journey.”
“I thought this was about my journey.” I felt a bit of disappointment rising up inside me.
“It’s both.” Angelina nodded. “But if you want this to work, you have to open yourself up to things you’ve never considered before.”
I felt like Angelina spoke in riddles. I could tell there was more to it than what she laid out in front of me, but I put my faith in her. I had spent enough time exploring the pleasures of the flesh after leaving Bakersfield to know that it wasn’t going to lead me to the kind of life I wanted. I might eventually meet someone, but if Angelina was right, I still had unfinished business back home. If Harmony rejected me, then that would be the end of it. I could close the chapter I left open and move on. Angelina didn’t think she would. She predicted that we would find what we were both looking for, but it wouldn’t be a simple reunion.
Angelina searched for the right time to let me reintroduce myself to Harmony without showing up on her doorstep like a stalker. When we found out about her sister’s wedding, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. It would provide a safe environment and then I could find out if there was any interest on her end. I had to make a few calls and tell a few lies, but eventually I got on the guest list. The instant I saw Harmony, all of those old feelings came rushing back. My emotions were teasing me when I saw her picture, but seeing her in person nearly took my breath away. I just hoped it wasn’t one sided. After some nudging from Angelina, Harmony came to talk to me. We ended up on the dance floor and when we were done, she agreed to go on a date with me.
Finally, after all these years.
5
Harmony
My emotions were churning with confusion after having dinner with Nate. He told me all about Angelina, her club in New York, and how he ended up in Bakersfield. I really liked Nate. I liked the man he had become even more than I liked the boy that used to sit beside me in Anthropology. He was so authentic and truthful. I had been on so many dates where the guys were hiding their worst qualities behind a mask just to impress me. I usually saw through it, which was part of the reason I never had many second dates. Nate didn’t need a mask. He just put his whole life on the table and let me dig into it. He was open about the girls he had been with, the life he had lived while he was in South America, and everything Angelina told him about me.
We finished our dinner and decided to take a walk so we could keep talking. He had originally planned a movie, but he had fascinated me so much with real life that I didn’t think a movie would be very entertaining. I needed to hear more about Angelina. I had become more intrigued by her than I was with Nate’s sudden appearance after not seeing him for six years. She sounded like an enigma—just as Nate described, but there was more to it than that. She seemed to know more about me than I knew about myself.
“So, she brought you back here, but she doesn’t think you and I are going to end up together?” I shook my head and sighed. “Why does that sound like my life in a nutshell?”
Someone from my past shows up and admits they still have a thing for me, but of course, there’s a catch.
“It’s more complicated than that. She does believe that we have a future together, or she would have never brought me here, but it’s not as simple as two people reconnecting and falling in love.” Nate walked over to the railing that circled the lake in our local park and picked up a rock.
“Um, this isn’t the part where you knock me out and stuff me in the back of a van is it?” I stared at the rock as he held it in his hand.
“Tempting, but not exactly what I had in mind. Let me explain it like this.” He turned and threw the rock towards the lake. “That rock is a moment in time—our moment.”
“Okay.” I walked over to the railing and watched as the rock splashed into the water.
“See how one rock—one moment—creates ripples that spread in every direction?” Nate motioned with his hand. “Each one of them is a direction we can take, but none of them exist without our moment. One of those ripples could be a direction where we continue dating, fall in love, and get married, but it isn’t the only ripple.”
“Interesting…” I nodded and tried to process what he was saying.
“One of the other ripples could be an entirely different path for you. One where you meet someone else and fall madly in love with them.” He turned towards me.
“Okay, so which ripple am I supposed to follow?” I looked up into his eyes.
“If you believe Angelina—all of them.” He smiled and nodded.
“All of them? How the hell would that work?” I blinked in confusion.
“Well it starts with this…” He leaned forward and kissed me.