Chapter Sixteen - Five
Her shadow appears in the doorway like a ghost caught in the past, her long, blonde hair falling over her shoulders as she pauses in the threshold of something new. Like the secret I’m holding captive in this room might bite.
“Come here,” I say, scooting over on the bed to make room for her.
But she hesitates. Because it most definitely will bite.
“Five—”
“Just wait, Rory,” I say, opening my arms wide. “I just want you to sit with me for a second.”
She sighs.
I know that sigh. It’s such a familiar sigh. It’s the sigh she gives me when I leave her behind. It’s me telling her goodbye when I left her for middle school and she had to stay behind at St. Joseph’s for another year. It’s me telling her ‘see ya later’ every summer when I had big important things to do when all she wanted from me was my time. It’s me, six years ago, making decisions for both of us.
This is the sigh of a woman who is weary of my bullshit. And I don’t blame her one bit.
“Please,” I say. “Those answers you want so bad aren’t going anywhere, Ror. Trust me. A five-minute time out from the grand game isn’t gonna matter. It won’t change anything. It won’t kill anyone. It won’t have any consequences.”
“No?” Rory asks, stepping into the room. “Then why am I getting the feeling that five minutes is going to make all the difference in the world right now?”
I say nothing. But in my head I’m begging her to just sit down. Lie next to me. Be still, be quiet, be mine again—
“Cliff has the impression you’re a dangerous guy.”
I inhale. Exhale. Deal.
“Why is that, Five?”
“Did you…” I have to take a deep breath before I can continue. “Did you watch the video I sent you?”
“What video?”
Well, good. If I have to tell her, I’d rather tell her in person. I try to look her in the eyes and find… I can’t. I’m not ready for this moment. But then a small light flicks to life next to me and I realize I’m holding my phone and I’ve accidentally touched the screen. Look at all the little icons. All the pretty icons I’ve created over the years. And then my gaze rests on one in particular.
“Are you going to answer me?” Rory asks, a hint of anger already surfacing.
I press the pad of my finger on the graphic, then randomly find another spot on the screen until—
Rory’s phone buzzes in her hand. I glance up at her just in time to see her brow furrow as she looks at her screen.
And then she smiles.
I sent her a Love Note. I have no fucking clue what that Love Note said because the whole point of the app was for it to be written for you. But I do know that the guy who wrote those love notes wasn’t this guy I am now.
Fifteen-year-old me was a much better guy than twenty-two-year-old me.
“You’re a Class A fucking dork, Five Aston.”
“Guilty,” I say.
Which is the wrong thing to say—because I forgot I was on trial.
“Hey,” she says, looking down at her phone. “What’s this? There’s a video inside the Love Notes…”
She doesn’t need to play it. It starts automatically.
I listen to my recorded self as I try to apologize. Try to make things right but just fuck it up worse.
And I see it all over her face as she processes. She understands what’s happening. She knows this is it. The moment we split apart forever.
“I was nine.”
“What?” she says, her voice low and throaty. Like she needs to clear it. But that’s not what that voice means. She’s going to cry. I know this, because I know her.
“When my grandfather first showed up during my summer camp.”
“What?” This time the word comes out with a long breath of air. Like she can’t decide if she’s relieved or not.
“Damian Li? Remember him? He used to come around a lot when we were little.”
Rory swallows hard and nods her head. “OK,” she says, giving me permission to keep going.
“I went to Hong Kong that year.”
But she’s already shaking her head no before I finish my sentence. “No. I got a new kitten that year. Pretty Paws. I remember that summer vividly and you went to the University of Southern California for—”
“I lied, Rory. To you. To my mom and dad. To everyone.”
The look on her face is crushing. She deflates before my eyes. Her shoulders slump and even in this low light—just a bit of moonshine coming in the big window above her bed—I can see them get glassy.
“It was a lie. All of it was a lie. My grandfather picked me up at the airport every summer in a private jet and took me to Hong Kong.”
“But your mom and dad? They’d know—”
“They didn’t know.”
“So you… you just lied to everyone?”
It’s my turn to nod my head. “I did.” And then I correct that last part. “We did.”
“Why?” It comes out loud now. Incredulous and disbelieving.
I am not the person she thinks I am. And I have never actually been that person. “Because I was his only grandson. He’s half-Chinese, you know that, right?”
“I…” She stammers, caught off guard with my question. “I never thought about it, I guess.”
“No. Most people wouldn’t. But it means something where he comes from. To be this thing. To be me.” I get up off the bed and take a step towards her.
“I know what he does,” Rory says, her head tilting up to keep my gaze locked in hers as I approach. “I know who he is.”
“Then you can see where this is going,” I say, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her close one last time. I let her sink into me and rest her head against my chest. I hold this moment in my mind. Brand it into my brain. And it sears me. It hurts me to say the words that have to come out next.
I open my mouth to speak. Because it has to be said and I can’t stand the crushing pressure that feels like the ceiling is coming down on top of me. About to squeeze me until I die. Flatten me into nothingness. I can’t stand the uncertainty, either.
“Do you know why I kept those stars above my bed all these years?” Rory beats me to it and her question is so unexpected, I pause. Then the pause turns into a full stop.
“Why?” I ask, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair.
“Because I fell in love with you that day.”
I smile, picturing us.
“You were eight that fall.”
“And you were on your way as well,” I say. Our birthdays are only a few months apart, despite the fact that I was always a year ahead of her in school.
“We met at our usual place after school.”
“The front stoop, out by the yard gates.”
“You always got there first, but not that day,” she says.
“No.” I laugh, lost in the memory. “I had to make a side trip to the art room. It was a Tuesday, so I knew your mom was busy with Belle and I wouldn’t get in trouble.”
“She had her mommy class,” Rory says. “And your mom was always late picking us up those days, remember?”
“My mom.” I chuckle. “She was always kind of a flighty mess when it came to schedules. Always on her own time.”
“Well, in her defense,” Rory says, pulling away from me so she can look up at my face, “she did have to bring those three face-eaters with her.”
God. Those damn German Shepherds we always had when I was growing up. My dad was obsessed with protection dogs.
“And you gave me those stars when we got to your house while I was waiting for my mom to come pick me up. You even typed up an instruction manual on how to hang them, and then printed it out for me to take home.”
I laugh out loud at that. “I’d forgotten that part.”
“Well, I didn’t,” Rory says, her tone soft and serious again. “I didn’t forget a single moment of that day.” She gazes up at me for a few seconds before continuing. “Because that’s the day when I truly realized that you cared, Five. It wasn’t enough to just make me that gift of sparkly stars. You needed to go ten steps further and make sure putting them up was easy. Of course, my dad did it. But he looked at your manual for guidance. To make sure he got it right. And even though I was just a little girl—a little girl who was surrounded by love on all sides, every day of her short life—this was something deeper. This was more than love. It was you being careful about my happiness.”
“Rory,” I interrupt her, wanting to explain everything that’s been happening all these years.
But she places a fingertip on my lips and says, “Shhh. I’m not done yet.”
So I stop. And I listen.
“I went to bed early that night,” she says. “Just so I could look up at the sky you made for me and wish on my favorite star that no one else in the entire world would ever see but me.”
“What did you wish for, Princess?” My throat feels tight. Like there’s something hard and sad in there. And my heart aches just being here with her. Living in the past with her. All the while knowing I’m gonna lose her.
“I wished for you to be as happy as me that night, Five. But I think I should’ve been more specific. Because whoever the Big Man with the Wishes is, he got it wrong, didn’t he?”
“Did he?” I have to take a deep breath to continue. “I was very happy back then.”
“Me too,” she says. “But I haven’t been happy for so long now, Five, I forgot what it feels like. Until yesterday when I saw you again. You, Five Aston, are the meaning of happy for me. And I have been kicking myself for six years, cursing the Big Man with the Wishes, for not telling him I want me to make you happy.”
“Oh, Ror. It’s you, babe. You’re the only thing in this entire world that makes me happy. The only thing.”
“Then why are you here tonight, Five? Why did you come up here in my room to tell me goodbye? Just tell me the truth. I can take it, OK? I promise, I can. I will listen. I will be calm. I will let you make your case and you have to let me make mine. But if you still want to walk away from me when all that’s said and done, I’ll let you go. And I won’t be mad, or sad, or hold it against you. Because you’re the kind of prince who gives his princess the stars and then types up an instruction manual just to make sure she gets every ounce of joy out of it she can.”
I just stand there, gazing down into her blue eyes, wondering how the hell I could fuck up something so perfect. We were fated to be together. From day one, I was waiting on her to complete my life. And even though I don’t remember being a baby—I have no recollection of those few months that separated our time here on Earth—I know I was incomplete until she came along. I felt it.
“So tell me now. What did you have to say when I came up here?”
It’s my turn to deflate. Because there’s only one thing in this world that will make me happy and I have her in my arms right here, right now.
And I can’t keep her. There’s just no way I can keep her.
“I have to go to China,” I finally manage. My words are low and my voice sounds just like my mind. Filled with sadness.
“And I can’t come, can I?”
I shake my head. “No, Princess. You can’t come. It’s the kind of place you can’t walk away from once you’re there.”
A tear slides down her cheek. But she wipes it away and draws in some courage with her next deep breath. “OK,” she says. “But I’d like to go on record that I come from a family of badass bitches.”
I laugh. Kinda loud. Even though it’s inappropriate because she’s being totally serious.
“And I can hold my own, Five Aston.”
I swipe a finger down her face to wipe away another falling tear. “I know, Princess,” I whisper. “But what kind of a prince would I be if I rescued you from the tower only to bring you straight to the dragon’s lair?”
She shrugs. “A confident one?”
“A selfish one,” I correct her. “I’d be the most selfish guy on this whole planet, Rory Shrike. And I’d never be able to live with myself. Ever. There’s no time to make an instruction manual right now. There’s no time to be careful with your happiness. There’s just… there’s just…”
“Goodbye,” she says, half sobbing.
I nod my head. And even though I feel like my chest is splitting in half from the heartbreak, I pull away. I pry her tightly wrapped hands from my waist and back away, keeping her at arm’s length.
“I love you,” I say. “And that’s why this is happening.”
And then I turn and walk out, crushing her fairy tale fantasy forever.