CHAPTER NINE
Ian
I sit in the airport lounge waiting to board my plane and reading Kristina’s texts after she found my letter I left her. I won’t lie. Knowing this bothers her gives me at least some modicum of pleasure after feeling like I’d been kicked in the fucking stomach as I watched that morning show. Nothing like finding out the woman you love has been lying to you for days, even after you gave her more than enough chances to come clean.
Not that I can’t forgive her. I can. I don’t have a choice, to be honest. I love her too much to even think I can go on without her.
My phone vibrates against my glass of scotch, and I see it’s Kristina. My eyes scan her text and I smile.
Don’t give up on us. Please.
My instinct is to message her back and tell her I couldn’t give up on what she is to me any more than I could give up breathing. Avoiding her for the last day has been pure torture. My hands yearn to touch her. I crave the feel of her skin on mine, the taste of her lips as she kisses me when I slide my cock into her and bury myself inside her body. My body aches from not having her next to me. I miss her smile, her voice, her laughter.
I miss her. And even though I’m hurt she lied, I just want her back with me so we can go to Rome and fall in love all over again.
I grab my phone and text back to her.
I can’t give you up. Come to me.
Immediately, she answers my text with one of her own filled with that need so familiar in my life.
Promise you’ll wait for me. Don’t leave me here without you.
Texting back, I tell her what I know she wants to hear.
Meet me at Gate B 39. I left your ticket at the Delta desk. I love you.
I sit there as people come and go on their way to wherever they’re going and wonder how many of them are like Kristina and me. Most people sleepwalk through life. They pretend to love, pretend to care about those around them. They fake it, phone in love and lust and all the things in life that make it worth living. People float in and out of their lives with little more than a nod in recognition.
But not us. Since the moment I met her, every part of me has felt alive like never before. With the first touch of my hand, she’s been mine. When I see her after she’s been gone for mere hours, it’s like my eyes can’t open wide enough to take in all of her. I want to touch her, feel her breath as I take it away with a kiss on her gorgeous lips or the perfect word whispered in her ear.
I finish my scotch and look at the time. One hour until boarding. Looking down at my phone, I begin to worry she won’t make it before we have to leave. For the first time since I sat there in my apartment watching that insipid morning news show discuss how the woman I love had lied to me, the thought occurs to me that Kristina might truly choose something over me.
My stomach knots from the betrayal this thought brings with it. How could she? I’d never choose anyone or anything over her. I can’t. She’s as necessary to me as the food I eat and the air I breathe. It’s never a choice to need her.
Something in leaving to go somewhere else fills me with dread. When she left that night after I’d frightened her, I never doubted I’d see her again. Never doubted we’d be together again. Now as I sit in this lounge watching planes take off to faraway places, a niggling feeling gnaws at me that if she doesn’t come to Rome with me, it’s over.
We’re over.
A little voice inside me asks the obvious question. How could that be? I’m no less addicted to her than I was to heroin, even more. Heroin only made me feel good and helped me forget what terrified me. Kristina gives me what no drug ever could.
Love in return. And that love makes me a better man. No drug has ever done that for me.
So how could this be the end of us? Am I not addicted to how incredible she makes me feel anymore?
Closing my eyes, I silently pray she shows up and I don’t have to answer any of these questions. I don’t want to think of life without her.
I wait until I can’t anymore and slowly walk to the gate. My hands sweat and my legs feel weak. Looking up, I see the sign for Gate B 39 and stop to look around. People file past me as the flight attendants begin to call for first class boarding. I should get on the plane, but I can’t.
Not without Kristina. She’s coming. I just need to wait a little longer.
First class finishes boarding and I’m still standing in line. The petite brunette flight attendant gives me a confused look as if to ask, “Are you coming?”
I flash her a weak smile and step back out of line as she announces that coach class can now begin boarding. More people file past me into the tube that leads to the plane as I search left and right for Kristina.
My phone vibrates and I know even before I look that I don’t want to read the message. I can’t avoid it, though, so I bring it up on the screen and see everything I’ve dreaded since yesterday.
I tried to get there but I can’t.
There’s more, but I can’t read it. Stuffing my phone back into my pocket, I get into line and make my way to the flight attendant. She gives me a sad look like she knows I’ve just spent the last fifteen minutes waiting for someone who was never going to show. Giving me a tepid smile, she wishes me a good flight and sends me down the tube to board the plane alone.
A few minutes later, I’m settled into my seat and look over at the empty seat next to me, my chest tightening as the reality sinks in. Kristina chose something over us.
Over me.
I look at my phone as everyone around me tells the attendant their drink orders and feel too sick to my stomach to even try to down any more alcohol. Her message sits there on my phone staring up at me. Dismissing me.
My publicist caught me as I tried to go to you and stopped me. I want to be there with you, but I can’t give up the chance this film offers me. Please forgive me.
My fingers don’t move to text back. I have nothing to say.
Please answer me. Say something. Anything. Please! Tell me we’re going to be okay. Tell me you forgive me. Please Ian.
The plane’s engines roar and we begin to taxi down the runway as I finally answer her message with one last text of my own.
Goodbye
As I turn my phone off, she texts again telling me she won’t let me go and that she loves me, but I don’t have anything else to say. The plane takes off into the air above Kennedy, and for me I’m not going to Rome so much as leaving her.
Leaving everything we were, including our story, behind. Whatever we had she ruined by lying to me.
Halfway over the Atlantic, I read over her messages again and see one that came in after I turned off my phone. Full of the sadness I feel, it shows the strength I love in her, and I silently pray she means what she wrote.
You said there was no running from what we are, Ian. I can’t let this be goodbye. You can’t either. We will see each other again.