FOUR
Jake
I want to hold her but I don’t make a move. My body aches to be close to hers but I don’t want to cross the line I know she has drawn. Not to mention that her boyfriend is close by [nearby]. I can’t believe that after a long time of thinking about what I’d do if I see her again, she’s standing right in front of me yet I feel like there’s a huge gap/wedge/(synonym) between us.
“When I woke up and you weren’t there . . . I couldn’t believe you left. At first I thought you’d be back until I remembered that you said you had a flight back to New York that afternoon. So I went to your hotel to look for you, but since I didn’t know your last name, I had a hard time at the reception. Not to mention the hotel’s policy of not giving out information about their guests.”
She looks surprised. What? Did she think I’d be happy she left and not make an effort to see her?
“I was lucky to see a sympathetic lady who I showed a picture of you to, and told her that I had a very slim window to see you before you left the state.”
“You had a picture of me?” she asks, sounding even more surprised and breathless. I whip out my phone from my pocket and pulled up her picture. The one I’ve looked at for the past two years. The only picture of her I have. I show it to her. She didn’t know when I took the picture that night. She was laughing at something one of her friends said. A drink in one hand. Her brown long hair loose around her bare shoulders. Her strapless red dress clinging seductively to her body. Her perfect white teeth gleaming in the lights of the bar/lounge we were in. she was breathtaking in her beauty. She still is.
“I didn’t know you had this,” she says quietly. “I didn’t have any of you.” Does she know she said it out loud? He’s she thought of me as much as I’ve thought of her? I haven’t been with anyone serious even though I had practically giving up hope of ever seeing her again. Yet here she is with a boyfriend. I had always wondered whether she got married, had kids or moved to another country. I remember her expressing hope to work somewhere like Cape Town.
She gives my phone back to me and I notice that her hand is trembling slightly.
“She told me that she couldn’t give me your last name but she recognized you and you had checked out earlier. So I took the first cab I saw and went to the airport.”
Mia looks paler.
“What?” she whispers.
“By the time I got there, all the flights to New York had left. The next one was at eleven p.m. but I knew you were gone because you said your flight was an afternoon one. The worst part was that I didn’t know what airline you used so I couldn’t talk to anyone at the counter about leaving a message for you. I hated to admit defeat but it didn’t seem like I had much of a choice. How do I find a beautiful woman in a big city when I didn’t know her surname, I didn’t know where she worked or where she lived. It was then I realized that even though I knew a lot about you like your childhood and your hopes and dreams, I still knew nothing.”
“Jake . . .” She doesn’t know what to say. I’ve rendered her almost speechless. My revelations had shocked her. I decide not to tell her that I didn’t stop there. I couldn’t stop looking for her even though I felt like I had reached a dead end. I went back to the club we met and spoke to the patron to see if he remembered her group of friends and if they made a reservation. I figured that if I could find one of her friends, I’d find her. But I reached another dead end.
She ran from me, and I need to know why.
“Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”
Her face is a mix of emotions, and I know she’s replaying the memories of our night together and the moment she left.
“I . . . I thought it would be less awkward
I raise an eyebrow. “Awkward? Was there anything awkward about the time we spent together?” We had a strong connection and I have no doubts that she felt it as much as I had.
“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel when you woke up and I just thought it’d be easier if I left.”
I see Gavin approaching. And I know we’ve just run out of time . . . for now.
“Mind if I steal my girlfriend for a minute?” he asks, his tone casual but the look in his eyes is anything but. I have no doubt that the use of the word ‘steal’ was deliberate. I don’t answer him. Gavin gives me a hard, threatening look but when he speaks to Mia, his voice is soft.
“Mia?”
“Yeah. Sure,” she says, sounding anything but certain. I can bet that she has no idea what he’d asked.
And for a moment I wonder if I’m going to be that guy. The kind of guy I despise. The guy that goes after another man’s girlfriend. Because there’s no way I’m going to let Mia go. Especially now that I know that she’s still affected by me.