Goddesses Don't Get Sick (4 page)

EIGHT.

THE DOORBELL RANG SHRILLY THROUGH THE HOUSE.

Angela dragged her feet as she went to answer it, wondering wearily if it was another flower delivery. Swallowing her frustration, she swung it open to find Tuyen standing there, a hopeful smile on his face.

Stunned, she stared at him as her emotions battled inside her. Resisting the urge to slam the door in his face, but struggling against the urge to forgive him without question, it was a few moments before either of them said anything.

Angela’s anger finally won out.

“Yes?” she asked coldly. Tuyen winced at the edge in her voice.

“I guess sorry doesn’t cut it then, huh?” He asked meekly.

“Might’ve worked the last time I saw you,” Angela refused to meet his eye as she blocked the doorway to prevent him from trying to enter, her mind racing for something to say.

Tuyen took advantage of the silence to look at Angela as she stood there. She looked tired, but not as washed out as Tuyen was, more driven by anger than anything else. His heart wrenched when he saw she’d taken off the pendant he’d given her, but he nodded slightly, as if seeing this proved a suspicion. Trying to remember Sharon’s advice, Tuyen swallowed nervously and began to speak to Angela’s bowed head.

“I’m sorry, Angela. I don’t know how to explain this so you’ll believe me but you have to understand how truly sorry I am for what I did to you. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I shouldn’t have run…”

Angela snorted rudely. Sighing unhappily, Tuyen rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to find the right words to continue.

“I know I should have come to see you sooner, Ange. Believe me, I wanted to. I just didn’t think you wanted to see me after what I did. I got scared,” he laughed bitterly. “If that is a believable excuse.” He paused again, waiting to see if Angela would say anything. When she remained silent, Tuyen closed his eyes briefly before he continued.

“There is so much I want to tell you; about myself and what I do. But right now I don’t think you’d believe me. And the only reason I have for doing what I did, for running away that night,” Tuyen spread his arms in a pleading gesture. “I
know
you won’t believe me.”

“Why don’t you try?” Angela asked softly, still refusing to look at him. Tuyen tried to catch her eye before he gave up and dropped his head in defeat.

“It was my first kiss.” He murmured.

Angela’s head snapped up angrily.
His first kiss?!
Of all the excuses she had been expecting to hear from him, she’d hoped he would at least have had the guts to tell her the truth. About to yell as much at Tuyen, her anger at the statement wavered when she saw his expression and stance. He looked so unhappy at the admission, so ready to accept that she wouldn’t believe him. Could he really be telling the truth? Was that believable? Or was she falling for another trick?

Angela stood at her door and stared at him numbly, not sure what to say. Looking at the young woman before him beseechingly, Tuyen reached out a hand to caress her cheek.

“My Goddess,” he whispered softly. His fingertips had barely brushed her cheek before Angela stiffened and drew back from his hand. She looked at him in cold anger.

“If I was your Goddess, you wouldn’t have run.”

Tuyen blinked in shock, his eyes reflecting the hurt as if the words had been a physical blow. Without waiting for a reply, Angela stepped back inside and slammed the door shut.

Tuyen stood there, head hung as he tried to forget the look Angela had given him; tried to think what to do next. Eventually, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of card and a feather—the same color as the one Angela had worn about her neck until so recently, but this one the size of a falcon’s primary. He looked at the feather sadly, running it through his fingers as he remembered the pendant he’d given her. Pulling a pen from his pocket, Tuyen wrote quickly on the card. Placing both the card and the feather into the mail slot on the door, he turned around and walked back the way he’d come, closing his eyes and tilting his face to the sky as it began to rain lightly.

Inside, Angela sat hugging her knees in the hallway, her back against the door. A frown of confusion wrinkled her brow as she heard something being pushed through the mail slot and landing on the floor with a quiet rustle. Turning her head to the formerly empty space beside her, Angela looked at the feather for a long moment before picking it up. Her expression saddened as she looked at it, running it through her fingers in a parallel to Tuyen’s actions only a moment ago.

Picking up the note that had fallen with it, she looked at the familiar handwriting and read the words it formed:

I’ll wait for you

Swallowing back a sob, Angela closed her eyes and rested her head against the door, a single tear escaping her will and crawling slowly down her cheek as the rain began to fall outside.

NINE.

THERE ARE FEW CONSTANTS IN THIS WORLD.
Few things that one can guarantee as a certainty of life. Death, taxes, the sun’s passage. One of these constants, although not always believed by those it affects, is that time heals all wounds.

Tuyen had promised to wait until Angela had forgiven him, to wait for her to seek him out when she was ready. But Angela did not think she would ever be able to get over the hurt he had caused. Like so many before her, she believed her wounds would never heal. More than that, she didn’t
want
her wounds to heal.

Routine forced Angela to continue with her life. To go to work and classes, socialize with her friends—anything she could do to take her mind off Tuyen. The ache that resulted from his actions remained, but Angela refused to pay attention to it, focusing even more on her studies than she had before. Eventually, she was able to convince herself that it was no longer there; that she no longer missed him. She could never kid herself for very long, but long enough. Although she ignored the wounds, they had begun to heal.

Angela started wearing the pendant again after about a month. When she picked it up from its box, she hadn’t been sure what she was doing. But since it had first been given to her, it felt wrong for her to not be wearing it. Without even realizing, she had begun to forgive him, and before long, she found herself wondering when he would come back.

Angela had assumed from Tuyen’s note that he would pay her a visit once she was ready to see him. That the uncanny timing he had in his gifts would extend to his timing in person. But as time continued to pass, as Angela’s healed wounds were replaced with a yearning to see him again and see if at least a friendship was salvageable, there was no sign of the young man anywhere.

Once again, Angela’s mysterious stranger had disappeared from her world.

TEN.

“STILL NO WORD FROM HIM?”
Sharon asked one cold morning as the two walked along the footpath to their first class of the day, their breath visible in the air before them. Angela sighed and shook her head.

“Not since the day he stopped sending the flowers. I just don’t understand it. He said he’d wait for me but I don’t know what he meant by that anymore.” Angela frowned as she rearranged her scarf.

“Well, have you forgiven him?” Sharon asked.

“For running away that night?” Angela shrugged. “I guess. But I still don’t understand him. I mean, when he tried to talk to me about it, he said he’d never been kissed before and that’s just…not right. He must have been lying. But that doesn’t seem like something he’d do.” Angela’s frown deepened as she brooded on the memory. Sensing the darker turn to her friend’s mood, Sharon tried to think of something to say.

“You know, I, uh, bumped into him that day,” Sharon ventured hesitantly. Angela looked up at her in surprise, briefly angry that her friend had sat on this information for so long.

“What? When?”

“When he was going to see you. I was walking home and he was coming the other way and we just kind of bumped into each other. We didn’t talk much, but he did say something about being inexperienced. I agree with you that it’s a hard concept to believe—shit, you don’t need to be as hot as he is to have at least kissed someone by our age—but either he is a damn good actor and he knows how to cover his tracks, or he’s telling the truth.”

Angela shook her head in bemusement as they entered the lecture hall and found some seats near the back.

“I just don’t get him,” she continued, taking off her jacket and sitting down. “I thought he would have done something by now. Drop by and visit, send a note or something, or hell, even leave me some flowers. Why would he promise to wait for me and then drop all contact with me entirely?”

“Maybe you’re looking at this the wrong way,” Sharon said as she rummaged through her bag for a pen. “Maybe he meant he’d wait for you some
where
when you’d calmed down. That’s how I’d interpret it. That he’s willing to let you make the next move.”

“Where in the hell would I meet him? Every time I’ve seen him it’s because he’s visited me at my place.”

“Not always, though. Didn’t you say you first met him at a bridge or something? And then at a bar?”

Angela opened her mouth to protest but was distracted as the professor yelled at someone for walking on the desks. As she listened half-heartedly to the lecture, Angela began to wonder about the note, and the man who’d given it to her. Maybe Sharon was right. Maybe he’d meant he’d wait for her somewhere. Somewhere they both remembered…

Angela’s uncertainty countered her friend’s reasoning. She walked over that bridge nearly every day, going to and from classes, and not once had she seen hide nor hair of Tuyen.

But she hadn’t walked across it at night in a long time, and that was when she’d first met him. Maybe Sharon
was
right…

That night, Angela walked down to the bridge she’d almost leaped off two years ago, feeling only slightly foolish as she noticed how empty it was, devoid even of cars at this hour. Crossing it until its halfway point, directly over the river, she leaned against the railing and looked up at the stars, thinking about the first night they’d met.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she never heard the soft footsteps approaching behind her.

“I was beginning to worry you’d never come,” Tuyen spoke softly. Angela started slightly at the closeness of his voice, before she turned away from the railing to look at him, standing in the middle of the road behind her.

He looked better than he had the last time they’d spoken, some of the spark returned to his eyes as he gave her a small grin, but still a part of him seemed lost. Worried. As if he expected some sort of rebuttal.

“I wasn’t really sure myself,” Angela admitted the half-truth, too embarrassed to admit that it had taken her so long to think of visiting the bridge.

They looked at each other for a long time, before Tuyen sighed softly and walked up to Angela. Hesitantly, he moved his hand out to caress her cheek. Closing her eyes, Angela rested her head against it and gently touched his hand with her own, holding it to her as if trying to convince herself he was real. In the midst of all the emotions that rose within her, she was surprised at the softness and warmth of his hand, despite the cold night.

“I’m so sorry, my Goddess,” he whispered sadly. “I shouldn’t have run from you that night, and I am so sorry that I did.”

“I’m not a goddess, Tuyen.” Angela opened her eyes and looked up at him wryly. For the first time in months, Tuyen smiled a true smile.

“Ah,” he said, with a kind of arrogance that made him more like his former self. “You might not be a goddess of a great following, but you are a goddess.”

Blushing slightly, he traced his fingers down her cheek to her neck, his hand resting lightly on the shoulder of her jacket before he let it drop and continued, his voice a whisper.

“You are my Goddess.”

Angela felt the hot flush on her face as she dropped her head, unbelievably flattered but still lost for answers.

“Then why did you run from me?” she asked him eventually, unable to look at him as she wished for the color and heat to leave her face. Tuyen sighed and moved to lean on the rail next to her, interlocking his fingers as he stared down at the water.

“I was frightened. My line of work…doesn’t exactly promote much of a social life, and it’s all I’ve ever done. I’ve never met anyone like you before, and I’m not even sure I’m allowed to still be talking to you. Please don’t think I did not like the kiss, Angela, or that I did not want more.” Tuyen paused and closed his eyes, as if he was trying to summon strength to finish the statement. “It was because I did that I ran.”

Angela frowned in confusion and moved closer to him, resting a hand on his shoulder in a weak attempt to try and turn his attention back to her.

“Why wouldn’t you be allowed to talk to me?”

“Because…because I saved you.”

Angela remained silent as she waited for him to continue, her mind racing as she tried to comprehend his words.
Saved
her? Did he mean that night on the bridge? That because of how they met, he wasn’t meant to see her again? Such reasoning hardly made sense to Angela, but she swallowed her questions as Tuyen spoke again.

“I know I’ve hardly told you anything about myself, Ange, and there’s a reason for it, I promise you. One day, if I can, I will tell you everything. But for now you just have to understand that my job is to help people, and nothing more. Normally, I never see them again after doing my job. I’ve never wanted to, either. I like helping people, but I’ve never had much interest in staying friends with them. But you…”

Tuyen sighed in frustration as he tried to find the right words, annoyed at his loss of eloquence. “I wanted to keep in contact with you, Ange. I just wasn’t sure I’d be…allowed. It’s why I only sent small gifts at first, why I didn’t come and visit you for so long. I was afraid that my superiors would find out and would tell me I couldn’t see you anymore. I still am a little afraid.” Tuyen shook his head, before he turned away from the bridge and took Angela’s hand gently, looking pleadingly into her eyes.

“You have become my Goddess, and I am terrified that, because of this fact, I may lose you. I wish I could offer you more, Angela, but you have to understand that, right now, all I can offer is what I have already been doing.” Tuyen grimaced. “Or was doing, before I acted like an utter fool.”

Angela looked into his eyes, and even though she did not entirely understand him, she believed him. After what seemed like an age of silence, she finally broke it.

“Just, don’t run away next time I do something wrong, okay? Maybe we can try talking about it instead?” Angela managed a weak grin, surprised to find that she was holding back tears. Tuyen’s face broke into a relieved smile as he pulled her into a tight hug.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. Angela nodded, holding him close and closing her eyes against the tears.

“You know,” she murmured eventually into his shoulder. “If I’m a goddess, then that must make you my angel.” A small smile played on her lips at the concept. Silly, perhaps, this talk of goddesses and angels, but she liked the idea.

Tuyen said nothing as he held Angela to him. They stood that way for a long time, alone on the bridge, his arms wrapped around her protectively.

And a deeply worried expression etched on his face.