Indelible Love - Emily's Story (31 page)

“Finally!” a voice announced, as the
door opened. I knew instantly whose voice I’d heard. My head spun
around faster than the server could finish opening the
door.

Jake. My Jake. My Love.

Tears choked my eyes and my chest
writhed in pain. Emotions overtook me. I stared at the handsome
face I longed to see for so many months. My heart ached for this
moment since I left him standing on a corner in New York. Was this
person walking toward me a figment of my imagination? Could I trust
my eyes? Even before he took the big step into my room, I wanted to
run into his arms. But instead, I turned myself around and
contained the hope that wanted to rip out of my heart.

He sat right next to me and whispered,
“Hello, Emily.” His voice broke as he peered into my eyes. “Very
long time no see.”

I sensed adoration and relief in his
eyes. He probably sensed elation, along with fear in mine. He
reached over to embrace me but I jumped back to guard myself from
his touch. His face looked hurt. My face probably looked
dumbfounded.

“What are you doing here?” I asked,
trying to figure out whether this was coincidental or planned.
Either way, none of it made sense.

“Why do you think I’m here?” Jake’s
tone was a bit short with me. Exasperated might be a better
word.

“I don’t know. Does the emperor need a
heart surgeon?” Jake chuckled. I hadn’t meant to be funny. I had no
other explanation for Jake being in Japan.

“Emily, I’m here to see you. We need
to talk. Are you here alone, or are you waiting for
someone?”

I heard him ask me a
series of questions but I couldn’t get beyond the first
sentence.
Why are you here to see me?
After all these months, what would make you talk to me
now?

“Emily, are you waiting for someone?”
he asked again.

“Yes,” was all I could
answer.
Silly, I’ve been waiting for you
for months now. You’re very late, but thank you for coming. I’m so
happy to see you
.

“You are? Who are you waiting for? Are
you waiting for a guy…? Are you seeing someone already?” Jake
looked horrified.

I found his questions
absurd.
How could you think I started
dating again? Don’t you know how much I missed you…how much I love
you?

“Emily!” He tried to snap me out of my
glazed look. “I sound like a broken record. Are you seeing
someone?”

“Are you?” I didn’t mean to aggravate
him by answering a question with a question, but I couldn’t babble
any coherent thoughts.

“Of course not! Do you know how far
and wide I searched for you after you left me? Why did you make it
so hard for me to find you? Why have you been gone for so
long?”

This statement snapped me
out of my daze. In a biting tone I answered, “A bit bizarre you
would try so hard to find me halfway around the world when you
didn’t bother looking for me when I was just down the street. And
by the way,
you
left
me
.”

He had no comeback. My impetuous tone
startled Jake. He looked defeated. I was unhappy to see his sad
face. I didn’t know what possessed me to talk to him in such a
manner.

Our second
course—
Hassun
,
which sets the seasonal theme of the meal—arrived, and I continued
eating. Jake paid no attention to his food. “How could you come
into town last week and visit my parents, but not me? How could you
cut off all communication with me? Didn’t you think I would want to
see you…that I might worry about you? Didn’t you want to see
me?”

Of course I wanted to see
you. There wasn’t a day when I didn’t think about you.
“How could you accuse
me
of cutting off all communication
when you’re the one who walked out on me after asking me to marry
you?
You’re
also
the one who didn’t communicate with me for weeks. I begged you to
talk to me.”

He was speechless again.
His first and second courses sat. I moved on to eating my third
course,
Mukozuke
—a dish of seasonal sushi.

“Emily. Why didn’t you send a return
address to any of the letters you wrote? Maybe if you did, I
could’ve resolved our issues sooner.”

I hesitated giving him an answer. I
hesitated not because I didn’t have an answer, but because I didn’t
want to show him how vulnerable I felt. Biding my time, I looked
around the table at Jake’s uneaten food. Chopsticks lay still, our
servers discontinued service, and even the water fountain seemed
motionless. The only sound I could hear was my rapid heartbeat, and
my heart hollering at me to grab him before he left me again. As
his eyes continued to beg for an answer, I eventually gave into his
plea. I had no defense to his offense. My weakness was his
strength.

After a long sigh I
confessed, “I didn’t send a return address, because when I didn’t
get a response from you, I would know it’s because you
couldn’t
respond to me,
and not because you didn’t want to respond to me.”

My head dropped immediately, sensing
the deluge of emotions rushing to my eyes. Tears fell heavier than
the water fountain that decorated the lovely garden right outside
our room.

Jake appeared encouraged by my
meltdown. He leaned over to embrace me again. My body rebuffed his
attempts, though a bit more hesitantly this time.

“Emi, can I explain myself now? I’d
like to tell you my side of the story.”

“Jake, if you came all the way over
here to apologize, don’t bother. I don’t want to hear it. You
walked out on me a few days after you said that you wanted to spend
the rest of your life with me, and didn’t explain yourself for
months. How could you not know I would wait for you at the Skywalk?
What happened to your promise of not letting me be alone? I have
been so alone the last five months without you. I thought you loved
me, that you really, truly loved me. Where were you all those days
I begged you to talk to me? Why are you here now after all these
months?”

At this point, I couldn’t contain the
sobbing. I could see Jake lifting his arm up and bringing it down
several times, wondering whether or not to comfort me. His two
failed attempts at embracing me earlier must have deterred his
courage. In the end, he kept his hands to himself. Once composed, I
finished the words that had burned in my heart for so long. “You
can’t begin to understand how much you hurt me. I’ve just begun to
piece myself back together again. I don’t want my heart broken
anymore. You don’t owe me any explanation. I have no claim on you.
Please just leave.”

Defeated, my chest throbbed, feeling
beaten and bruised. I wanted to run away and hide in my corner
again. My body sat quietly trying to calm my heart that blazed like
a fire burning out of control. I knew Jake needed to say his piece.
Though I dared not look into his face, pain emanated with his every
breath.

Jake cautiously lifted his hand again,
and brushed my fallen hair. His fingers traced the side of my
temple to my cheekbone then down to my jaw. He held up my face and
let his palm rest on my cheek. Very much, I wanted to see what was
written in his eyes. My head was up, but my tear-filled eyes stayed
down.

“First of all, I’m sorry,” he
confessed. “I’m sorry I walked away from you that morning, and I
can never forgive myself for leaving you stranded. I can’t believe
I’ve hurt you so much. You don’t know how sorry I am that I left
you alone. It was not my intention not to see or talk to you for
this long. I came by your house many times trying to reconcile, but
couldn’t find you. This situation got out of hand.” Jake’s face
actually looked as tormented as my heart felt.

“That morning when you told me about
Max, you broke my heart. I have this bad habit of shutting myself
down when things go badly. I know it’s wrong and I know I’ve done
this to you many times before. I’ll work on that. I promise I will.
I won’t shut down on you or leave you anymore, I promise
you.”

My heart beat even faster. I was sure
Jake could hear the thumping from where he was sitting. Could he
actually be trying to make amends with me? The hope within me
attempted to break free, believing he might still love me as my
tears continued down Jake’s hand.

“Anyhow, I initially
didn’t answer your texts because I was angry with you. Childish, I
know, but I couldn’t get myself to return your messages.
Eventually, I calmed down enough to give you a few days to sort out
your feelings and make you want to come back to me and me only. I
knew I loved you, but this time I doubted
your
love for me.”

This statement angered me again. “Why
would I try to communicate with you every day if I didn’t want to
be with you? I told you in every text I loved you.”

“I believed you cared. But you never
affirmed to me that I was the only one you wanted. I guess I was
looking for affirmation. When I didn’t get this, I figured you had
chosen Max over me, and I let you go—though only for about half a
second—thinking this was the best for you.” He actually had the
nerve to chuckle.

“Jake!” Frustration colored my face.
“Did you read any of my texts? Every day I told you how much I
missed you and that I loved you. Did you think it was all a
lie?”

“I know. It was stupid of me. I
couldn’t trust you. I thought maybe you were letting me down
easily. Every day I looked forward to your text, but a part of me
feared you would eventually tell me you had chosen Max.” He frowned
at this thought. “When you sent me your last text, I realized I was
completely wrong about your feelings. That’s when I panicked. I saw
these texts from your point of view for the first time. Maybe you
still loved me, but my lack of response would make you believe I
didn’t love you anymore. I couldn’t assuage the sick feeling in my
stomach. Since I couldn’t get a hold of you, my only solution was
to see Jane in New York. I hoped she could give me some
answers.”

Fear entered my heart at this point.
If Jake still loved me, could I try again? Desperately wanting to
love him again, but scared to be hurt, I listened for more
reassurance.

“I came looking for you at your house
as soon I received your last text. I wanted to tell you what was in
my heart, but you didn’t answer the door. Little did I know that I
would see you in less than twenty-four hours.”

“OK, so you finally saw my point of
view, but you still didn’t say anything to me in New York to
resolve our situation,” I freed my face from his hand scared to be
held by him—to be hurt by him. “If you still loved me, why did you
send me away again? You could’ve stopped me.”

“When I saw you in Jane’s apartment, I
was dumbfounded. You were the person I most wanted to see, but the
last one I expected to see. At first, I said nothing out of shock.
Then Nick started talking, Jane started yelling, and the next thing
I knew, you were gone. Even before I reached you at the cab, Jane’s
words about Arizona haunted me. In my mind, I could picture you
standing at the Skywalk waiting for me to return. I was angry with
myself but took it out on you instead. Please forgive me. All those
hurtful words—I meant none of them.”

“Jake…I’m too scared to do this again.
My heart is beyond repair. Did you have so little faith in me that
you would believe one night with Max would lead to something
improper? Did you really think so lowly of me? If that wasn’t bad
enough, you left me without giving me a chance to explain myself.
How can I trust you again? All these months, I hurt believing you
didn’t care anymore—that you coldly cut me off.”

The once confident Dr. Jake Reid
crumbled with my accusation. My heart broke watching guilt torment
him.

“Emily, you must believe
me when I tell you I love you! I never stopped loving you. I don’t
believe I can ever
not
love you. I’m sorry I broke your heart. I’m sorry I abandoned
you. I will never do it again. I absolutely cannot live without
you. When I read your letter at the hospital, my world collapsed.
It was like falling into some dark abyss. I couldn’t function for
weeks. I took a sick leave and searched for you everywhere. Only
when I received your first letter from Japan, did I think that
there might be a chance we could meet again. That maybe we would
love again. That’s when I decided to get my act together, and go
back to the hospital and wait for you to return to me.”

My head nodded silently. I wasn’t sure
which statement I was agreeing with—probably all of
them.

“I will work to earn your trust again.
Just please don’t tell me we’re over.”

At this point, I didn’t know what to
think or feel. The room spun, as I knew I needed to make a
choice.

Love and trust Jake again.

Or, let him go, and regret this
decision the rest of my life.

The decision had been made the moment
Jake walked into the room. Only I was too afraid to speak
it.

“Oh my sweet Emily, how did we go this
long, apart? I’ve missed you so much.”