Never Meant to Be (10 page)

I boarded the train and sat down. I looked down at my watch, knowing that he would be there any minute. I took a last glimpse at myself in a small mirror I carried in my purse. I hadn't used any wig because I thought it would be too cliché, so I colored my hair white with cheap, temporary dye. I also wore some vintage glasses to change my appearance. The only issue was wrinkles, so the key was to use my costume wisely to shade my face.

He entered at the next stop, wearing his flat hat and rigid jeans and jacket. He looked around. The game was on without any whistle.

Don’t look at him
, I scolded myself.

But I also had to keep an eye on him. He was still standing.

I just have to dodge him till the train stops
, I said to myself.
But why isn’t he looking closely at anyone?

I carefully watched his every move, praying that the train would move faster. Then, after looking around carefully, Johnny approached an old woman sitting four seats away from me. He stared at her for a while.              

Please pick her, please pick her
, I prayed to myself, trying not to smile.

He didn't.

Okay, now just few more minutes and then it'll be over...

Then Johnny moved near me. He continued scanning the car with his eyes narrowed, and I made sure to avoid eye contact. The moment he looked into my eyes, the game would be over, I knew.

He's not moving....Just let him make one mistake. Just get through these few minutes.

Then I heard a laugh.

Johnny was laughing.

What? Why is he laughing? Am I exposed, or is this his new trick
?

I kept in character and tried to look normal. The people around looked at him uneasily .

Then he approached me.

Oh no.

“How old are you?”

I'm busted. Be calm. It's just a shot in the dark for him.
I tried to make my voice sound like an old

“I am 60.” I said in a very low tone.

Am I busted? Did it sound okay? Why is he still laughing?

“No old lady wears Converse, idiot.” He laughed.

I looked down. Sure enough, I was still wearing my pink Converse. I had always loved those shoes, and I wore them whenever I didn't need to dress up for work.

“Shit. Converse. Really.”

Johnny was still laughing at his victory, but even more at my stupidity. I was upset by losing because I wasn't used to it, but just seeing the laughter and happiness on Johnny's face made me laugh.

***

The sky was clear after the rain, and the stars were shone brightly as the moon almost touched the horizon. The white grasses glowed in the moonlight. We were sitting on the wooden balcony of our tree house. Johnny took me in his arms, and we watching the mesmerizing moonlight dancing with the waves of grass as he recited his poems to me.

I fear love

Some day the differences between us will become the distance between us

As we start the fire to know each other more deeply

The fire will shine and reveal the fragile, rotten soul

Then you will hate me

Then you will hate me.

“I just don't understand you, Johnny. You're so mysterious. I know you, but then again, sometimes I think you're an abyss. But one thing is sure: I will never, ever hate you.”

I sighed.

“Johnny, you don’t know how much I love you. You think I saved you, but it’s actually the opposite.”

I turned my face towards him. His eyes were gleaming in the moonlight. They weren't dripping with tears, but with fears. I felt the presence of the small, terrified child living under the rough exterior of a man. He was still looking towards the horizon. 

              “Johnny, I think we should write about us.” My fingers played with his hair as his head lay in my lap.

              “What? Why? Let's make love again.”

              A soothing, cold breeze accompanied Johnny’s rough voice as he stared at the long grass waving in the stadium breeze.

              “I'm not kidding. I'm serious. You write your diary, and I'll keep mine. We won't show it to each other until we're old. Then we'll know what we missed in each other’s life.”

              My eyes were also staring fixedly at the long field of grass that shone in the moonlight. Johnny slid his rough hands through my arms and down to my stomach.

              “Why do you want to write about us?" His warm breath tickled my neck.

              “Because, Johnny, birds can't write about themselves, nor can flowers. Because I want the world to know how we loved, how we lived. I want the world to know our fears, our vulnerabilities and our madness for each other.”

              “But I'm keeping a diary already.”

              “No, not your poetry. I want a diary completely for us.”

              A few moments of silence passed.

              “Okay.”

              That’s how it all started. I never expected that Johnny would confide in the diary alone and stop sharing his secrets with me. Nor did I realize I would read the pages long before we’d grown old.

***

Johnny’s Diary

Life is an invisible jungle. You think you're going somewhere, but then you're lost again. I never expected Esther to survive the thrifty situation we were in. Cheap t-shirts, sneaking into movie theatres...She liked to wear disguises, but I never knew the secret that she was hiding.

After sneaking quietly into her uncle’s house at night and taking some of her personal belongings, we were redecorating our little house.

“I'm just so happy, Johnny. I love this life so much...there's less pressure and so much more love.”

Esther blew me a kiss as she emptied her bag and took out all the things we had taken the night before. There was a teddy bear, a dairy, her favorite pillow, another pair of her beloved Converse shoes and a few picture frames.

“Oh!" She looked at one of the picture frames. "Johnny, meet my parents. It's sad that you couldn’t meet them while they were alive.”

She passed me the frame.

Suddenly, it was as if I was hit by a car. I could see a man laughing while holding a woman and young Esther in his arms. But I knew that man.

"That’s my father," she said, and I couldn’t believe it.

The man I was searching for all these years, the man who had screwed up my childhood and filled it with nightmares, the man who infused me with perpetual pain...was none other than Esther’s father.

I took the picture frame in my trembling hand. Even in the photo he was mocking me, smiling at me.

How could he make such a fool out of me again?
I still wasn't ready to believe that it was her father. How could it be?

This is a nightmare. Even worse than a nightmare.
Fuck! No, this can’t be. Am I on drugs again? Am I hallucinating.

I tried bringing myself back to reality, but I was already holding the picture of the man who I so desperately wanted to kill.

Why? Why! Does she have to be his daughter? Why can’t she be someone else’s daughter? Why? What if this is his new trick, sending his daughter to torture me? What if she is in on this, if she's playing with me? Like father, like daughter? No. What am I thinking? She can’t do that to me. She loves me...

The shock and anger was so strong that I pressed the frame too hard and it split. The glass shattered.

“Johnny!” Esther shouted.

My hand was bleeding and the broken glass from the frame had embedded deep into my hand.  

“Johnny, what happened? Are you okay?” She quickly brought out a first aid kit and started to treat my hand. I was still staring at the shattered glass and her family photo that now was dripping with my own blood.

From that day on, there was only one thing going through my mind. The passion was slowly turning into poison. I loved her, but I couldn't bear the thought that she carried the same blood in her veins. When she kissed me, I felt the flame dying and I hated it. I wanted her to have the same power over me as before, the power that could evoke me from dark places. I had loved the way she looked at me. I felt like she could suddenly see through me and sneak into my mind. It was like she knew what I had been through and what I was thinking. But now everything was fading into a tasteless experience. And I hated it.

We were lying in the field covered in the long grass while looking at the sky. A gentle breeze blew through the grass. 

“Johnny, what has been bothering you lately? why have you become so... strange? What has gotten into you? Am I that bad in bed?” Esther asked me and tried to make me laugh.

We were half-naked and the grass tickled our bare bodies. Esther circled her finger on my chest.

              “Silence was the question. Silence was the best answer. Lost or losing are these mad lovers.”

              I could only respond with a few lines that had been playing through my mind. I wasn’t sure what to tell her. Would she believe it? A week ago, I found out that the man I so desperately wanted to kill was the father of the girl I was madly in love with.

“Oh, you and your poetry," she dismissed me lightly."Sometimes, I think you're hiding something. That’s why whenever I ask something about you, you just say few paradoxical lines and that’s it. But I want to know, Johnny. I want to know because it’s killing me. I see you becoming more and more detached. You're not the same Johnny who was with me two weeks ago. You're becoming something else. Is that a man thing? As soon as you sleep with a woman the passion fades and you start taking her for granted? Are you falling out of love with me?” Her voice trembled slightly.

“Don’t ever say anything like that! Falling out of love with you is falling out of life itself... I just..." I trailed off and went silent for a moment.              

"You see, surely the monster inside me loves you, but that doesn’t mean it won't kill you.”

I don’t know why I said that, but I became afraid because it came right from my heart. It was what I was truly feeling. I couldn't bear the thought of killing her, but suddenly, the words had just come out of me.

I looked at Esther and saw fear taking over love in her eyes. She wasn't afraid of death,  but the notion that I would even think something like that terrified her, I knew it. It was fear that love could double-cross love.

Then I quickly added another line to lighten the moment.

“Beauty is not how she looks, but what she does to me with every hug, with every kiss.”

“Jerk,” she smiled and laid her head on my chest while I looked back up at the sky.

Perdition catches my soul. But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, chaos is come again. 

***

Chapter Seven

Passion and Poison

There was silence in the room, and the shock of a big revelation hung over Latif and Stella.

“I have to go,” Stella suddenly said and grabbed her bag, checking if there were enough cigarettes. She looked to be in a hurry.

“But where are you going?”

“I'll tell you later; I'll tell you everything. We're being played, and I'm sorry for not being totally honest with you about how I found that diary.” Stella was searching for something in her drawer.

“What are you talking about? Are we a part of the story now?” Latif stood up from his chair and moved closer to Stella who was frantically searching for something.

“I'll tell you everything, everything you need you to know. But for now, just don’t talk to anyone about this, alright? Nobody means nobody. Do you understand?” Stella grabbed Latif's arm and shook it slightly.

“Okay, okay, but..."

Before he could even complete his sentence, she was already out the door.

As soon as she left the room, there was silence. The smoke started to clear. Latif returned to his desk and stared at the diary, trying to figure out who was playing with them. Suddenly, the buzz of a cell phone brought him back to earth.

He remembered the tone. It was Stella's cell phone. She had left it by mistake, and it was buzzing. He quickly went to her desk and started looking for it in the piles of papers and files.

"K" was the name flashing on the screen. Latif picked up the phone and a woman started to speak.

“Have you thought about my offer? You're not thinking about selling that diary to him, are you?" The voice became more forceful, "Hello? Are you there? Hello?"

Latif quickly hung up the phone, frightened. What had he gotten himself into?

He looked for the diary on Stella's table, but there were only papers and files.

Did she take the diary with her? Is she dealing under the table?

Latif paused for few second before looking at her drawer and finally found it. He let out a sigh of relief and picked up the diary.

But can I really trust Stella? She said that the diary has to be sold but to who?
Why is the diary so important?

***

Esther’s Diary

It was our third week together and away from all the pressure from that other world. Johnny had started working in a nearby factory located outside the town, which worked in our favor. Everything was great until the day I saw the sky filled with dust.

I looked carefully through the window and saw a line of black cars coming towards our tree house. I grabbed a bat because I was alone and scared. I slowly moved towards the balcony that had stairs. I was about to swing the bat at anything that came up those stairs, but then I saw Mr. Brad.

“It’s nice to see you. ma’am," he said, ignoring the weapon in my hands. "I need you to come with us right now.”

There he was, in his usual suit, speaking calmly and formally.

“How did you find this place?”

“We searched for you everywhere. One day someone spotted you in a local garden, and we followed to make sure that it was you. You led us here," he dismissed my question. "Esther, the company is in a mess and...Well, your uncle is very sick. He is in the hospital and has been asking for you.”

“Is this your new trick to get me back? Because I'm not coming,” I held the bat firmly.

“Now don’t say you'll leave your uncle as well.”

I heard Aadish’s voice from behind Mr. Brad as he slowly came up the stairs.

Shit. What's he doing here?

“Aadish , you...”

I was shocked to see him. I had left him without any warning. We stood there and a moment of awkward silence between us followed.

“Is that how he's keeping you?” Aadish looked at our house and my clothing with disappointment.

“Ma’am, please. Your uncle is waiting. Katherine is jumping all over the company. You have to come back.”

Everybody was staring at me with their eyes filled with hope, but I knew if I stepped back into that world again, there was no coming back. I had no choice but to go with them. After all, it was my uncle, and I couldn’t ignore my responsibility towards him.

I hoped I would be back before Johnny came home, so I didn’t leave any messages. The trip to the hospital was tough. Mr. Brad kept it cold and distant and was jabbering about what had been happening in the company while Aadish and I stole glances at each other.

Of course, he was upset. His fiancée had run off with some guy without evening telling him. Yes, what I did was wrong, but it had happened so quickly and Johnny and I were so blindly in love that we didn’t see who had been destroying in our path.

Finally, we reached the hospital and they guided me to the intensive care unit. I entered and could tell immediately by the atmosphere that my uncle was very ill. He was connected to wires to measure his activity and the room echoed with beeping machines.

I moved closer to him.

“Uncle,” I whispered.

He opened one eye and a tear came out. He smiled a weak, disappointed smile.

“Where the hell were you?” He tried to say forcefully, but it didn't work. Normally, his voice would boom, but it was suddenly so fragile.

“I...”

Nothing came to mind. What could I tell him? Where I had been? Living my teenage fantasy in the arms of the man I loved with no responsibilities and no pressure? Just living day-to-day life?

“I'm glad you are okay, but I expected more from you." He continued weakly. "You know, Katherine--" he coughed, "—just don’t do that again. Don’t disappoint...disappoint.”

He was too weak to continue, but even those few words were enough to question my behavior. I left the room and sat down in the waiting room.

What the hell had I been doing?
I had been so blind that I didn’t even think about my parent’s legacy and their last wish. I had abandoned their dream along with all of their hard work. I had disappointed nearly everyone who had cared about me and who had looked up to me.

Aadish came in and sat next to me. He sighed.

“You know, you at least should have told me.”

“Yes, I should have told you, and I'm sorry for what I did. But you know me--”

“Yeah, I know. I know you, Esther. You know I knew that something was wrong. Back in college, you were a completely different girl... fun loving, outspoken. We were moving in one direction, your father approved of our relationship, and the next thing I knew, he was gone, leaving us with this incomplete relationship. I always felt that you were unhappy, if not sad. But because your parents had wanted us to get married so much, we were together. You moved here and there was a drastic change in you. You became the old you once again, but it was never for me. You didn’t say anything, but I could feel you were absent when we kissed. So in desperation, I proposed to you, but that wasn't enough.”

His voice sounded like a defeated man. He had looked at the ground the entire time he spoke to me.

I curse myself because it was all my fault. I felt terrible. I should have respected his love, but so much was going on, and then everything had happened in a flash and after there was no turning back. I was silent for a moment.

“I don’t know what to say. What I did was very wrong, and you shouldn’t forgive me.”

“Come on, don’t be silly. It happens, its life.”

Was he really forgiving me so easily?
I tried to change the subject.

“So how's your election campaign going?”

“It’s going well. I don’t know how they're going to react when they find out that our engagement is off. You know people were really buying that story.”

In the eye of the public, we were still a couple. My company had kept my absence off the radar very well.

“Well, I can help you out. Until the election ends, I mean. I could do that for you. After all, we're still friends. At least for me we are.”

I wanted to compensate for what I had done. Aadish had already lost his fiancée. I didn't want him to lose his election, too.

“Ma’am, you have a meeting in two hours.”

That was just too much for me.

“No, no, I can’t come back. I was just here for Uncle.”

“Ma’am, you have to be there. You know how Katherine is. And it’s also about Johnny.”

I felt my stomach turn.

“Johnny? What about Johnny?”

“Ma’am, you should have at least told me. Now they know what Johnny was doing, and they're not happy. He exposed them. Our pharmaceutical trucks have been seized. The board members are siding with Katherine. You can’t leave like this; it would mean killing your parents legacy. It’s a matter of millions and millions, and you don’t know what's at stake.”

I almost forgotten about my deal with Johnny, and suddenly I realized that it had been a mistake, a mistake I suddenly had to pay.

Reluctantly, I went back to that pressure-filled world and the people in it. It didn't make it easier that Katherine was already there waiting for me.

“Look who's back from her honeymoon. I heard he made you wear cheap t-shirts.”               Katherine was very peculiar about mocking me. The only thing that kept me calm when I saw her was imagining that someday, someone would feed her face to the dogs. That's how much I hated her. Why my father had her by letting her have a part in the company when he knew how terrible she could be, I just didn't understand. Why had he brought her back after terminating her? It was so hard to understand his corporate tactics.

Katherine was just the beginning. I had a thousand other problems sitting there waiting for me.

“So how many people died?”

“The count still isn't official, but there's word that eight to ten workers were spotted dead and over twenty workers were injured.”

I felt sick.

“And what did we do to compensate them?”

“Are you asking in a managerial way, or--”

“No. I'm asking in a human way. What did we do?"

“It’s complicated, ma’am. The news arrived so quickly, and there was so much rush and the board members were unanimous. We pinned everything on a low-level manager for using low quality machines and raw materials, because we couldn’t risk admitting higher-lever corruption.”

“So we're butchers now? I can’t let this happen.”

“Ma’am, I suggest you don't pursue this topic. Katherine is trying to leverage the vote and the board members are involved in it. If you dig too deeply into this, we might lose our edge.”  

“So now I'm just a puppet to boost their image? I can’t take full control of a company I can’t make major decisions in." My voice was firm. "I'm serious. What can I do?”

“Sorry, ma’am, but the corporate world is like that. It's about profit. There's no place for human emotions. I'm sure your parents taught you that.”

“That's the reason I hate this world, this corporate world.” I was just eager to finish my work and go back to my fantasy world where Johnny would be waiting for me. He must have been getting restless after my sudden disappearance.

I had enough of the business for one day. I quickly changed back into my comfortable clothes and ordered Mr. Brad to take me back.

“Goodnight, ma’am.”

He dropped me off hesitantly near the field by the tree house. 

I took a deep breath. Finally, I had some space and relief. Then I noticed that there were no lights on in our little house.

Johnny isn’t home,
I thought to myself, concerned.

“Johnny!” I called out so he knew I was back.

But there was no answer. As I walked through the door, my foot kicked an empty rum bottle, making it roll into the corner.  

Then I saw Johnny sleeping on the floor, and the traces of a dusty powder in the corner.  It was his escape from this world, I thought to myself sadly.

Then I realize that we were both addicted to each other. For a moment, I had enjoyed the passion and excitement of the idea, but it was slowly turning out to be something else. Johnny didn't know that he was in trouble because of me. It was hard for him, because I think he was experiencing love for the first time. He had no parents, no mother, and no family, so he had never known love. All he knew about love was through me, and there I was, throwing him into trouble and transforming him into something else.

Good lord, if something happens to him because of me I won’t be able to survive.

***

Johnny’s Diary

At first, Esther was amazing. Sometimes, I didn't even have the words to describe her, but things had been changing lately. She had started to act strangely. I could always sense when she was telling lies, but didn't want to admit it. There was something going on--something weird--but weird things were happening all over.