Neighbor Dearest (21 page)

After the show, Jade took me to dinner with the cast. We went to a Japanese restaurant and bar called Sake Sake. Between the drinks and the loud conversations, I’d almost forgotten about Damien for a couple of hours.
Almost.

When we got back to Jade’s tiny apartment, though, thoughts of him were back in full force. It was the first time I had an opportunity to tell Jade the news of my discovering his heart condition. Since I knew I was coming to Manhattan, I’d waited to talk to her about it in person.

Jade sat on the floor with her legs crossed. Her face was still in full makeup. “Wow. I’m just…I’m speechless.”

“I know.”

“It’s like everything I thought I knew about this situation just went out the window.”

“What changed?”

“Well…” she said, “There was always a part of me that felt despite what he was telling you, that his feelings for you weren’t as strong as yours for him. But this news is a game changer. He really
was
trying to protect you from getting hurt. I do think what his brother said was right, that he’s in love with you and truly feels like he’s protecting you.”

“I won’t believe that he’s in love with me until I hear it from him. As much as I want to be with him, more than anything, I just want him to be okay.” I glanced out at the city lights. “Bet you never thought I’d be in New York without a single mention of Elec, huh?”

“Well, that is the only great thing about your Damien woes.”

“Seriously.”

“Are you gonna call him while you’re here?”

“I’m trying not to. I’m supposed to be giving him space. The ball is in his court. I can’t force him to be with me. He said he had to go away for a few days to think.”

“Where did he go?”

“Home to San Jose. His mother lives there.”

“Well, then let’s just try to get your mind off of things. I have the day off tomorrow. We’ll go shopping, go see a show—one that I’m not in—and have a nice dinner.”

“That sounds awesome.”

***

The week in New York City flew by. It was my last night, and I was alone while Jade was performing. My flight was scheduled for the next morning. As I waited for her to return so that we could have a late dinner together, I impulsively picked up my phone and decided to text Damien. Something about being so physically far away from him gave me a false sense of courage. My emotions just came pouring out.

This is bullshit. Of course I’m terrified to lose you, but I am way more terrified of living without you while you’re alive and well. For the record, I would rather have a single day of truly being with you than twenty thousand days of going through the motions with someone who doesn’t have my heart. I don’t care if I never have the chance to grow old and decrepit with you. I want today. I want to watch creepy movies with you and the dogs, burn toast in your apartment. I want to feel you inside of me. I want to experience everything with you while we’re both alive. WE ARE BOTH ALIVE. A good life is about quality, not quantity. I just want to be with you for however long that may be. But I can’t force you to see things the way I do.

When I hit send, I noticed that the message was faded and didn’t say delivered. I had no clue whether or not it went through. Maybe it was an omen signifying that I had made a dire mistake.

Not knowing if it was my phone or an external issue, I decided to call him. I really needed to get everything off my chest one way or another while the words were fresh in my mind.

Damien’s line rang, and my heart nearly stopped when a sleepy female voice answered, “Damien’s phone.”

Shock paralyzed me, so I said nothing for several seconds.

She repeated, “Hello?”

Swallowing, I said, “Who’s this?”

“It’s Jenna. Who’s this?”

“Jenna…” I paused, dumbfounded. “It’s Chelsea.”

“Oh. Well, Damien’s in the shower right now.”

“What are you doing there?”

“What do you
think
I’m doing here?”

I quickly hung up.

Fuming, I grabbed my coat and ran out of Jade’s apartment to get some air. Weaving through crowds of people on the busy streets of Times Square, I was too preoccupied with my thoughts to even realize how far I’d travelled. I didn’t even know where I was anymore, both literally and figuratively.

While I was here in New York, still pining over him, he was apparently fucking his ex-girlfriend?

After about an hour of wandering around in a daze, I took my phone out of my purse and texted him.

You’re a fool.

I kept waiting for him to respond. The minutes went by, and nothing came back from him.

I was done.

The fact that he hadn’t responded was proof of his guilt.

I didn’t understand whether he was on some self-destructive binge or whether he truly wanted to be with her. I just knew I wanted nothing to do with him anymore and vowed never to contact him again.

***

The long flight back to San Francisco was torture. I’d actually considered cancelling my return ticket and staying in New York indefinitely with my sister. The only thing keeping me from doing just that was my job at the youth center. The kids needed me, and I couldn’t risk losing the only thing that was going right in my life.

When I arrived home to my quiet apartment, I was already missing Jade.

I picked up the phone to call her.

“You made it home?”

“Yes. I’m here, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore.”

“I was pondering everything while you were up in the air. I really think you should call him.”

“No. No way.”

“You didn’t hear it from him that he’s back with her. You’ll feel better if you talk to him even if it’s not easy to hear what he has to say. At least you’ll know. How much worse could the situation get? You’re absolutely miserable.”

“Are you forgetting he didn’t even respond to my text?”

“I know. But I know you. Until you actually speak to him, it’s going to be eating away at you.”

“I can’t call him.”

“Don’t call him. Just go over there. Check the situation out for yourself.”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

***

The following day, I was leaving the youth center in the evening. We had a function that ran late. I ended up heading in the opposite direction of my apartment, instead venturing toward Damien’s building.

A sick feeling stuck with me the entire way because I didn’t know what I was going to find. I just knew I needed to see him one last time. My sister was right; it was only going to eat away at me if I didn’t face him.

Jitters followed me up the stairs to my old apartment. To my surprise, the door was cracked open. I peeked inside to find that it was still empty. I had assumed that Damien rented it out ages ago.

Slowly creeping inside the doorway, I said, “Hello?” My voice echoed.

Damien emerged out of my old bedroom. Sweat glistened off his chest. Paint was splattered onto various sections of his body. He looked even more jacked than I remembered. His jeans were slightly opened at the top, and his hair was unruly. His feet were bare. He looked hotter than I’d ever seen him. His heady smell was a mix of cologne and sweat.

I
ached
for him.

Swallowing, I asked, “What are you doing?”

“I got your message. Your text fucked me up. So, I’m doing a little painting.”

“Well, I meant it. You
are
a fool.”

“That’s not the message I’m referring to.”

I realized he was talking about the text I’d sent right before I called and discovered Jenna at his apartment—the text where I’d poured my heart out. It must have gone through after all.

Shit.

“I didn’t think it went through. I was hoping it didn’t. It was a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“How’s Jenna?” I bit out.

His tone was insistent. “Nothing happened between me and Jenna. She’d used her key to enter the apartment when I was in the shower. I didn’t even know you called until later.”

“She answered the phone sounding like she’d just rolled out of your bed. When I asked her what she was doing there, she told me I should know.”

“She’s full of shit, Chelsea.”

“Why would she lie?”

“Because she can be a bitch when she wants to be. She was messing with you, wanted to hurt you. If you call her and ask her right now, she’ll tell you the truth.”

“Why didn’t you respond to my text, then?”

“Because for a short, slightly insane period of time that night, once I figured out what happened, I got a bright idea. I used it as an opportunity. I actually
wanted
you to believe it. I wanted you to believe it so you would run the other way once and for all. Because at the time, I still truly thought that was what’s best for you.”

“At the
time
…what changed in a day?”

“Everything.” He walked toward me. “Everything fucking changed.”

“How?”

“I didn’t get your long text until this morning. I’d felt so guilty before that for not responding to your text when you called me a fool. I’ve been so fucked-up since you found out about my condition. I never intended for you to know. Anyway, last night, I had a dream. It was extremely vivid. I dreamt that your plane…” He hesitated. “I dreamt that it crashed. And you died. It felt so real, Chelsea. All I could think was that I had never told you how I truly felt about you. I was filled with a completely unbearable regret. In the dream, I remember thinking that I would have given anything for just one more day with you. I’d wasted so many. When I woke up, I was soaked with sweat. I went on the Internet just to make sure that there weren’t any planes that crashed, because that was how real the dream felt. It totally fucked me up. I’d powered down my phone before bed. When I turned it on, I saw your message. Everything you said was exactly what I experienced in that dream. It was like the two things were connected. And I just saw everything so clearly.”

“Why didn’t you contact me after that?”

“I’ve been so overwhelmed, just trying to process what I’m feeling. I wasn’t sure how to express it to you. I still really don’t know how to put it into words. So, I did what I know how to do best. I painted. I painted all damn day.”

“What did you paint?”

“Your room.”

“
My
room? How come you haven’t rented this apartment out? I assumed you’d done that a long time ago.”

“No. I couldn’t. This is your place. I think a part of me was always waiting for you to come back.”

Walking toward the room, I wanted to see what color he’d chosen for the space.

I stopped short and nearly fell over.

When he’d mentioned he painted my room, he didn’t mean a solid color. He’d used my wall as a canvas. He’d used
our
wall to create one of the most beautiful images I’d ever laid eyes on. Spray painted onto the smooth surface using a mixture of white and pastel paints, was a gigantic unicorn that looked like it was flying freely through the sky.

I covered my mouth. “Oh, my God. What did you do?”

“It’s you.”

“What?”

His mouth curved into a smile. “You’re my unicorn…”

I blinked repeatedly. “This is insane.”

He stepped toward me slowly. “Mythically beautiful. Unattainable. Remember what your therapist said? At the time, I thought it was ridiculous. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me. You were a fantasy that I never thought would come true. That’s what you have always been to me. I didn’t get it then. But you’re my unicorn.” He placed his hands firmly around my cheeks. “You’re my fucking unicorn, Chelsea.”

“I am?”

“Yes. And there’s something else I need to tell you.” Goosebumps peppered my skin from the contact when he pulled me closer and placed his forehead on mine. “When I first woke up in that ambulance, for a split second, I didn’t know if I had died. They say your life flashes before your eyes, right? Well, you were the only thing that flashed before mine. Just you.”

He just kept looking into my eyes. For the first time, I could feel him surrendering to his feelings. You could literally
feel
the release emanating through his bones. I could feel it in the possessive way he was holding my face, in the way his hand was trembling ever so slightly. He was giving into the need within him—within us. He’d loosened the reins—no longer stopping the invisible pull. It had always been there and had only grown stronger.

“The way you look at me, Chelsea. No one has ever looked at me that way. When I was watching that video of you and him—the one I broke—you were giving him that same look. It killed me. That was the main reason I wanted to break it.”

“There’s no comparison, Damien.”

“You were never able to understand how he could do what he did to you, why things happened that way. I figured it out. You know why it didn’t work out with him?”

“Why?”

“Because God made you for
me
.”

Not even “I love you” could have topped those words.

“Then that explains it.” I smiled. My fingers raked through his already messy hair. “From the very beginning, even when you were pushing me away, I felt like I belonged to you.” Unable to wait a second longer to devour his lips, I reached up to kiss him. This time, I fully relished it, because I knew those lips were mine. His taste was all mine.
He
was mine. Finally.

He broke the kiss and spoke over my swollen lips, “You’re perfect for me, baby. I always knew that, never doubted it.”

Lifting me up, he wrapped my legs around his torso. He did it so effortlessly as if he’d done it a hundred times before. In his strong arms, I felt weightless. There was so much I wanted to say, but I was too worked up to speak. Things moved fast and furiously.

Grinding my clit against him as he kissed me, I swirled my tongue faster around his as he moaned into my mouth.

“You still on the pill?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

I didn’t bother to ask how he knew about my birth control situation. Damien just knew everything about me.