Sophie's Smile: A Novel (34 page)

58

The day he got the call, was the day my perfect life started to crumble. The morning was clear and beautiful. There wasn’t a cloud left to mark the sky. The air was warm, with a slight breeze that ruffled my hair and put a smile on my face. Liam already left for work and I came down the stairs to a note on the counter:

Dear Love,

Breakfast is waiting in the microwave. Just set it to 30 seconds to re-heat and the cheese should have melted over the fluffy eggs. Don’t forget to take your vitamins.

I love you! Have a wonderful day.

-Your husband

I smiled while I ate my perfect breakfast and thought about the special dinner I was preparing to make tonight. We already made reservations at El Prado for our one-year anniversary, but that was tomorrow night, and I wanted to surprise him with a private dinner tonight.

I couldn’t wait for him to open my gift. It was hard hiding it from him, since it took me a few months to finish. It was a quilt with pictures, our poems, and pieces of our special moments embedded throughout. I grinned as I thought of where I decided to hide it.
Hidden under our bed, wrapped in a plain white box with a large red ribbon, it sat next to my shoebox full of our love letters and instant message conversations that I diligently saved all these years.

Liam could sometimes be clueless, but more so, he was never nosy and was very humble. He never expected anything and was always surprised by a gift or kind gesture. I loved surprising him.

But it was I who was surprised that evening. I came home from work—a bag full of groceries under my arms with the intent of remaking the dinner that Liam made for me the day I announced my love—to find another note, this time giving me a different set of shivers.

I frantically ran upstairs to find his suitcase gone and a few of his clothes packed. His toothbrush, hair products, and deodorant were missing. I started to shake violently; my head pounded and throbbed, my heart crushed under the weight of my lungs and my eyesight blurred in the confusion and chaos of my frantic mind. I
collapsed,
my mind racing with questions and the loneliness consumed me as a flood of hot, salty tears gushed out of me. Liam left, and I, according to his note, didn’t know for how long.

59

The next morning I awoke, groggy and drenched in a cold sweat. I had a nightmare. A variation to the ones I had a year ago…

I was once again trapped in a field of sunflowers, wilted and desiccated by the boiling heat. My fingers ached to touch them. I plucked one effortlessly from the rotten soil. Ghastly I turned to my fingers; blood trickled down my arm. I looked at the sunflower again and it was now a rose plagued with hundreds of thorns—one must have pricked my finger. Then I heard his soft voice teasing in the wind…
Soph
…
Soph
…his back was turned but my heart knew who he was. He turned…it was Liam…

It was three in the morning. I must have slept soon after reading the note; the groceries still packed neatly in their reusable bags next to the counter, spoiled. There was no message from Liam on my phone, so I read the note one more time, my head clearer:

Dear Love,

Sorry, but I had to leave. I’ll explain everything as soon as I can. It was urgent and I couldn’t take you with me. Don’t worry. I love you.

-Liam

How could I not worry? What was so important he couldn’t wait until I got home to discuss it with me? Why didn’t he call? Why didn’t he take me? Why couldn’t he? Was he in trouble? Is there someone else? Was he living a secret life? Why was this happening?

I grasped my burning chest as the pain was becoming too uncomfortable to bear, and I wept until my eyes ran dry and my chest stopped heaving. I felt faint and slept some more.

“LIAM!—” I screamed myself awake.
One hand awkwardly reaching in front of me, grasping at nothing.

The pain was worse than the time I wrote that letter to myself, the day I reached my lowest point, the day my parents saved my life. It was hard telling Liam, the love of my life, the man who saw me as innocent and kind: the girl who could do no wrong did something horrible, obscene, and self-destructive.

I tried to hurt myself, tried to feel something, tried to live. With all the pills that I consumed, with all the vomit that I induced, all I did was end up hurting everyone who had ever loved me and mostly, I just hurt myself. At the prime age of eighteen, I scarred myself, and the scar ran deep. It left a mark on me and I grew and learned from it. I learned that I had to love myself and be happy with who I was.

Liam understood. He told me of his story when he tried hurting himself by cutting. Back then, we both hated life and hated ourselves. We both longed to feel. We both hurt our loved ones, as well as, ourselves.

We both understood. We loved each other more because of it. We promised each other that as long as we were together, we would be happy, complete, and everything would be perfect.

Today, I hurt more than I hurt then. Liam was gone.
The promise, broken.

60

The phone finally rang. It startled me and I awoke. I must have drifted off to sleep again. I was pale, groggy, and empty.

“Hello?”

“Sophie? It’s me, Liam.”

“Liam!” I cried. I couldn’t help it. Hearing his voice made me feel safe again, erased all the pain I felt hours ago. I loved him so much.

“Sophie…I’m sorry.” He was crying, too. His voice cracked and ragged. It was filled with pain and what sounded like rage.

“Where are you? What happened? Why didn’t you wait for me?” I was angry now. I was hurt, and I wanted answers. I demanded them.

“Sophie, I know, but I had to. It was the only way…the only way I could have gone.”

“Whatever it is, I would have understood and I would have gone with you. Don’t you know that by now?”

“That’s why I didn’t wait for you to come home. I didn’t want you to come with me. It would’ve been too dangerous. I was trying to
protect
you.”

“Protect me?
By leaving me?”

“Yes.”

“Liam, I don’t understand.”

There was a pause. I heard him mumbling to someone. There was some commotion and then silence.

“Sophie?”

“Yes. Are you okay?” I was worried and scared, “What’s going on Liam, you’re scaring me. Who’s there with you?”

“My dad,
Soph
…,” I was stunned into silence. Liam never called me Soph. He said he didn’t want to shorten such a beautiful name.
He never called me Soph.
“It’s my sister.”

“Emily?”

“Yes, she called me shortly after I left for work. She was frantic and said her life was in danger.
Danger,
Soph
—
ie
.
Remember I told you that she ran away with her boyfriend, Dan?”

“Yes.”

I remembered Liam wasn’t too thrilled about him.

“Well, apparently he has been abusing her and messing with her head. He’s hurting her, Sophie.” His voice trembled into a whisper, “She told me that he was going to kill her if she didn’t marry him. She got away from him, which is why she finally called me. I went and told my dad and then he and I took the next flight to Vegas to get her back. Can you believe it Sophie, that bastard took my sister to Vegas like a tramp and held her hostage. Sophie…I’m sorry, but I didn’t, NO, I
couldn’t
put you in danger. What if he finds us before we get
Em
out of there? We need to get her to Lake Tahoe and keep her safe. I called my mom and she’ll be waiting for us there.”

“Liam—”

“Sophie. I had to do this. She’s my sister. She’s my
only
sister and I can’t lose her again. She used to be this strong and amazing woman with so much ambition and strength. This guy crippled her and is trying to break her. I won’t let that happen. I can’t. You have to understand. Please, Sophie,” he was begging now, “you have to tell me that you understand.”

I paused. I was frozen by his words.
He can’t lose her.
I know that she’s his sister, but what about me? I’m his wife.
He chose her over me. I didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand
,
 
but
I also didn’t want him to get hurt and he needed me right now. No matter how angry, scared, or clueless I was
,
I still loved him; I needed him to come back, safe and secure, to my open arms.

“I understand.”

He sighed with relief and gratitude, “Thank you, Sophie. Be safe, my Sophie, and keep smiling. I’ll be home to you soon. Don’t worry, okay? I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

There I was, sitting alone in our bed, feeling empty, hurt, and compelled to get on the next flight to Vegas. He did this to protect me, but I wanted to protect him. If he got hurt, I didn’t know what I would do.
How could I live?
I decided I would do what I did best—I wrote him a letter that I would add to my shoebox. I never intended to show it to him.
Never intended on him ever reading it.
It acted more like a diary. A place to escape for a moment and write down every feeling I had without judgment, remorse, or self-deprecation. It was a place I could be free.

Dearest Liam,

Our love for each other has grown to be poisonous.
Trying to save each other, but otherwise causing more harm.
Please don’t leave me. We work best when we’re together. Together we are perfect, but apart, we are not. No matter the circumstances, we should never be apart. I love you. And if you are in danger I want to be in danger with you. If you die I want to die. There is no purpose in this world without you in it…

But, if you did not make it, I know that it would cause you too much pain, even after death, if you knew that I tried to follow you.
If I was hurting.
If I was mourning, in grief, and living like a zombie, you would feel it and be saddened by it.
You would want me to live, love, laugh, and smile again. You would want me to experience life, to be healthy, find another love,
have
a chance to be a mom, have a dream and strive to achieve it. You would want me to live out my long life, without you.

I know this, because I too would want the same for you. I’d want you to live and be happy and stress-free. I wouldn’t want you to be burdened by my death. Instead I would want you to treasure the good times we shared, while forging on to make new beautiful memories with someone else.
Someone willing and good, someone who would love you, and if I have not been able to, bear your children.
I would love to look down and see you strive for happiness. Maybe even open up a bakery and name the cream puff after
me :
D. Yes, that would be nice.

If you die before me, while trying to rescue your sister, I will promise you that I will try to be happy and find meaning in my life again. And if I pass before you, I hope you’ll promise me the same.