The Secrets of Their Souls (23 page)

Finally, he heard the distant, wailing sirens. Help was on the way.

“Mr. Tohmatsu?” A woman in a white coat and red-framed glasses stood with her hand out.

Jayce shook her hand. “Yes. How is she?”

“So far so good. She has a broken arm, a grade-three concussion and a few stitches in her forehead. At this point her neurological results are as expected, given her injuries, but we will have to do more testing when she wakes up. I’ll take you through to see her now.” Jayce followed the doctor into Zahra’s room, but he could barely bring himself to look at her. She was as pale as the white bed sheets, and the only indication that her heart was beating was the monitor she was hooked up to. He was scared to touch her and he knew that if she were awake, she wouldn’t want him to. He went back out into the hallway.

“I came as quickly as I could. How is she?” Kyoji asked, opening the door and peering inside. He pulled his lips to one side. “Yeah, not good. What have the doctors said?”

“Tests are okay, but they won’t know for sure until she wakes up. I thought for a second that she was dead, that I had inadvertently settled the debt. There was so much blood, Kyoji, her head just kept bleeding and bleeding.”

“Yeah, but even shallow head wounds bleed like motherfuckers.”

“I keep thinking about that friend of Aoto’s, you know the one who had that bike accident and woke up with amnesia and had problems for years after. If she wakes and she’s not the same…” Jayce looked away, unable to even say the words.

“I’ve seen plenty of bad concussions and they generally wake up with a killer headache and a bit of confusion. Aoto’s friend was just unlucky. I’m sure she’s going to be fine, Jayce. What the hell were you two fighting about, anyway?”

Jayce shoved the envelope against his chest. “This. How the fuck did someone get these?”

Kyoji’s eyes widened as he looked over the contents of the envelope. “Fuck me! These are from the club!”

“I know that. How did this happen, Kyoji?” Jayce knew it wasn’t Kyoji’s fault, but it was his club.

He flipped the envelope over. “Someone sent these to Zahra? Ah, fuck. When did she give them to you?”

“Yes, someone fucking sent them to her. I saw her this morning and she was fine, she even agreed to give me another chance. When I saw her at dinner, though, she was not fine and she had them in her bag so she must have received them in today’s mail.”

Kyoji pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe this happened in
my
fucking club. Someone is going to fucking die for this.” He pulled the photographs out again. “Look at the angle—they were all taken from the door. Look, Jayce, I haven’t said anything because I didn’t think it concerned you, but I’ve noticed a few weird things lately and I think I’m being watched. Judging from this, you are too. I’m going to call in a favor, someone who will get to the bottom of this.” He ran his thumb over the postage stamp. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that she received these today, just after the two of you had patched things up? Where did you speak to her?”

“In my office. What are you saying? You think it’s bugged? Jesus, if someone has been listening to my conversations, they have profit numbers, Tohmatsu strategies… Oh, my fucking God!” Jayce started pacing.

“We don’t know yet, okay, but these photographs were taken nearly a week ago and she only received them today. Why the delay?” He looked closely at the stamp again. “It’s dated yesterday, but it could be forged easily enough. Listen, let me deal with this. The guy I’m going to call is really fucking good and his team moves fast. Don’t use your phone and don’t talk in your office until I give you the all clear. How long are you staying here?”

“Just until Zahra’s sister arrives… ten more minutes, maybe. I don’t want to be here when she wakes up. I’m the last person she will want to see.”

Kyoji sighed. “I’m sorry, Jayce. These photographs should never have been taken.” He pulled his phone out and dialed a number. “Go to Mason when you leave here. I’ll meet you there in two hours.” He turned and walked away, passing Jemma in the corridor.

Jemma spotted Jayce and rushed to him. “What happened?”

“She stepped out onto the street and the car didn’t have time to stop. The doctors have done some testing, and they will need to do some more when she wakes up, but they think she’s going to be fine,” Jayce said, praying that wasn’t another lie.

Jemma looked at him in disbelief. “She stepped out in front of a car??”

Jayce swallowed. “We were having an argument. It’s my fault, Jemma. I’m sorry, it was an accident.”

Jemma’s eyes narrowed at him and she looked a lot like Zahra when she was mad. “What did you do to her? What were you fighting about?”

Jayce shook his head and looked away. He couldn’t tell her. “You’ll need to ask Zahra that when she wakes up. Please…” he said and opened the door, “go and sit with her. She needs you. I’m going to leave, but just message me when she’s awake so that I know. Whatever time she needs off is fine, and you can take the time off, too, to look after her. I’m sorry, Jemma, this should never have happened.” Jayce took a deep breath and took one last look at the woman he loved, the woman he would love for all eternity.

Things that fall apart can never be put back together. We can try, and we do, but the cracks will always be there no matter how good a craftsman we are. But how we perceive those cracks is our choice, and we always have a choice. Our actions are a reflection of our choices, and if we take no action, even that is a choice. We can view our cracks as life’s scars, of battles neither lost nor won, because there is never a winner in war. Whether a faint, feathery line or a jagged, puckering track, our scars bear the secrets of our souls.

They made so many mistakes, so many choices that would ultimately hurt them both. Zahra didn’t blame Jayce, not entirely, for she, too, had made mistakes. Raven had acted irrationally and had killed her lover—an act that was the catalyst for future events. If they could have been more honest about their past, perhaps, just maybe, they could’ve veered north to a higher ground above the oceans of deceit. But ‘should have’ and ‘could have’ were of no help now. They had chosen badly and it had ended badly. And they were both responsible for their choices.

Zahra held her plastered arm to her waist and rose from the couch. She needed to get Jemma out of her apartment so that she could be alone. “Jemma, you need to go to work.”

“I’m going to work from your home office,” she said, leaning her elbow on the dining table. She wasn’t budging. “The doctor said you need to have someone with you for the weekend, Zahra. I’m not leaving, and seeing as you talked Mom and Dad out of coming to stay, I’m responsible for you. Anyway, Jayce said I could take as much time off as you need.”

Zahra didn’t have the energy to argue with her sister and she didn’t want to talk about Jayce. “Fine,” she muttered as she picked up the box of meds her doctor had prescribed for her thumping head, taking a glass of water to her bedroom and closing the door firmly behind her. Zahra just wanted to be alone, with no one to witness her break down. Her injuries, her visible scars, caused her little pain compared to the ones inside. Those scars were unbearable, like shards of glass brushing against her heart, piercing her with each beat. And the only one that she wanted to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be okay, was the one person who couldn’t.

Zahra curled up in bed, pulling the duvet over her ears, and let herself shed the tears that she had hidden from the doctors, and the tears she had hidden from Jemma. They fell freely now, soaking her pillow, the wet cotton suctioning to her cheek. Why did love have to be so painful?

Zahra reached for her phone and opened his email—the only contact she’d had with him.

Dear Zahra,

I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for what has transpired over the course of our relationship, and particularly over the course of the past week. It breaks my heart that the person I love so much is the same person I have caused so much pain.

I keep asking myself why we found each other again in this lifetime. What purpose does it serve if, like you said, we just continue to hurt each other? I don’t know but I have learned I cannot force our fate—I knew about our past and I knew that you knew and it was my responsibility to be open with you instead of trying to force it from you. If I had done that, our future might have been very different. This is my fault and I have to live with the consequences and the knowledge that I destroyed the greatest gift I have ever been given—you.

Please don’t leave Mason, not because of me. If I could leave, I would, to spare you more pain. I have considered every option and whether I could run it remotely from Tokyo but I can’t, I need to be there. I have hurt you so much already so please don’t sacrifice a job you love because of me. I won’t contact you again. I will arrive earlier and leave late and conduct site inspections at sunrise and sundown. You will barely know I exist.

Please take as much time off as you need to recover.

I’m sorry, Zahra, I have never been more sorry for anything in my life.

Jayce

There was no way to fix things this time, no way for them to move forward, and that cut through her like a razor. She prayed for the pain to stop, but there was nothing to ease her heartache; she would have to deal with it the hard way and go through the grieving stages. There was no easy way out, no magic pill.

Zahra’s bedroom door opened and she quickly hid her phone under her pillow and closed her eyes, grateful her back was to the door.

Jemma climbed into the bed and snuggled into her sister’s back. “Please stop crying, Za Za. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Zahra said. She didn’t want to talk about it to anyone and she never would—their past, and their story, was their secret.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jemma asked, standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips.

“It’s Monday and I’m going to work,” Zahra said, pushing past her. Church Street was ready to be styled and she had worked too hard to miss this. Broken arm and lingering concussion or not, she was going to work.

Jemma sighed and followed her to the kitchen. “If this is your definition of ‘taking it easy,’ you got more than a bump on your head.”

She knew her sister meant well, but Zahra was about to throttle her. “Jemma, I am fine. I have done nothing but sit around this apartment all weekend. I need to be at work today, and I feel good, so please don’t bust my ass about this. I have enough shit to deal with as it is.”

“What are you going to do if you see Jayce?”

“I’m going to focus on my work and treat him like my boss,” Zahra said, stuffing a banana into her handbag.

“Do you really think you can do that?” Jemma didn’t look convinced.

“I don’t have a choice, I have to be able to if I’m going to stay at Mason. I won’t run into him today anyway—he knows that my team is styling, so he won’t go to the showroom. I won’t see him.” Zahra’s voice trembled as she said the last words.

Jemma hugged her. “Okay. Just give me five minutes to get dressed and I’ll go with you.”

Work was a good distraction for her mind and, true to his words, Zahra barely knew Jayce existed. She had not seen him for two weeks, nor had he tried to contact her. She only knew he was alive due to the management emails that she received. She missed him and her heart ached for him but, ultimately, love hadn’t been enough to save them.

Every day she tortured herself by reading Jayce’s email and she asked herself the same question he asked himself: why had they found each other again?
It doesn’t make sense
, she thought,
because if we don’t have a relationship, how can the debt be balanced?
What lessons are we supposed to learn from our past?

Everything seems so unfinished
, Zahra thought. Even her dreams seemed unfinished—Raven’s story not yet concluded. Since the night of Dryas’ death, Zahra hadn’t had a single dream. Her nights, on the rare occasion that she did manage to fall asleep, were a dark theater—not a single light on, not a single picture playing. And as painful as her dreams were, they held the keys to her past and she had to know what happened after Dryas’ death. Zahra didn’t know why, but she felt like that piece of the story held the clue to the future, the key to why they had come together again. But, that clue would remain hidden if she couldn’t access her dreams.
I have to try regression again
, Zahra thought, and called Dr. Moore’s office.

As usual, Dr. Moore was fully booked, but the receptionist added her to the cancelation list. So far, Zahra had had good luck on the list and she prayed for another appointment soon.

Her prayers for an appointment were answered, but her prayers for a successful regression were not.
Why can’t I regress?

Zahra took her time walking home from her appointment, her mind lost in despair. The pure heartache and sense of loss she felt were still as raw as the day she had woken up in the hospital. Life had become so painful, so complicated, so confusing. A year ago she’d had a good life, a great life, and now she was an emotional wreck on the tipping point of a breakdown. Her moods swung like a pendulum that could net get centered, and she cursed God and the universe and anyone else behind the mastermind of this world. She was furious that this was her reality—this was not the life she expected and it was not the life she wanted. The only good thing she had left was her career and even that was in question, at Mason at least. She loved her job and her team, she loved the scale of the projects that she worked on, the challenges that surfaced every day and the challenges they conquered every day. She didn’t want to resign, and so far things were working out, but at the end of the day it was still Jayce’s company.

In her office, Zahra looked at the stack of reports on her desk but pushed them aside—she had come in early for another reason, one she was procrastinating on. While she hadn’t been able to regress at her last appointment, the good doctor did have another suggestion—one that she hadn’t considered, one that was complicated and one that was destined to be painful, but one that might just work. This suggestion, and her morning task, were one and the same. Zahra knew it could be done over the phone but she also knew she had a much better chance of succeeding if she could get in front of him. She would have to improvise though because, despite staring at the ceiling all night, she had not been able to formulate the right words. There were no right words, she’d concluded, but it had to be done because he held the only other key to her past.