Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe I was too forgiving. Yet, I went back to him. I didn't want to kiss him. I didn't want to touch him. I didn't even want to look in his eyes. All I really wanted was to talk to him.
Riding through the streets of Seattle with the pink sun rising in the distance, I flash-backed to the first time I had met James. It was a wicked vision, but yet it came to me nonetheless as if forcing me to remember just how easily James and I clicked. It had all started while I was plopped at the dance club bar with my pitiful beer.
As I was sitting there, sipping away, I didn't notice a man who had sat down beside me. It wasn't until he had received his drink, that I fully noticed him.
"Hello," I said.
"Hi," he smiled back, revealing perfectly formed teeth.
I removed my clammy hand from the side of my glass cup and wiped it on my pants before offering it to him. "Alanza," I told him. Having no friends in Seattle my own age, I figured it was time to start making some. Starting then.
"Alanza?" he repeated curiously. "It's pretty."
"Thanks."
He accepted my hand and shook it warmly. "I'm James."
The guy was sexy. There really wasn't any other way to describe him besides to say he was a beautiful human. He had dark brown hair, kind of like my mom's when she was younger. The hair was piled on top of his head in slight curls, waves almost, just so there was enough texture to his hair. His eyes, a warm coffee brown, were above his perfectly sculpted nose on light skin. He was built, and from the short sleeved shirt he wore, I could see the roundness of his upper arms.
I rested my head on my clasped hands and stared evenly at him, trying to invade his mind while keeping a normal conversation and not spacing out. "So how long have you lived in Seattle?" I asked him.
"Two days."
"Two days? You visiting or something?"
"I wish, but no. I'm here with my dad."
"Family problems?" I questioned upon hearing the disgust in his voice as he talked about his dad.
"Yeah, me and my dad…we don't get along too well. I used to live out with my mom in Wisconsin and then moved out of the house when I got old enough. But my dad just calls one day out of the blue, and it's like he suddenly wants to be a parent."
"That's kinda how my family worked."
"Really?"
"Well, after I turned fifteen, my dad basically left. I mean, he's been back a couple times in those three years, but not much," I replied with a shrug.
"At least he stayed around for some of your life."
"Why don't you just go back to Wisconsin?"
James grinned almost sheepishly. "I don't have the money or the transportation. I'm job searching actually right now."
"You're going to work here?" I questioned, motioning to the bar.
He laughed. "No, my parents would both kill me. They think I need a 'respectable job that promotes the well-being of a studious mind'." He laughed again, "Yeah right." Pausing to sip his drink, he turned to me. "So how long have you been here?"
"Since this morning," I answered with a laugh. "So, you're better off than I am."
"Parents?" he questioned as my reason for coming to Seattle.
"Mm-hmm," I replied as I drank a bit of my drink. Pausing, I listened as a good song came on the radio. It was an oldie, like the others had been, but it was fairly fast paced and made something inside of me dance.
I set my drink down on the bar. "You wanna go dance?" I asked James.
"Uh…no thanks, I'm not really one for dancing," he admitted reluctantly.
I shrugged. "You can join me if you want." With a smile back at him, I headed out onto the tiny dance floor. I wasn't going to let some guy I had just met burst my party bubble.
The music was throbbing, and I could feel the bass beating through the soles of my tennis shoes. Before I knew it, I had lost myself in the rhythm and beat, pleased with life temporarily. Just as I swung myself around, my flexible body bending into any position I pleased, a warm hand touched me on the shoulder.
I opened my eyes and found myself staring at James. "Invitation accepted," he said politely. I grinned and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him onto the dance floor. Maybe life in Seattle was better than I thought it was going to be.
Coming out of the dream sequence, I felt myself smile. Life in Seattle hadn't been all that bad. Well, with the exception of Manticore bounty hunters, Mom's accident, Dad's departure, and Brin's deteriorating condition, I thought that Seattle had proven to be plentiful. After all, I had met Case, Max, and even James. I did hate him for everything he had said back in his car, but I hadn't been the nicest person either. Besides, all I had to do was talk with him. Nothing more would be requested.
Finally, I arrived at his apartment complex and cut the engine of my motorcycle, gazing up at the large building as the sun crested over the top of it. My heart pounded heavily, yet fluttered with nervousness while I felt sick to my stomach. I willed whatever digested food was left down there to stay right where it was. That was the last thing I needed: James seeing me, bent over and hurling, in his building's parking lot. Naturally, it would make for quite a conversation opener.
Still, I pulled off my helmet, raked trembling fingers through my hair and headed on inside. It was now or never.
Just I reached James' floor, I saw the door to his individual apartment open, and he stepped out. We nearly ran right into each other, which caused for some embarrassed laughs and nervous apologies.
"A-Alanza, what are you doing here?" he asked, backing tentatively away. He was wearing a three-quarter sleeved shirt, which allowed me to see his bruises perfectly; I had been quite the little monster.
"I wanted to talk to you."
"I was just on my way to find you, too," he replied. There was a long, uncomfortable pause until he cleared his throat timidly and gestured to his cracked apartment door. "You want to come in?"
"I…uh…sure, I guess," I stumbled acting like more of an idiot than I had feared.
Wringing his hands, James nodded more to himself than me. "All right, then, c'mon in." He pushed the door open with one hand, allowing me to enter before him. I reminded myself that if a blond hooker came running out of his bedroom, I'd slap him across the face right then and there.
"You want something to drink?" he asked, attempting to be the polite James I knew.
"No," I replied as I shook my head, glancing around the apartment. It seemed as though the place should have been different because I had left his life. Yet, not a single thing had changed, which disappointed me to a certain extent.
"Go ahead and sit down," he offered, extending a hand. Slowly, I sank down on the couch, while he was smart enough to sit down in a chair some distance away. Again, there was another excruciating moment of silence before I cleared my throat.
"I wanted to talk to you about what happened."
"All right."
"I'm not asking for answers because that doesn't really matter anymore since we…well…"
"Separated?" he suggested, resting his palm on his forehead as he stared at the space between my feet. Obviously, James hadn't taken the break-up as well as I'd assumed.
"Okay, if that's what you want to say. Sure. Separated. That doesn't matter, though. I left you because I felt betrayed. I felt like you didn't give a damn about me or anything else." Great, I groaned to myself, now he probably thinks that you've been to a shrink with all the "I" statements that you just used. Well, screw what he thinks. Just keep talking. "I'm not going to lie to you anymore. I went out with another guy tonight." James' head popped up in surprise, then sank back down slowly. "The thing is, it meant nothing to me…he meant nothing to me. The entire time I was with him, I kept thinking of you. You and how you look, how you act…how you just are. I didn't want to be with him; I wanted to be with you."
Sighing heavily, I leaned forward on the couch, trying to push back the tears that threatened my voice. "James, I spent three days living off juice and jam because I missed you so damn much. Case won't leave me or my phone lines alone, and now my own mother is insisting that I come back to you. But none of that matters, I suppose." I stopped, lowering my pinched voice before I spoke again. "What does matter is that I wake up every morning, sick and hollow with crusted tear lines on my face because I-"
"Because I cry myself to sleep every night, wishing that you were there beside me because I'm so cold and alone without you?" James asked, finishing for me. "Yes, Alanza, I know," he whispered, lifting his eyes to meet mine. "I do that too."
He was the first one to break, moving towards me with open arms as I slid off the couch enclosing him. We were both sobbing and crying like fools, yet neither one of us cared. Then, James pulled away and reached into his pocket. "Wait. This, you might want back." There, lying in a golden puddle in the middle of his palm was the ruby necklace I had chucked at him the night we separated. No longer torn in two, the necklace was once again complete.
"It's fixed," I stated as I sob rose in the back of my throat.
"May I?" he asked, raising the necklace, silently asking if he could put it back on.
I gathered my hair in a fist and nodded. He leaned in close and clasped the necklace, then pulled away, meeting my glazed eyes. His scent of naturalness made me swoon. "I love you, Alanza," he whispered, brushing away a strand of hair. "And I never want to hurt you again. Never. You have to believe me."
I pressed his warm palm to the side of my cold cheek and smiled, despite the tears. "I believe you, James." And with that, we gathered one another in the other's arms and our lips met, sealing our love.
