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Chapter Three: Confessions
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"In my heart, you're the only one for me." – Runaway Bride
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Today is Saturday, our last full day in Japan.
I'm forced to assume that T.K. has forgotten what transpired the other night, because he hasn't said anything about it.
Yesterday consisted of hanging around the hotel, nursing our hangovers and swearing that we will never drink again. I don't think I realized exactly how much we drank until I woke up the next morning to a throbbing head and a spinning room.
This morning, however, I wake up headache-free. T.K. and I go to Tai and Sora's for a barbeque lunch, along with Mimi, Matt, and little Heiden. Sora tells us that she has a surprise for us, but it hasn't arrived yet. We all sit down to lunch – outside, of course – and grill her on what it could be. Halfway through our hamburgers, we get our answer.
"Hey, everybody!"
I look up to find Izzy strolling into the backyard, his supermodel wife in tow. We all jump up from the table and greet them both with big hugs.
"This is Camilla," he says, introducing us to his wife.
"Hikari, so nice to see you again," she smiles. I'm impressed that she remembers me, but then again, my photos did help launch her career. We do the 'air kiss' thing and then I back off to let everyone else say hello to her. Izzy grabs a burger and Camilla, naturally, sticks with a salad. She sits across from me eating her lettuce as I chomp down my second hamburger. I've never felt fatter in my life. Damn supermodels.
After lunch, we break up into our respective groups. The guys go into the den to watch some game on TV while the girls help Sora clean up. Everyone insists that Mimi stay off her feet and rest, but she starts bringing dishes into the kitchen anyway.
"So Mimi, Matt is your husband?" Camilla asks as the four of us head outside and sit down on the patio a few minutes later.
"Yeah. And this is our son, Heiden," Mimi answers, holding little Heiden.
"And Sora, those are your children over there?" she asks, gesturing toward the two children running around the backyard. Sora nods and smiles fondly at her kids. "They're adorable."
"Thanks. Do you and Izzy plan on having children?" Sora inquires.
"Someday, but we're going to give it a few years. There's just so much going on, and my career isn't exactly ideal for childbearing," she says. She turns to me and asks, "Does T.K. want children?"
Why is she asking me? Shouldn't she be asking him, or his wife? I look at Sora and Mimi, who seem to know exactly what she means. I'm still lost.
"I don't know," I shrug. "He's never said anything to me. Sora? Meems? Has he mentioned anything to you?" Sora shakes her head and grins while Mimi fights back a laugh. Camilla now looks as confused as I feel.
"Why would your husband talk to them and not you?"
"My what?" Since when do I have a husband? Surely she doesn't think that T.K. is my – oh God, she does! "T.K. and I are just friends! He already has a wife," I tell her.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Oh, I'm sorry!Iit's just that you two seemed so … you know? You can see where I can be confused, though. You two have the whole witty banter thing … and such sexual chemistry!" Camilla explains.
T.K. and I have chemistry? Sexual chemistry? I can understand sexual tension, but sexual chemistry? Maybe she's just crazy. I bet nobody else thinks that way.
"That's true," Mimi admits when she stops laughing. Sora nods her head and grunts in agreement, the stupid smirk still on her face.
Okay, so maybe they do think that way.
"What? It is not true. T.K. and I are just friends! We've always been just friends," I insist, trying to cover the sadness in my voice. I'm telling the truth, no matter how I feel about it, and that's all that matters.
We have always been just friends.
Sora rises from her seat and looks at me. "I'm going to go inside and make us some coffee. Kari, why don't you come help me?" I shrug and stand up, asking everyone how they take their coffee.
"It all happened so quickly," Sora tells me when we get inside. "I had only heard that T.K. had a girlfriend about six months ago, and then the next thing I know, I'm getting a wedding invitation in the mail!" Why is she telling me this? Why does she think I care? I don't care.
Of course I care, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be so uncomfortable right now.
"It's okay. You don't need to explain anything to me," I say, hoping she will get the hint and drop the subject. She doesn't.
"I didn't know he hadn't invited you until a month or so before the wedding, when they came down here to plan it," she continues. "You should have seen the look on his face when I starting talking about you in front of that … tart, Chantelle." I shut my eyes tight, and try to pretend that I'm anywhere but in my sister-in-law's kitchen having this discussion. At least Sora dislikes Chantelle. That's a plus. "The tart asked him why he didn't invite you and he said he didn't even have a way to get in touch with you. I offered to give him your number, telling him that Tai and I talk to you on a weekly basis, but he declined. I told him to call you, but he said that it was too late, that it was really short notice for a wedding. I kept telling him that it didn't matter, that you'd still come, but he disagreed. No matter what I threw at him, he had an excuse all prepared."
"So? Why are you telling me this?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she asks. Apparently it's not, because I'm absolutely baffled. After seeing the look on my face, she sighs and starts to explain. "He didn't want you there because he still has feelings for you!"
Still?
"You're wrong," I insist. "You're wrong because he never felt anything for me in the first place, so there's no way he could still feel for me now. He probably just didn't think I would show up. Maybe he thought that I'd become standoffish and wouldn't take time off to come celebrate my oldest friend's wedding." Wow. I sound really bitter.
"That's not it and you know it."
"Okay, well, what do you want me to say? It was a small wedding, just close friends and family, right?" She nods her head slowly, trying to figure out what I'm getting at. "I haven't talked to him, with the exception of this week, in almost three years. We weren't close friends, so there's no reason for him to invite me," I insist.
"He invited Joe," she answers in a sing-song voice. Okay, maybe that isn't the reason then. "Joe couldn't make it, but he was invited, nonetheless."
"Maybe he still talks to Joe. I have no idea."
Sora sighs and shakes her head. "Hikari," she says sternly, "you're a bright girl but when it comes to love, you're an absolute moron. You don't really believe that, do you? I see the way he looks at you. He may be married, but it isn't over for him."
"And why is that my problem? If that's true – which I'm not saying it is – it isn't any of my concern," I persist. "Why does everyone assume I want to talk and gossip about T.K. like we're still in high school? We're adults, for Christ's sake!"
Her eyes go wide and she slams the cup she was filling with coffee down on the counter. Off-brown liquid spills out the sides and drips down the cup, making a ring on the counter. "Oh my God!"
"What?" What just happened here?
"Oh my God," she repeats. "You still … you still aren't over him, either! You love T.K.!" I spring forward and plant my hand overtop of her mouth.
"Would you keep it down? I don't want the whole world to know," I squeal. Shit. I just admitted to it, didn't I?
"I knew it! Kari, you've got to do something about this," she advises in a whispered tone when I pull away my hand. Great advice, Sora, I hadn't thought of that one. There's just one, teeny tiny problem: there's nothing I can do, because he has a fucking wife!
"Like what?" She shrugs, as if to say 'I was hoping you'd know'. "It's not like he's just dating her, or they're engaged. He's married. He has a wife. I can't hop in my time machine, go back to the past and change that." Her face falls.
"I guess you're right," Sora concedes. The extremity of the situation, not to mention the intense pain and heartache I'm feeling, must hit her full-force because she wraps her arms around me in a tight hug. "I'm so sorry for you."
You know something?
I'm sorry for me, too.
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T.K. and I arrive back at the hotel pretty late, around ten o'clock. I say 'pretty late' because we have to get up at five tomorrow to catch our plane.
We scurry around the room, checking and double-checking that we have all of our belongings. While T.K.'s mind might be trying to figure out where his favourite shirt is, mine is trying to solve a different mystery entirely.
Why wasn't I at his wedding?
Is Sora right, and he has feelings for me? Or is she just delusional, a hopeless romantic who has been rooting for T.K. and me since we were eight? Maybe she's both. I hope so.
"Found it," T.K. announces happily, holding his shirt up like a trophy. "It was under the couch … I wonder how it got there." He looks at me with an amused expression on his face, but it quickly fades when he sees my somber one. He opens his mouth, ready to speak, but I beat him to it.
"Why didn't you invite me?" There. I said it. No matter what the answer is, at least I can take comfort in the fact that I finally got this question off my chest and out in the open. He gives me a confused look. "Your wedding," I say slowly, "Why wasn't I there?"
"Didn't you say you understood?" He looks nervous – panicked, even. Good. Let him worry, let him sweat it out. I'm not letting him get out of this one.
"Well, yeah, but that was a load of shit. I don't understand. I can't figure out why you wouldn't invite me. I was your best friend for years, and you didn't even call me up to tell me you were getting married!" He looks rather taken aback by my sudden outburst of emotion. I don't care. Maybe now, he can feel uncomfortable around me like I do around him. The charade ends here, buddy.
"Kar, don't make me do this," he begs. He locks his gorgeous blue eyes on my chocolate brown ones, and I almost give in. I almost nod; almost tell him that he doesn't need to explain. But he does. And he will. Let's see how he's going to dig himself out of this hole, shall we?
"No, I'm going to. Come on, T.K., out with it. Why wasn't I there? Why wouldn't you invite me?"
"Because."
"That isn't an answer!" I yell, stomping my foot.
"I – what do you want me to tell you?"
"I want you to tell me the truth! Why didn't I get invited? Why in the world would you think to –?"
"Because," he repeats.
"Because what?" I demand. "Because I'm not as important as everyone else?" I smack him with a pillow. "Because I don't mean as much to you?" I smack him again. "Because you were one person over the limit, so you pulled my name out of a hat and threw out my invitation?" I hit him once more, feeling all the anger that has welled up inside of me being drained out, and the feeling is so addictive that I keep hitting him.
"Because I still loved you!" he yells, dodging the pillow. "Okay?"
What? Still loved me?
Okay? No, it's not okay!
Is he telling the truth? My God, he's telling the truth! That means that Sora was right. And that means that …
Oh, God.
T.K. loves me.
I have to be dreaming.
I inconspicuously pinch my left arm and, much to my mix pleasure and dismay, it hurts. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I've waited for this day for so long, the day that T.K. would tell me he loves me. Standing in the middle of a honeymoon suite, having him profess his feelings for me, was a pretty good fantasy growing up. Standing in the middle of a honeymoon suite when he's married to someone else and I'm alone is, as you can probably imagine, not as appealing.
Do I love him, too? Of course I do. But do I tell him that? No, I can't. That would open up a whole can of worms and neither of us is ready for the repercussions.
Words can't express the feelings and emotions that are flowing through me right now. I'm so utterly happy – wouldn't be, after the guy you love tells you he feels the same way? I'm angry – why does he have to be married? Does God really hate me that much? I'm remorseful – what could have been, if we had only realized each other's feelings sooner? I'm regretful – why didn't I just tell him ages ago, when we were in high school?
"What?" I whisper.
"Nothing," he says immediately, turning his back to me. "Shit. I wasn't supposed to say that. Forget that I said anything."
I don't want to forget it!
"T.K. …" I say. "You … you can't just …"
"I have to," he says. "I'm married."
"I know," I say, tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder. "But you … God … T.K., talk to me. Please."
Maybe he hears something in my voice, because he turns around and shrugs. "I love you. I always have," he confesses. "Not as a best friend or as a sister, either. I love you. I thought that the feelings would go away when we went off to different colleges and started different lives, but they didn't."
No way. Tell me this isn't happening.
"All this time? You've felt this way all this time?"
"Pretty much," he shrugs. "That's why I was with Chantelle in the first place. I figured that you would never return my feelings. Hell, I hadn't even talked to you a few years. I thought that you had moved on, and that I should, too." Where is all this coming from? Why now? I want to tell him to stop, but I need to hear this. "After a while, I started to love her. Not the way I loved you, but I knew that it probably wasn't possible for me to have that same connection with a person other than you, anyway. My love for her was good enough, right? I really did love her, and she loved me, and I figured it was enough, so we got engaged." He looks down at his feet and then back up at me. "Say something," he begs.
"What do you want me to say? This is a lot to process," I tell him.
"I know, and I'm sorry. But that's why I couldn't invite you. I couldn't stand there and proclaim my undying love for someone while the only person I've ever truly felt that extreme sense of love for was sitting down, watching me. I know I sound like a horrible person, but I couldn't have gone through with it if you were there," he explains. "And I couldn't do that to her, after I promised that we would get married. She didn't deserve that. She doesn't deserve any of this."
This is really happening. He's really saying all these things.
The worst part is that no matter how many times he says that he loves me, it won't change anything. He's still married to Chantelle.
"Wow," I whisper, unable to articulate my feelings. What's the point, anyway? It will only hurt him more. It's best that he never knows. It's best if he thinks I see him as just a friend, and never knows that, all this time, I could have been his.
"I love my wife, I really do. Honest. But it doesn't really compare to how I feel for you," he acknowledges. Okay, now he's just rubbing it in. I want to tell him to stop, but I can't. I can't really say anything right now. I just sit here and let him continue. "And I thought that maybe I was just remembering the way I felt for you in high school, and that I didn't really love you anymore, but I was wrong. I do. When I saw you that day on the street, it was like my heart stopped and I couldn't believe that you were really there."
He walks closer to me and runs his hand along my cheek. I feel a single tear slip from my eye and slide down that very same cheek, and I hate it because he wipes it away with his thumb and looks up at me, and I can tell that he knows my deepest, darkest secret.
"Do you … ?"
He doesn't finish his sentence, but I know what he wants to ask me.
Do I love him?
I do.
I nod and look away, unable to verbalize it. Maybe if I don't say the words, I will never have to admit to it. Maybe, in the dim lighting of our hotel room, my nod will go unnoticed, and he'll drop the subject altogether.
That doesn't happen.
The next thing I know, I'm being pressed against the wall, T.K.'s lips over mine, my legs wrapped tightly around his waist.
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