by Lacey Legend
“No problem. Sorry I couldn’t have helped more. I hope you find him.”
She closed the door and breathed in and out, in and out, and then quickly peered out and watched them get into their car and drive away. She wanted to make sure that they had gone. She got another message from Eric.
I’m so sorry. Are you okay?
She almost didn’t want to reply, but she deserved at least some sort of answer. I’m going to wait another twenty minutes to make sure they don’t come back. Then I’m coming over. But don’t bother with dinner. I’m not hungry anymore.
Jasmine looked at the time and waited exactly twenty minutes. When she was sure that the men were not coming back, she quickly hurried over to his house. He opened up before she even had a chance to knock and then quickly locked the door behind him. She looked up at him and saw a mixture of emotions running through his face. Fear, sadness, and frustration. She refused to notice the way that he had fixed up his house. The big and beautiful photo that he had taken of the tree and mounted on his wall. The potted plants. She tried not to look at them. They did something funny to her – twisted her heart in a way that she couldn’t bear.
“I got fooled again,” she said. “Why do I keep getting fooled by men? What is wrong with me?”
He reached over to take her hand, but she moved away quickly as if she had been burned.
“Jasmine, please. I’m so sorry. You are not getting fooled. I haven’t lied to you about my feelings. I really have fallen for you. I really do want to be with you. I’m so sorry about what happened. It’s all in my past, though.”
Jasmine considered him for a moment. Her mind had wandered again over to the big tree. Then she looked at him, her eyes wet with tears.
“Can I ask you something, Eric?”
“Yes, anything.”
“Are you a photographer?”
He looked down, unable to meet her eye, which already was answer enough for her. “No.”
“So, what are you then? What are you, Eric? Who are you?” she asked, her voice rising. She tried to calm herself down, but her hands were shaking uncontrollably in her lap.
“I can’t tell you, Jasmine. But you just have to know that it’s all in the past. I’m here now. With you. I haven’t lied about any of that. In fact, all I’ve done is omitted some stuff from you. The only thing I lied about is being a photographer. The rest is all true. Everything I’ve ever told you is all true. Please believe me.”
“Tell me who you are. Tell me what you do. Tell me why you moved here, and tell me who those men are. If you cannot answer all of those questions, then I’m going to walk out and I will never come back here again. Never. You can knock on my door all you like, but I won’t answer. So… I’m going to ask you one more time: who are you, what do you do, why did you move here, and who are those men? Simple questions, really.”
She watched as Eric moved uncomfortably on his seat. He still couldn’t look her in the eye, and she knew that he wasn’t going to answer her. This was even worse than what had happened with Brendan. Because for the first time in her life, she was actually falling in love.
“I’m sorry, Jasmine. I can’t. Not just yet. Please, you have to trust me.”
Jasmine stood up. “Trust you? You want me to trust you? Really? I’m sorry, Eric, but you and I are through. This is over. I will not be treated like this. I’m going to leave now, and don’t you dare come after me. Goodbye, Eric – if that’s even your name.”
Jasmine stormed out and walked over to her house where she locked the door, closed all the windows, and climbed into bed. Her new shiny curls lay around her face, and she cried until she finally fell asleep.
Chapter9
Eric felt as if his whole life were suddenly falling apart. It had been three days already since the awful day that Jasmine had decided to stop seeing him. He had almost run after her, but he knew that he had no right to do so. He was only going to hurt her more if he tried to get her back. He couldn’t be sure that his plan had worked – and he was almost certain that the men would be back. They weren’t stupid. And if they did come back, then he didn’t want Jasmine to be involved. It had hurt him so much to see her walk out like that. She’d looked so beautiful when she had come in. Her hair had been done, and the soft curls lay on her shoulders, framing her beautiful face. It had made her look angelic. Something that he clearly was not. He had seen the hurt in her eyes, and he knew how much he had betrayed her. Especially after what had happened with her ex-boyfriend. When the men had stopped by, he had been putting the finishing touches on the three-course meal that he had cooked for Jasmine. He’d spent the whole day preparing it. The only thing that had been left to do was to set the table. The unopened box of candles had mocked him the whole night. He’d thrown all of the food away – unable to eat it or even look at it. That food was meant to be for them to have together.
Eric didn’t know what to do with himself. He was starting to run out of money. He still had enough to get him through the next few months, but he knew that he would have to find a job eventually if he were to survive forever. But now he wasn’t sure if he was even going to stay in his new house. He wasn’t sure how safe it was. And if they were suspicious, then he was sure that they had noted what car was in the driveway. This meant that he needed to find a new car and get the hell out of here. He probably should’ve have left the very same evening that they had come. But the thought of leaving Jasmine was the only thing that was weighing on his mind. He didn’t want to leave her. But he knew that he had to. He was torn between his two different lives and angry at himself for allowing it to happen. He’d promised himself that he would be smarter this time around. He’d wanted a fresh new start. But he’d been too hasty. He hadn’t thought it through – and he’d integrated himself into his new neighborhood too quickly. He had nobody to blame but himself. And he was going out of his mind with confusion. He looked out of his window at Jasmine’s house. He knew that she was at work. He’d seen her leave that morning. She hadn’t even glanced in his direction, even though he was sure that she had seen him. His body ached for her.
As he looked out, he saw the car in the driveway and decided to go for a drive. He didn’t want to be there anymore. He couldn’t read, he couldn’t sleep, and he could barely eat. Without all these normal distractions, he felt overwhelmed by his thoughts and feelings. He felt suffocated by everything and knew that something was going to have to change. But as he got into the car and drove off, he knew that he was going to have to leave for good. He knew that once again, that was the only option. If not for him, then for Jasmine. He wasn’t good for her. He’d done it so many times before, but never had it been so hard. He’d stayed at his last house for over a year, yet getting up and leaving had been easy. Now, after such a short space of time, he wanted to cry at the thought of leaving. He wasn’t even sure where he was driving, but without thinking, he found himself at his childhood home. He was shocked when he looked at the time and saw that he had been driving for almost two hours. He’d had the radio on and hadn’t realized where he was going. The streets were familiar but foreign to him, all at once. He remembered his old friends who used to live nearby. The ones he would go visit after school. They would ride their bikes down the road, spend hours at the arcades, and talk endlessly about what they wanted to do when they grew up. He pictured all of them now. They’d been a tight group of four. Him, Wesley, Peter, and Timmy. They’d promised each other that they would be friends forever, and at the time, he’d truly believed they would.
“How about you, Eric? What do you want to be when you grow up?” Timmy had asked him.
They were in Timmy’s room, a board game set out in front of them, and empty bags of chips lying all around. It was a typical Saturday for them.
“What do I want to be? I don’t know, man. As long as I don’t wear a suit, I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, suits are horrible,” Timmy had agreed.
“I want to wear a suit!” Wesley declared, and t
hey had all laughed at him.
Wesley was the more serious out of the four of them, and it was no surprise to them that he would want to wear a suit.
“Well, you can wear a suit and sit in an office. I want to do something where I’m outside all the time.”
“Yeah!” the others had agreed.
“Who wants to be rich?” Wesley asked, and all the boys put up their hands.
“I want to be rich but happy.”
“Well, duh, don’t we all want that?” Wesley said.
“True. Well, as long as we’re all still friends when we’re older, than we’ll be happy,” Peter said.
“We will be,” Eric had replied.
But they weren’t. It was Eric who had left them – been the first to go astray. He wasn’t sure what had happened after that. He’d tried to get back into the group after his first absence, but it hadn’t been the same. Back then, the three of them were still tight. They had continued with their friendship without Eric. And for some reason, that had enraged him. He couldn’t believe that they could carry on like that without him. Perhaps he wasn’t so important to them after all, he had reasoned to himself. All the more reason to stay away forever. Find new friends. Find a new life. He’d gone again and never been back.
Now, he looked around and felt a pang of nostalgia. Where had it all gone wrong? Why hadn’t he stuck with his friends and stayed where he was? His life had been good once. It had been easy. He wondered if Timmy, Wesley, and Peter were still friends. Whether they still lived in the same area. He drove around slowly and passed their old homes, as if he might actually bump into them. Then, he ended up in front of his old house. The house that he had lived in for his entire childhood. The house that his father had once lived in with his mother. It looked different now. The new owners had repainted it; the garden was completely overgrown. Eric’s father had always taken so much care with that garden – spending every weekend making sure that everything was perfect. Eric had always been amazed at how he could transform things. Back then, his father had been his hero.
Eric sat like that for a long time, just staring at the house and thinking back on all the memories that he had shoved to the back of his mind for so long.
“It’s not too late to change, Eric,” his father had said to him once.
He’d already been ‘in the business’ for a few years, and he’d gone to see his father on a whim. The two of them hadn’t spoken for a long time, and things between them were naturally strained. His father had searched his eyes for any sign of his old son and had taken his hand and squeezed it.
“I’ll always love you, and I’ll be here when you find yourself again.”
“I love you, Dad. I’m sorry,” Eric now whispered as he looked at the house.
Why were things always so much clearer upon retrospect? Why hadn’t he realized things sooner? And why had he been so damn stubborn? He was determined to make things right now. He started the car and made his way back.
*
It had been a few days since Jasmine had ended things with Eric, and her heart still tore into pieces every time that she saw his house. Even with all the other neighbors that had come and gone, she had always thought of that house as Betty and Bob’s place. She couldn’t believe how quickly it had become Eric’s house to her. Suddenly, his close proximity was a terrible thing, and she wished that he wasn’t her neighbor anymore. She’d even seen his face at the window before, and she knew that he was watching her. But she never gave him the satisfaction of looking his way. She couldn’t look at him – she knew that she would burst our crying if she saw him. She’d told Allie all about it, but she had not yet told her mom. She couldn’t bring herself to see the look of disappointment on her mother’s face again. She’d been so excited to see her daughter happy again. She’d tell her mother eventually. But at least she had Allie to rest her head on. She was so grateful that she had taken the day off work – the day after she had discovered that Eric was not who he seemed to be. She’d taken it off so that she could spend a long night with Eric and not have to worry about getting up early the next day. Instead, she had spent a long night crying and had messaged Allie to tell her that they had broken up. The next morning, Allie had arrived on her doorstep with coffee and muffins.
“Allie! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she asked.
She looked at her watch and saw that it was just before ten in the morning.
“I went in and told them that I wasn’t feeling well. I put on such an act, you should’ve seen me. You would’ve been most proud. I was coughing and pretend sneezing. Even I was impressed by my act. Perhaps I should’ve been an actress. They sent me home because they were afraid of getting sick. Those people are so easy to mess with. None of them want to get sick for that big staff party coming up. They were all covering their mouths and telling me not to stand close to them. Finally, Ella sent me home and told me not to come back until I was feeling better. Anyway, I went straight to get these and came over. Are you okay?”
Jasmine was grateful to have Allie by her side. She was aware that she looked a mess – her eyes were red and puffy, and she hadn’t bothered getting changed or even taking a shower.
“Not really. I’m not sure I’ll be okay for a very long time. You’d swear I’d be used to disappointment by now. But apparently not. But I’m so happy that you’re here. You have no idea how much it means to me. I’m not actually sure how I would’ve gotten through the day to be honest.”
“No problem, Jas. I’d never leave you at a time like this. Nothing is more important to me than you. Certainly not work. Have you eaten anything?”
“No.” As she said it, Jasmine felt her stomach grumble. She hadn’t eaten the night before either.
“Well, let me warm these up for us. I got us the chocolate chip muffins – they’ll be sure to cheer you up. You sit down. I’ll be right there.”
Jasmine went to sit on her old comfortable couch but then remembered what she had done on it with Eric, so she quickly sat somewhere else. She was annoyed that she had now tainted the one thing in her house that had meant so much to her.
“Here we go. Now, tell me everything.”
Jasmine wasn’t even sure where to begin, but soon, the words were all tumbling out of her. She told her everything that had happened and watched as Allie stared at her with wide eyes. It was probably the last story that she had expected to hear.
“What the hell? Jas, it sounds like he’s into something quite serious. I mean, why would these men be after him if he wasn’t? It’s good that you came straight home, and it’s good that you broke up with him. But I have to say – I’m shocked. He seemed like such a nice guy.”
“I know. That’s the worst part. You know, at least with Brendan, I could look back and think to myself ‘ah, I should’ve known’ but it was different with Eric. I mean, he was very cagey about his life – there’s no mistaking that – but I never once thought that he was lying to me. Or into something really bad. I felt like I knew him. I still can’t really believe it.”
“Have you seen him again?”
“No. I mean, I saw his face at the window a few times, but no – I’m avoiding him, and he hasn’t tried coming after me.”
“I’m sorry, Jas. You dodged a bullet there.”
“Ah Allie, I really thought this was the one. I really did. I feel like I’m never going to find love. I don’t even want to after this. It’s too much. This is all too much.”
Allie had stayed the rest of the day, and after letting it all out, they had watched all their favorite movies – one after another. When Allie left, Jasmine had felt a little better. She may not have a boyfriend, but she did have a best friend. And Allie would always be there for her. In that sense, she was luckier than most, and she had to keep telling herself that.
It was a few days after the incident, and Jasmine was now immersing herself in work. Thankfully, she was very busy and didn’t have the time to do anything else other
than put her head down and get things done. She’d gotten into the habit of walking to work rather than taking her car. It was a fair distance, but it helped clear her mind. And it took up some time off her evening. When she got home from work, all she did was make something to eat, watch a movie, and crawl into bed. She wanted as little time to think as possible. And even though she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering, she always felt a bit better after the long walk.
She was walking home now after a particularly stressful day at work, glad that she felt so exhausted. It meant she might actually fall asleep quickly that night. She kept waiting to come home and see that Eric had moved out, but so far, that hadn’t happened. She wasn’t even sure how she felt about him moving. Part of her knew that she would be relieved. But there was another small part of her that would still be devastated. She’d worked a bit later that evening, and it was already starting to get dark. She wished that she’d actually taken her car this time. She wasn’t a big fan of walking alone in the dark, especially with all her belongings on her. It was a safe neighborhood – but still, things happened. And ever since she had left work, she’d had a strange feeling that someone was watching her. She’d looked around but hadn’t seen anything.
“Stop being paranoid and walk fast,” she whispered to herself.
The sound came out louder than she expected, and she quickly turned to see if anyone had heard her. But there was nobody around. Why were there so few people on the street that day? She wrapped her coat around her tightly, put her head down, and started to walk as fast as possible. She made a mental promise to herself never to go walking so late again. It had been a stupid thing to do.
“Don’t scream.” A man’s voice.
She turned around and came face to face with the two men who had come to her door the other day looking for Eric. She wanted to scream, but the man had his hand in his coat pocket, and she wasn’t sure whether or not he had a gun. He might have been bluffing, but she didn’t want to take a chance.
