Unsurprisingly, even though he appears strong and decisive in his sure and manly ways, he also has contradicting feelings and his own set of insecurities that he has to toggle with.
The only difference between them is that one is reserved and the other is expressive. If only they were able to find ways to truly communicate, they would be pleasantly surprised by the similarities between them that they can only imagine.
Chapter Nineteen. After hours of rehearsal on Act V, the five lead performers of Amber’s Broadway musical are exhausted and are taking a much needed break by the far side of Conrad’s studio. All the roles have been filled and rehearsals of “Life After Death” are beginning to be intense.
Amber, the star of the show represents ‘Life’, Lizzie the second lead performer represents ‘The Voice’, Neyo the first represents represents represents ‘Darkness’. Together this impeccable cast is bringing the show to life and strong friendships are being formed during the process.
male lead performer
‘Turbulence’, Terrance ‘Light’ and Yovanni Neyo, however, takes an obvious liking to Amber and is relentlessly pursuing her with an insatiable amount of curiosity. Not only does he want to know her age and marital status, he also wants to know her sexual preference and is not timid to inquire.
Thinking that he is merely being over friendly and eager to befriend his producer, Amber pays no attention to his flirtatious yet annoying ways and refuses to be questioned, “You are asking way too many questions.” She answers unenthusiastically and is uninterested to connect with someone nearly half her age and of a different ethnicity.
Having survived a suffocating marriage Amber is cautious and prefers to remain alone. In her mind, love is suffocating and she would rather ‘own’ herself than be become a ‘belonging’ to another man again. However, being conservative and traditional, free love is a notion that she is unfamiliar with and yet to discover.
What Neyo has in mind is an unattached relationship, similar to Taylor’s philosophy of ‘random exhilaration’ except in a monogamous way. He desires to show her his affection in a fun, exciting and unpredictable way without any emotional attachments.
His intentions are offered clearly and concisely. It is now up to Amber to decide on whether she would like to accept or reject his offer. If she wants a relationship that bears no possibility of longevity then Neyo would be her perfect partner.
Rehearsal finally wraps at four pm and Amber struggles to stay awake. Deciding to stop for coffee on her way home she pulls up in front of the nearest Starbucks and parks curbside, paying no attention to the street sign that says ‘No Parking’, she locks the door of her Mercedes Benz, enters Starbucks and is pleasantly surprised to see Adam, Alex’s brother, standing in line at the register.
She creeps up behind him quietly and taps him on the right shoulder while flirtatiously ducking to his left.
Pleased with the surprise, he smiles at her and leans over to give her a warm friendly hug. He has always liked her and finds her incredibly attractive and extremely pleasant to be with.
Instead of picking up a cup of mocha to go, Adam gets her to sit down at a corner table by the window and conversation topics flow from Adam’s new stem cells research at his laboratory to Amber’s new Broadway musical.
Toasting to their success over coffee, Amber tries her impossible to avoid bringing up Alex into their conversation. As if he can read her mind, a serious expression grows on his face and he pauses while holding her gaze,
“By the way, I promised Alex that I will not tell a soul, but at this point, I think it is time to break the silence.”
Amber turns pale as paper and is obviously shocked with the news. Trying her impossible to remain calm, she finds herself pulsating.
“Oh my God.” She mumbles to herself and repeats a few more times in disbelieve, “Oh my God.”
Still trying to digest what she is being told, she sees a traffic cop walking around her illegally parked car and screeches, “Oh my God, she is not writing me another ticket!” she blows Adam a kiss and dashes outside to save herself from another citation.
Adam watches her dash over to the traffic cop and attempts to suavely persuade away the ticket. To no avail, she is rewarded with yet another parking violation citation for being negligent. He watches her climb inside her car, pulls the convertible top and drives away hastily.
Amber picks up her phone and has only one intention on her mind; the phone keeps ringing and Karina is not answering,
“Pick up the phone Karina” she mumbles to herself, “pick up the darn phone!” Karina is on all fours and rolling out a huge piece of canvas on the floor. Taping the corners of the canvas down, she hears her phone ring,
“Oh shush. The world can wait.”
******** Managed to have remained sober for a week, Yvette experiences a withdrawal and feels highly irritable, agitated and extremely restless. Faced with the toughest predicament, her heart is tied in knots while she misses her lover Jean and tries to figure out how to handle his ultimatum.
Her husband looks at her from across the table and is upset by her erratic behavior among his top clients. Had his clients not insisted on meeting his wife, he would have enjoyed the evening without having to deal with her oddly peculiar mood.
Yvette watches his client savoring his brandy and puffing on his cigar; unable to resist the temptation of alcohol, she losses self control, signals the waiter to come forward and orders a double vodka with two slices of lime.
From the corner of his eye, Russell senses Yvette’s nervousness is atypical and has a gut feeling that she is hiding something. He watches the waiter place her drink on the table, but is engaged into a deep conversation with his client and is too preoccupied to discourage her from drinking.
The plane ticket that Jean has given her is being kept inside the inner pocket of her locked Louis Vuitton bag, the safest place that she can hide anything.
Yvette looks around her while devouring the vodka; the upscale cigar bar is filled with fashionably dressed patrons who appear distinguishly successful. The obvious look of wealth is displayed at each occupied table; Yvette unconsciously touches her diamond studded platinum necklace that she is wearing and adjusts it to ensure the four carat solitaire drop falls perfectly in the center above her cleavage.
A blonde woman who is sitting at the table next to theirs watches Yvette play with her necklace, then consciously flashes her enormous cushion cut yellow diamond solitaire engagement intentional attention sarcastically she asks her husband from across the table,
ring at Yvette. The flash catches Yvette’s
and casually yet “Russell darling, I love yellow diamonds! Look at that ring on her fingers” pointing impolitely at the woman’s finger, “so beautiful! It has to be at least sixteen carats! I want one too.” She announces.
Russell is interrupted from the intense conversation that he is having with his client, gazes at Yvette and forces a reluctant smile.
His client however, finds Yvette extremely adorable and beautiful in every single way, speaks out for Russell who seems to be lost with words,
“Good news Yvette, by the time I am done paying your husbands legal tabs, he can probably buy you a few of those sparkly yellow stones.” He jokes and raises his glass for a toast. With his attention reverted back to Russell, “To victory.”
Happier and in a better mood after her first glass of vodka, Yvette raises her nearly empty glass and proposes another toast, “To sparkly yellow stones.” She chuckles and gestures the waiter to bring her another drink.
“Bring her two of those” Russell orders “She is happier and nicer drunk than sober.” He jokes with an obvious grin.
Yvette looks at her husband with a straight face and ponders in her mind, that yellow diamond alone is worth a few hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps she can elope to Paris with her lover then sell it in order for her and Jean to live comfortably on for a while? But then again, what happens after that money runs out?
She does not see herself living in substandard conditions but on the other hand, she does not see herself living without Jean either.
Money and love, she must have both.
Chapter Twenty. “Bang, bang, bang!” Karina’s inspiration is rapidly dissipating by the interruption. Pounding on her door Amber screams, “open the door Karina, I know you are in there!”
Karina takes a deep breath and sighs. Shutting down her phone did not make Amber go away, it only brought her to the door. With a paintbrush in her hand she stands up and walks slowly to the door. Feeling a little annoyed by the interruption she opens the door slowly and raises an eyebrow with a peculiar smile, “It couldn’t wait huh.”
Amber grabs Karina by the arms and kicks the door shut behind her. She pushes Karina to the sofa and forces her to sit down,
“No it cannot wait Karina, it cannot wait.” Amber spurts out anxiously and cannot wait to break the news to Karina.
From the corridor, Karina’s neighbor – an older woman, hears Karina screaming wildly while she inserts her key into the doorknob of her apartment, while turning the doorknob, she sees Karina runs out of her home and dashes toward the elevator with a panicking expression on her face. “Is everything ok?” her neighbor shouts towards the elevator and hopes Karina can hear her. The elevator door opens and Karina steps inside, turns around quickly while pressing the ground level button,
“No” Karina screams and panics, “it is not ok.” On the pavement of the side street, Karina sees a cab driving up towards her and gestures it to stop. “Damn it!” she screams at the cab driver who pays no attention to her and continues driving away. With no other cabs in sight, she starts walking; appearing angry and anxious at the same time, she begins running and shouts into the empty space in front of her,
“How can you be so frigging selfish?” overwhelmed by what Amber has just told her, Karina cries while running as fast as she could.
As if a mad woman dashing through the streets, she starts screaming and pays no attention to the stares of the other pedestrians. “Three more blocks” she reassures herself and pauses to gasp for air then continues running again.
Nearly out of breath, she reaches the building where Adam lives and hurries through the lobby, marches straight through the hallway and presses on the call button for the elevator.
Walking slowly towards the door of Adam’s apartment, she is beginning to have second thoughts that perhaps she should not be there, maybe she is not welcomed there, or possibly, it is better for her to leave things as they are.
She rubs her temples and feels an emerging headache; doubting her choice of action she turns around and walks back towards the elevator but stops at the third step.
She hesitates and finally comes to the conclusion that for as long as she does not know the truth in its entirety, she will never gain inner peace.
She turns around and walks towards Adam’s apartment. At his door, she notices a small crack and that the door is not shut. Cautiously and gently she pushes the door open,
“Adam?” she whispers and looks around his quiet apartment and does not see anyone in sight. Magnetized towards a halfway opened bedroom door, she tip toes over and pushes the door open.
She sees an oddly familiar looking man sleeping in the bed; extremely fragile looking, he is bald and looks lifelessly pale. She sees an assortment of medicine bottles in different sizes on the bedside table and refocuses her attention on the pale looking man.
Stunned speechless with mouth wide open, she quickly covers her mouth with both hands and comes to realize that she knows the man,
“Alex?” she bites on her knuckles as hard as she can. Fighting her tears over the most horrific sight she has ever seen, the man who has walked out of her life, disappeared for no apparent reason and has refused to answer any of her calls or text messages is laying right in front her eyes.
He has lost the battle against chronic lymphocytic leukemia and life is quickly fading away from him. He is dying.
Karina is shocked frozen at the sight, leans against the door post and cries in silence. “I am sorry” she mouths quietly at Adam, “oh my God, I am so sorry for doubting you.” Distraught and saddened beyond words, she whispers a silent prayer and does not hear Adam entering and walking up from behind.
“The doctors say he has about two more months to live.” Adam whispers softly and places a comforting hand on Karina’s shoulder, “he has tried his impossible to fight that dreadful leukemia over the past year. We tried everything. Believe me, he has tried everything.”
Karina turns around and hugs Adam. In tears she listens to him silently, “Nothing is working and he is giving up. He refused hospice care and begged me to bring him home. It is his wish and I have to respect that. It kills me everyday to watch him live through all this pain, and it is exactly because of this, that he does not want you to know.” Adam continues empathically, “He prefers that you hate him than to continue loving him and to go through hell on a daily basis. He says that his sickness is a battle that he must fight on his own. He does not want you to suffer alongside.” With tears in his eyes, he continues sadly,
“I promised him that I will not tell you, so I did not. I only told Amber.” He leans back and looks at her, “Alex is dying.”
Both emotional wrecks, they sob in each other’s arms and Adam finally toughens up, “Karina do you still love Alex?”
Karina is saddened beyond words and chokes, “Yes I do.” Tears roll down her cheeks and she clenches her teeth.
“In that case I will leave the two of you alone.” He wipes away his own tears, turns around and leaves the apartment sobbing to himself.
Flooded with tears Karina moves slowly towards Alex, she gazes at him for the longest time while swallowing her tears and kneels down next to the bed. She touches his hand with her fingertips and emotions cascade upon her. Distressed beyond words can describe, she holds his hand firmly and rests her head on the bed.
Hours have gone by and darkness has taken over the once illuminated afternoon sky. Karina falls asleep while holding Alex’s hand and is awakened by an abrupt motion.
Alex screams in excruciating pain and sits up abruptly in the bed, he opens his eyes and can faintly see that a woman in a pink dress is holding his hand and kneeling on the floor beside him. Juggling between the pain the surprise, he screams out in fright, pulls his hand away from her grip and finally comes to realize that Adam has broken his promise,
“Oh my God Karina, I do not want you to see me like this. You must go, you must go now!” he orders her to leave while scrambling for the bottle of Fludarabine and struggles to turn the bottle cap.
“Let me help you!” she offers as calmly as possible and reaches for the bottle. “No!” he moves the bottle away from her, “just leave, please leave Karina. I must fight this battle alone!”
Karina takes a step back and looks at Adam; he turns his face towards the other side of the room and avoids her stare while he swallows the pills.
Driven by love, Karina says adamantly “No! I will not leave you. They say you are losing the battle, I say we have to proof them wrong!” her heart is tied in knots.
Sternly, Alex turns around and looks at Karina with the most serious expression on his face, “Karina there is no ‘we’ anymore. ‘I’ will proof them wrong. You must continue living your life and if God decides to grace me with a healthy life again, then you and I will have a future. If that does not happen then you must remember that I left you because I love you, and I still do.”
Karina feels weak in her knees as she finally learns the real reason why he left her. Her heart breaks again in a different way this time. If there is anything that she can sacrifice in exchange for Alex’s recovery, she would gladly do so, including giving up her own. This is how deeply she loves him.
She leaves his room to get a glass of water for him and returns to see him climbing out of bed.
Too weak to stand up, Alex stumbles and is about to fall on his knees. Karin
a springs forward to catch him; grabbing a firm hold of him and pulling him up, she looks intently into his blood shot eyes and is speechless.
“This is why I do not want you to know.” Alex balances himself and stands up for his dignity, “Karina please respect my wish, you must leave and continue living your life the way you should.”
Karina finally understands Alex’s perspective. He is not selfish; contrarily he is selfless and wants to free her from emotional pain and daily agony while he fights for his own existence.
If he would be blessed with a miraculous survival, then she would tell him everything that has happened, including the episode on their unborn baby. For the time being, he must focus on fighting his battle against leukemia, the rest must wait.
“Alex” she tries to motivate him, “I will leave only if you promise to take me to Bora Bora for my birthday.”
Shaken and shivering, he manages to laugh and gazes into her beautiful eyes over the sweetest silence. He can see that her love for him has not subsided and she can see the pain and agony from the windows of his soul.
Weakly, he turns around and searches for his wallet, hands her his credit card, “Book it.” He affirms, “I will survive.”
Chapter Twenty One. Stealing time away from their hectic schedules, Amber, Taylor and Karina gets together for lunch at their favorite restaurant Rosa Mexicano on Lincoln Road.
It has been nearly a year since their last visit and many things have changed in each of their lives.
Taylor is now the assistant editor for Miami Life Magazine and is rewriting her book “Broken” for the forth time. She cherishes Ivan’s advice and trusts him confidently. He is the only man whom she has ever trusted and confined in and her perception of men is gradually shifting. No longer stereotyping, she has quit her random behavior and sexual preferences; maturing into a responsible woman, she is no longer defiant and is learning to consider different sets of perspectives. Beginning to appreciate diversity she has become less judgmental and more receptive to others’ needs.
Has Cupid Gone Mad?: War Of Hearts Page 9
