Preface:

An agony is not necessarily a bad thing.  It tortures or even wrecks a person’s soul, but it also let that person arise from ruins, and thrive with a stronger mind.

After a person steps into a brand new stage of life, she shouldn’t forget reviewing her past experiences and the lessons she has learned from.  This is simply because the past can always remind her of who she is, where she is from and what she is pursuing.

  The Story:

It was on the first month of new millennium .  The weather was dry and cold, a typical one during this time of a year at this midwest city.

Getting back after dinning out, Feye decided to have a warm bath while David was working on his business staffs.

She was soaked in bubble bath and let circling water rub her body.  She closed her eyes and tried to relax by taking long breathes.  They have been trying to make each of their reunions as passionate as possible since it was always short thus precious, future was unpredictable for them.

The scenes – those past moments with him were flying around in front of her.   She was recalling the first time they were shaking hands at her hometown, their first hug and kiss in his hotel room.  She was recalling his first phone call less than an hour after she arrived at this country, the first gift he mailed to her on the first Christmas time, and music CDs of her favorite musicians and the books of her favorite writers to help her kill time at graduate school.  She was still saving those notes and letters he hand wrote to her while she was a student.

She was recalling their numerous nights together just as crazy as dry wood on a fierce fire.  Growing in an environment dominated by rigid traditional rules, and getting out of a lifeless marriage, she was desperate to taste something exciting on this new land far away from her old suffocating world.  He was the one who brought her the adventures and opportunities.

Here he was again, just for her!

She stood out from the bathtub, through a foggy mirror she was staring at her own naked body, she saw fair smooth skin, nice facial features with a pair of sharp bright eyes, long skinny legs, flat tummy.  She appreciated her remaining beauty even after going through a very rough road before getting to this point.  But a trace of unhappiness was hinted by her habitually frowning expression, which she didn’t know why.

She put on that pale blue robe which he bought her a few years back, its silky texture always gave her calmness.  David was already on the bed, waiting for her.  She turned off light and laid down besides him, sensing his smell and breath.  He hugged her into his arms and started kissing her lips and gently stroking her face in the way she had been so familiar.

“You are prettier and prettier,” he murmured while peeling off her robe.  Longing for intimacy after so long, she hugged and kissed him back.  When their bodies were intertwined, a lust was awaking inside her.  She was tightly embracing his body against hers, and moaning while they were together rising over a peak, as if the world around them completely disappeared.

They were laying there quietly, exhausted but satisfied.  She nibbled on his figures, which was one of her after – plays.  In the darkness something hard and cold shocked her like electricity, that was his wedding ring.  She felt awkward with a flash of anger.

“He is still wearing that even sleeping with me,” she bit her lips in silence.

“It is kind of late, I am tired.  You have a early flight to catch,” she said and turned her back to him.  She felt him putting his arms around her chest and kissing her back neck.  He definitely knew how to turn her back on again.

“I am tired,” she repeated impatiently, elbowing him away, grabbing the comforter and wrapping her whole body into it.  He sighed lightly, but she could still hear.  This was the first time she refused him, his wedding ring, even though she had seen numerous times before, turned to a big deal tonight for some reasons.

She laid there quietly.  Whenever she closes her eyes, those scenes between them appearing in front of her as fresh as the day before.

Feye saw David as her emotional core, and the only one whose shoulders she could lean on while others turned away from her.  She used to be so gratified and as happy as a butterfly dancing around whenever he came to see her; but then she had to lick her broken heart alone while seeing him driving away.  With the time going, those emotional ups and downs had been draining her energy and gradually wearing out her excitements on other opportunities.

It was long past midnight.  Not feeling any sleepy, she got up, put on robe and went downstairs to living room.  The bright moonlight made everything in the room visible.  There was a picture of them together on an end table besides couch.  It was a few years ago when they were at the Lake Michigan, they looked so young and happy back then.

But that night something prompted her to put the picture face down.

She sat on the couch besides a huge stuffed Hallo Kitty, which was one of his gifts to her.  She had been hugging it whenever she was on the couch, but on that moment the poor kitty became something she used to release her anger.  She picked up the kitty by one of its ears and threw it against a wall.

Feye knew from the very start, they would not be lifelong companions. They would end their joint journey sometime in the future.  Separation was a pain but for them inevitable.  Part of her was still obsessed to the illusion of some miracles unfolded in the future; another part was disappointed by his seeming carelessness on what was going on in her life during last few years.

Sometimes she felt being fooled by life, a person she was in love for so long was actually not too much into her.  She had been driving towards a dead end, but couldn’t stop as a moth rushing into fire without turning back.

Imaging the life without him, her heart was aching, tear was running down her face.  She buried her face into a cushion and started sobbing.

“He doesn’t belong to me, he doesn’t have the same feelings to me as I have to him,” she cried.  “I am just another female he is using to fulfill his fantasies outside his family.  Who the hell knows how many women as me he had or is having?”  “A cheater usually plays games with multiples instead of only one”.

Feye was having a bee in her bonnet and couldn’t get rid of those weird thoughts.

“His wife, a poor thing, is taking care of his home and children while he is on another woman’s bed.  What a shame!”.

Realizing that she was actually not on the top of his “victim hierarchy”, a trace of ease seemed to stop her from going further into a dreadful mental state.  Feye wiped off tear and laid down on the couch.

A glimpse of light told her it was almost breaking dawn.  She smelled something strange in the house, like rotten egg.  She guessed it might be from the kitchen next to the living room.  Her eye lids became heavier and heavier, finally she fell asleep on the couch, kitty – less.

“Feye, wake up!”  She heard David’s voice.  She didn’t know how long David had been sitting besides her.

“Are you ok?” he used his fingers to comb her hair aside and looked at her face.

“I am just short of sleep, otherwise fine.”   She sat up, immediately feeling dizzy and nauseous.

“You forgot to turn off your car yesterday, it was running whole night in the garage!”  said David.  So the rotten egg she smelled was actually from car exhaust!

“Where are we?  Heaven or hell?”  She asked, looking around with blurring eyesight.

“We are at your home.”  David said, hugging her into his arms.

“Are we still alive?”

“We are indeed!”

The poor kitty had been placed back to its original place and was smiling to her as nothing happened.  But their picture was still faced down on the end table.  He might have already noticed that.

David grabbed a warm comforter to cover her up before he opened the backdoor and windows to let fresh air get into the house.  It was still a little dark outside and the overcast sky was showing the sign of upcoming snowstorm.   The cold air was blowing her rose – patterned curtain into a bell shape, just like a lady wearing a skirt, desperately wanting to walk into the room but couldn’t.

They were laying down on the couch, waiting for the smell of rotten egg to diffuse away.  Feye placed her head on David’s chest and listened to his heart beating through his sweatshirt.  Raised in a cold and silent household, Feye had never learned how to properly express her emotional frustrations.  Especially on that dawn she was paranoid about sharing what was in her mind with him.  She was hoping he could say or ask something or anything.  She thought whatever he said would help calm her mind, before making any decisions either continuously to wait for him to show up next time or to completely terminate what had been going on between them.

But he was just quietly stroking through her hair and and kissing her forehead; this was his usual way to hide what he was really thinking.  She started feeling annoyed, speechless as something stacked in her throat, her lips also started twitching.  Subconsciously she was occupied by the idea that everything happened with a reason, the incident on previous night seemed to be a cascade to something much severe if she kept running down on the same path.

Feye drove David to the nearby international airport.  They had gone through such reunion / parting many times before, but this one felt different for her.

There were still couple of hours before his flight time, they sat in a coffee shop.  She avoided his eyes by constantly sipping coffee.  After a while finally she became courageous enough to face him.

“You know, I love you, I still do,” she said and paused, “but I can’t continue like this,” her voice broke and she started choking.

David didn’t look so surprised, he knew he couldn’t offer her anything, as a result, couldn’t stop her from going in any direction she chose.

“Feye, take a good care of yourself after I leave,” David said, wiping off a drip of coffee from a corner of her month.  This reminded her of the first time they were having coffee together, he wiped off coffee from a corner of her month, she smiled and blushed, and fell in love with him right on that moment.  Just a few years later, things had gone so differently, as if going through decades.

She grabbed his hand and pressed onto her face, for one last time she wished to absorb his warmth.  But the ring, his wedding ring, sent out another “electrical shock”.

“I will, and you do the same,” her voice became as cold as the weather outside, and put his hand down.

He took off his glasses, Feye saw tear rolling out from his eyes.  Regardless of the reasons to trigger her series of strange behaviors and this decision, as stubborn as he knew her over years, he had no choices but accepted what she decided to do.

For a few seconds, she wondered what if he said something like “I love you”?  Would that change her mind?  She was afraid so, but his ring would drag him to another woman’s bed within next 24 hours, and he would do the same things as he did with her on previous night on her bed.  When this thought hit Feye’s brain, she almost vomited coffee out.  The discomfort from the “electrical shock” turned to a trace of sympathy on another woman – his wife, the one who had to swallow something really disgusting!

So she didn’t want to give him any chances to spill out anything unexpected.

“You should get going,” Feye stood up and forced out a smile to David.

They hugged, suddenly she noticed his frailer figure and more grey hairs than before.  Seven years had passed, she spent countless nights alone waiting for him and he flew across ocean to see her.  They had been repetitively roaming on the same orbit over and over.

She was tired, so was he.

She stood there watching him passing through airport security.  Her heart sank down, since that was their farewell, as he was dying away from her life forever!  She didn’t call him back, their happy interactions were unforgeable but also left her with deeper sorrows afterwards.  Even though David was the only one to witness her thriving from the past to the current, she had to rip off the old “Band-Aid” between them and steer her life path away from his, it was painful but worthy.

Feye felt that the moment of seeing him off wasn’t so hard, which might be just like numbing in a surgery to remove a piece of body parts, but could be soon followed by separation anxiety for a period of time.  She believed that time could heal any wounds, her passion to him, although had been as blazing as a blooming red rose, would eventually turn into something as insignificant as a trace of mosquito blood on a wall.  The past with him would be retreated into her deepest memory and could be shared with her grandkids many, many years later.

Feye walked out of the airport.  The expected snowstorm had started.  She raised her face towards icy snow shower and closed her eyes.  She was letting the innocent gift from nature to clean her mind and body, before she stepped into a brand new life alone but bravely!

        

  Postscript:

Writing is not only a process of self – healing, but also of self – protection.  No matter what the impact from the past is, as long as it can be written down, the person who is trapped in the situation will be able to jump out of the pain and transfer from a confused participant into clear – headed witness.

Note: the story is purely fictional, don’t fit in!