| Fan Fiction |
by Chandra
“Ruby?” She didn’t respond, didn’t seem to hear him. Jimmy half turned to look behind them.
At first, all he saw was a shadowy figure and light flooding over it because the sun had not yet fully risen. Then there was an abrupt, fluid shifting of the light, and the silhouette of a man appeared.
Jimmy caught her gaze, and his heart gave an odd leap at the expression in her eyes. Not the adoration he’d seen earlier, but a darker look. Wariness. Worry. He couldn’t quite read her feelings.
When the doctor left them and had approached the man, Ruby turned to face him.
“Jimmy, what we had was a memory, a tale of tragic love. I’m married, don’t you understand?” Her voice sounded distant and cold.
“I won’t,” He murmured, ignoring the detachment in her tone.
“You won’t what?”
Jimmy took another step, and his hand gently cupped her cheek. “I won’t let you out of my life again.”
Ruby wanted to close her eyes and press herself to him, to melt herself against him. She could barely breathe. Still, a voice inside her warned her to stop hurting him.
“Forgive me, Jimmy, and move on with your life.” That was all she could say to control her emotions.
“I already forgave you. The sad thing is that my heart never moves on.”
Feeling suspended between joy and regret, and an odd sense that she had been a heartbeat away from understanding something that was desperately important, Ruby watched him walk away.
And then terror overcame her when Ruby understood where he was going. Jimmy was approaching her husband and the doctor.
___
Rain drew a shuddering breath, and then slowly opened her eyes. They were so pale a gray; they were like faint shadows on ice, strikingly surrounded by inky black lashes. Dark smudges of exhaustion lay under those eyes, and her voice shook with strain when she said. “I beg you, please. Just leave me alone.”
“I can’t. I can’t.” It was like a mantra to ward off the unbearable, and Ron whispered it over and over as he closed his eyes and shut out the mocking sigh of the reality that now lived in his nightmares.
“I can’t just leave you here.” Even though the morning had arrived, both Ron and Rain were conscious of the environment around them. Hours ago, they had not even realized that they were in the hotel. Now, they were still in astonishment at the situation.
And Ron was still shocked at his behavior. He hadn’t recovered from the finding of his unspeakable act. Such innocence to have been destroyed by a monster. Sick fear coiled in the pit of his stomach and crawled on its belly through his mind, and Ron was barely aware of speaking aloud when he said huskily, “I will take care of you. I know I cannot ask for your forgiveness but this is my responsibility.”
“Haven’t you done enough?” Rain whispered. Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall. Her shaking hands twisted together in her lap, and she breathed as though struggling against an oppressive weight crushing her lungs.
"Leave it alone, all right? Just - leave it alone." Rain didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to think about it. And most of all, she didn't want to see the rapist’s face anymore. It was the constant reminder of her ill fate.
"I can't do that, I’m a monster…I’m not a human being if I just use alcohol as an excuse.” Ron punched the wall with a strong force. His fists were stinging and blood started to drop onto the floor. He allowed some of the rage inside him to boil over. It was a sick pain in his heart.
“I love her, and yet she broke my heart. And this is the result from a broken heart?” He cried.
Rain barely heard him. Her voice rose, anguished, as she silently asked the contemptuous questions that had been whispering in the back of her mind for hours now. Why did it have to happen to her?
“I am supposed to hate you, and if you’re thinking blaming yourself will make my life better, it won’t. Instead, it makes me even more miserable.”
"What kind of man do you think I am? Do you think it's so easy for me to ignore the fact that I commit a crime, to just push you aside because I was drunk and heartbroken and didn’t know what to do?” He was yelling, but more like to him instead of her.
Rain wanted to say she wouldn’t hate him at all, but she wasn’t sure it was true. She wasn’t sure she didn’t hate him a little bit even now, for tying her emotions into knots. For wrecking her life and certainties. For taking away the purity and strength in her to live.
___
October 1987
“You’ll stay and be with me no matter what,” Alec muttered against her lips.
He raised his head and stared down at her, gray eyes molten. Alec framed her face with his hands, and Ruby could feel them shaking.
Fiercely, he said, “I won’t be so careful this time, do you understand? I won’t bite back what I want to say because I’m afraid it isn’t what you want to hear. I won’t stop myself from touching you because I’m not sure you want to be touched. And most of fall, I won’t let you shut me out of the parts of your life that matter to you.”
Ruby reached up to touch his face. “I love you.” She hadn’t meant to say those words. She had pledged to herself not to say it to him. And in the end, her heart had fallen for this man.
Alec caught his breath, and then kissed her again, his mouth hard now, insistent. He lifted her, carried her from the living room to the bedroom.
Ruby pulled breath into lungs starving for air. Alec lowered his head and covered her mouth with his. She heard a broken sound, and realized it came from her, from deep inside where something had let go. She felt the hardness of his body against hers, felt her fingers slide into his hair and her mouth come alive beneath his, and there was something so familiar and intimate and wildly arousing in his touch, his kiss, the strength of his arms around her, that she wanted to cling to him with all her might, all her will.
She had let go. Everything. The past. The tragedy of her loved ones. Now, only will Alec be in her life, and so this unborn child she was about to have.
___
The second Tavia opened her eyes; she knew something was wrong, deadly and terribly wrong. Another being was beside her, and the sound of his soft snore made her realize that she wasn’t alone.
Tavia was on her feet before she realized she had moved, hands clenched into fists, so desperate to strike out. But before getting angry at herself, Tavia snatched her clothes on the carpet and put them on.
Also, she was aware that he was sitting up on the bed, still in daze. She hardly knew who he was. Her whole being was revolved only around Bosco.
Unfortunately, headache wasn’t the only thing that bothered her. Panic was crawling around in her head; the sense of being smothered, of not having enough room, not nearly enough room, paralyzed her. Tavia took a deep breath. She was already cold with the numbness of shock.
“What happened to us?” She managed to ask when she noticed he turned around to face her. Her mouth was dry, her tongue hardly able to move. From Raymond’s expression she could tell that the truthful answer was impossible. She was burned by reality so severely that she would never face herself or anyone again. And then the words and feelings seemed to run away from her in chaos, and she began to sob quietly in the empty silence.
Tavia didn’t know what was going on. Not anymore. She knew nothing. She didn’t even know herself. She didn’t know the silly adolescent she had become, obsessed with herself and her “growth”, her pleasure, her entitlement to love. That nonsense had resulted in this disaster.
Tavia’s heart heaved. Oh, God, what had she done? What was all this idiocy? Why was she lying in this bed with this man? This kind of life should have been with Bosco. Romance should, then and there, have been given a decent burial. Its place should have been taken by hard work, the love of family, duty, and sacrifice. Instead, she had indulged herself.
She had grabbed at passion and deception. She had fallen for all the seductive lies in the self-help books; the one was owed a good time, that happiness was a birthright. Now the price had to be paid, and it was exorbitant. Bosco! Bosco had been the beginning and the end. His name sucked her from the whirlpool of thought. Yet he was also the one that caused her all this. He broke her heart and now left her nothing but bitterness.
“How did it happen…?” inquired the confused Tavia once more.
The silly desire for details was simply a forlorn attempt to fill the sandwich of grief. How could it matter? But sometime, soon or later, there would be other emotions besides the shock and the disbelief, the denial and the numbness. There would be the search for scapegoats. Blame would have to be apportioned, and even now Tavia knew who would receive its largest share. She would. But there would be enough left over for Raymond. He would not escape the unscathed from the situation, not through any fault of his own but because of her coming to him.
__
“Alec, I’d like to talk to you,” Rick said immediately, leaving Ruby and Jimmy. He took the opportunity to usher Alec out of the garden, so his friend won’t see his wife being affectionate with another man.
The loyal husband in the doorway was in his mid-forties, handsome in a dark, rather saturnine fashion, and completely surprised by Rick’s sudden action.
Before following Rick, Alec took a glance at Ruby with another man. Nonetheless, he kept quiet as he waited for Rick Lam to begin the conversation.
Instead of the formal greeting or the friendly discussion, Rick went straight to the point.
“Your wife’s condition worsens. Although she seems to be doing well, but one of the kidneys has become weakened.” Rick paused as he stared into his friend’s face.
“I see.” Alec’s voice was matter-of-fact, betraying no concern or animosity. But there was something, the doctor thought, something he felt more than heard or saw.
“But there’s a chance for her. We have found the donor of the kidney. So as long as the process of kidney transplantation goes effectively, the surgery will be successful.”
He stopped, waiting for the information to be digested in Alec’s brain. He didn’t want to give his friend hope and then to be crushed away. He was simply doing his job based on his knowledge and capability. After all, he was only a doctor, not a miracle of savior.
“However, there’s also a possibility that her body won’t be able to accept the new kidneys, thus the surgery…”
The doctor broke off, and Alec didn’t have to hear the words to know how his friend had silently finished that sentence. He knew that Alec had been clinging to what was very likely an unrealistic hope.
Rick Lam knew better. He didn’t want to know it, but he did. And he wasn’t about to offer that cold knowledge to Alec Su. Stranger things had happened, and there was always a chance, however slim. And he couldn’t take that away from Alec. There was time enough for brutal reality if and when it had to be faced.
__
Raymond shook his head in regret, and then dripped his head forward into his hands and stepped back from her. The cold metal of the table in the living room pressed into her back as she gathered her control.
“I’m sorry, Tavia. I…” His voice was so hoarse she could barely hear him. “I don’t know what happened…” He gestured around the messy room as if he’d committed a cardinal sin. Few bottles of wine were cluttered everywhere on the floor.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” She said in a surprisingly strong voice. “In case you didn’t notice, I am at fault too.”
Tavia sank back against the cool leather, stunned. “What am I going to do? I feel like jumping into the ocean.”
She clung to the edge of the love seat, the pain she’d felt last night when Bosco broke her heart resurfaced, shifting slightly at the emotions thickening her voice.
Tavia was numb, but not even that could protect her from the horrible reflection of her and Raymond’s one night stand. A sound of pain escaped her, and she closed her eyes for a moment. Raymond seemed about to apologize again, and then threw up his hands when he heard the doorbell chime.
__
Bosco sat there for several minutes staring into the fire at the Orphan House. Then he pulled out his wallet and opened the section where he kept photographs.
She hated posing for pictures and always had, so this was a candid shot. He had surprised her at the beach, catching her in a short that showed her splendid body to advantage. The click of the shutter had just missed her scowl; his own glee at finally capturing her on film after several frustrated attempts had amused her, and she had laughed, giving him a wonderful picture. It was the only picture of Rain he had.
“Where are you?” Bosco murmured. “Don’t you know I’m worried sick?”
Hours ago, he had arrived at the Orphan House, but soon realized that Rain wasn’t there. Afterward, Bosco also discovered that she was not home last night and Mrs. Wu, the administrator, had decided to kick her out. Now, Bosco was getting apprehensive and troubled by her whereabouts.
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Chandra
08/08/07