| Fan Fiction |
by Chandra
She had been such a jerk, Tavia told herself, her heart sinking as she remembered how badly she’d treated Ron. She now realized that some things were more important such as their friendship than getting angry at him. Tavia wondered if he’d ever forgive her. However, she was still furious at him for his action few nights ago. She had so much to deal with, her mother’s illness, and now him. Can’t he understand that?
Her composure crumpled. Tavia was getting what she wanted. Ron was going away.
“I’m sorry.” She attempted her voice a mere croak. And she didn’t bother to explain.
Ron threw one last, excruciating look. “So am I.”
Ron turned and stepped away from the door. Tavia stood motionlessly in front of her mother’s room. The tears she’d been holding in burst forth like a waterfall, and Tavia prayed he would walk away without seeing them. But Ron saw the tears, heard the weep. It pained him tremendously to see her cry. He had come to the hospital to apologize and to make up with her again, and he can’t believe it turned out to be like this.
Ron immediately ran back and put his arms around Tavia and hugged her tightly, wanting to hug away all the hurt.
“I’m sorry.” Ron paused. He put his face up against her hair, and Tavia could hear his soft breathing. They were no closer tighter than they were standing, but somehow they seemed to be.
“I’d begun to see everything through your eyes, to feel the pains you have to suffer as if it were happening to me. It scared me to death to feel so much for you. It scares me still, Tavia.” Tavia could feel the tears rising in her. Ron held her face against his.
Her anger was fading. All Tavia could think about was the aching need in his voice, the stark hunger in his eyes. Despair was a sharp knife piercing her heart each time Tavia perceived the flicker of pain crossing Ron’s face.
“Thanks for understanding,” Tavia said, slipping her hand into his. Ron gave her hand a warm, tight squeeze – the squeeze of a man who knew how to hold on.
“I’m not going anywhere, Tavia, I promise you.” Tavia knew he meant it.
“I love you,” he said softly, then moved his mouth close to her. The touch of his was so gentle, the kiss so sweet, she trembled. “It’s okay,” Ron said, “we’re going to be together and get through this.”
His arms wrapped around Tavia, and he kissed her again and again. She sighed with relief, and then laid her head against his shoulder. The sky was turning a soft baby blue, and the sun was riding high over the medical building. It was a perfect day to start over again.
‘Tavia!’ A voice out of nowhere disrupted the lovely moments of her with Ron. Tavia turned around to see a doctor in his mid twenty. And he looked awfully familiar to her. Her emotions swung wildly between euphoria and astonishment. She was ecstatic and yet shocked staring at the man as he too staring straight back at her. What had happened? Tavia felt dizzy as her body began to sway and the world around her rotated uncontrollably.
____
There was a place between life and death, and Jimmy Li knew it now. It was called “limbo,” and it was the most frustrating place to be, halfway between earth and heaven. It felt more like hell, with all worries and problems of life and none of the ease and relaxation of death. And then Jimmy didn’t care. What was the point of lying in this damn stupid hospital for almost twenty years anyway? No, he was going to give up. Death will come to him and so he will surrender. And thus his tragedy began on that month of June 1987.
“You were like the vision of an angel to me; I had you up on the pedestal. And now that vision is shattered – it’s as if you shot me in my heart! How could you do this to me, Ruby? How could you?”
Nothing Jimmy could have said would have made her feel worse. Hot tears rushed to her and spilled out of her eyes.
“Oh, Jimmy, I’m so sorry!” She sobbed. “I didn’t want to do anything to hurt you – this marriage with Alec was not something I was looking for or wanted to occur. I kept telling my parents about us, but after a while they were much too strong to fight against. You know, I love you – I really do!” She put her hand on his shoulder, and he turned back to face her.
He saw her tears and took her in his arms. “I still love you, Ruby. I don’t know why, but I do.”
He kissed her with a tremendous passion, and she kissed him back, her heart aching for having caused him so much pain.
“We could run away, your parents won’t know.”
“No, I can’t. I’m already engaged to someone else, and I will marry him in few months.”
“You can’t mean that, Ruby! Not when I love you so much!” Jimmy stared at her, his eyes full of anguish, and for a moment she was tempted to back down from her stance. But something inside of her knew that the decision was right for her. They stayed up half the night, talking about it over and over, and Jimmy used all this tremendous powers of persuasion to make her see things differently. Ruby didn’t waver. She knew she had to sacrifice her love for him even if it meant losing Jimmy. Her parents had threatened her that if she ran away with Jimmy, they will find Jimmy and make sure he suffered. And Ruby knew she can’t let it happen to him.
“Ruby, whatever it is, let’s talk about it.” She had taken a step back, and her hand was on the edge of the door. He could tell she was getting ready to shut him out. “Ruby, does this have anything to do with your parents?” The tears that welled up in her eyes told him that it did. “Why don’t we meet, I could make your parents like me. I could beg and ask them for your marriage.” he said.
But Ruby only shook her head. “I can’t talk about this now. Please go home. Go back to Taiwan and don’t come visit me anymore.”
And when Ruby shut the door, it was with a slam but with a heavy clunk of something ending. And then her parents were there in the house. They had heard everything. They ran past her, opened the door, and got outside of the house.
With panic, Ruby scurried after her parents, hoping that Jimmy was already gone. But to her devastation, he was still there. Her parents ordered the servants to lock her inside the house. She screamed, yelled, and sobbed, but to no avail. They already had done something terrible to him because she knew. That night she went to sleep and she dreamt about it. It was painful.
Around midnight, Ruby sneaked out of the house, and there was no sight of Jimmy. She only smelled the stench of blood, and saw the color of redness. Ruby closed her eyes and let the tears fall. He had gone. She leaned her weight against the wall and looked up at the stars. The wind was blowing stronger now, shifting a blanket of gray fog so that it spread across the night, blotting out stars and muffling sound. A fine drizzle began to rain down on her. And she stood there, letting the rain wet her body. A part of her was dying.
____
“Are you hungry? We could eat while chatting.” Raymond suggested, but Rain had already shaken her head.
Suddenly, her stomach growled and she smiled in embarrassment. “But I’m hungry, my stomach is screaming at me for not feeding it.” He made a gesture at pouting in a funny behavior.
Rain laughed and her laughter bubbled up, soft and melodic, warming Raymond even more, filling him completely with gladness. They talked easily the rest of the way to a restaurant few blocks away.
As they were walking across the street toward the front door of the restaurant, Raymond attempted to make another joke about doctor. She laughed again. Raymond’s dry sense of humor broke the ice between them. Yet Raymond also heard the note of utter sadness in her voice when she spoke to him as he opened the door for her. “Thanks Mr. Lam.”
After the foods were brought out, they ate for a while in silence.
Then, “You don’t mind telling me your relationship with Mr. Li is?” Rain asked, steeling herself.
She was on the edge of inquisitiveness, especially with this man who was being so nice to her, and she didn’t know what his intention was. But Rain sensed he was somehow sincere and relaxed in her company. He was talking about deeper things than his work, revealing his thoughts.
“That fact is,” he said, as if deciding suddenly to leap from the highest board. “he is my uncle. I don’t know what had happened to him in the past, but my father had told me that he had been in the hospital for almost twenty years already when he was almost beaten to death by a group of people.”
Raymond didn’t give a chance to say the inadequate words that were all that could be said in response to his.
“He never recovered from this calamity.” Raymond took a deep breath and then seemed to shudder, as if shaking off the memories. Raymond knew he was lying to her, well, not completely anyway, but he had no choice.
Rain wondered about Jimmy’s accidental tragedy. But it was more than that. Something else. Love life perhaps? The atmosphere was also working on her. Raymond’s charisma was. There was sympathy about him. There was mystery, if not a secret he was trying to keep inside of him. He could have dealt with those secrets with his close friends or someone else; instead he was having a conversation with her. She assumed. And Rain suddenly wanted to know everything about him at once. She had not the patience for normal-speed getting-to-know-you. She wanted every aspect of Raymond, every particle of his mind and memory, downloaded into her brain by some fancy computer of the constantly promised cyber-future. And the thoughts scared her terrifically.
Raymond decided to change subject. If they continued on the topic of Jimmy Li, soon and eventually, Rain will find out the truth behind Jimmy’s tragedy. “I want to know about your world,” Raymond said, aware that it was a strange thing to say. But Rain didn’t seem to find it odd.
“Struggled, I think. That comes first. Compulsion to escape from reality. Seclusion that it can’t be done. That happens every day, believe it or not.” Rain paused a moment, as if battling herself that she should reveal her true identity toward a man who she did not know very well. “I am an orphan and I wake up each morning wondering who my parents are, or if they’re still alive or not. It’s pitiful huh? But at the beginning of every day there is nothing but wondering. I don’t expect you to feel like that.”
Rain looked hard at him. She wanted him to understand her. If he knew what she was talking about, then he, too, was an experience If, however, she came out with some line about jumping out of bed with joy in her heart just longing for the day and its ‘challenges,’ then his world and hers could never touch.
Raymond didn’t respond immediately, and Rain stole another look. His expression was pensive, but not offended. “I’ve never experienced all the things you have gone through, but I could imagine how it would be like.” Raymond said seriously.
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Chandra
06/12/07