Kim continued on trying the door, but it wouldn’t open. All she could hear was the vague noises of an electric guitar which she knew would drown out the sounds of her banging on the door.

Gerald was sitting down on the ground, sitting patiently. “No one’s going to hear you. The door locks and can only be opened from the outside. Bobby keeps it that way; he can catch any thieves like that.”

She turned to look at him all calm. “Bobby? You’re on first-name basis with the manager? How long have been here?”

“A week. I needed to make some extra cash. Isabelle got a job waitressing, I thought I’d contribute to rent.” He explained.

Kim stayed standing, leaning on the door. “You guys live together? How are they?” If she was going to be honest, she was worried about them. Isabelle became a good friend, and she admired at how protective Chris was over her.

“They’re fine. Isabelle misses you. You became really important to her for the last couple of months. She often jokes about calling you or coming here.” He said. “I told her no…it’d only confuse you.”

“Like you coming back here, right?” She stared at his brown eyes which still gave her butterflies. Damn him for having that power over her. “What are you dong here?”

He sighed, getting up and grabbing a can. “I told you, I wanted to see you.”

“Kinda contradicts the whole ‘Forget about me’ part of your letter, don’t you think?” She tried the door again, and then just fell to the ground, stretching her legs out in front of her. “I don’t know why I came. I thought I…I could talk to you, and finally put things to rest between us.” She didn’t looks at him.

He looked at her. Her hair was up, and she was wearing minimal make-up which gave light to her natural beauty. Kim definitely still had his heart. “I know you hate me,” he assumed with her not being able to look at him.

She laughed, “That’s the funny thing. No matter how angry I am at you, no matter what you did, no matter how hurt I got…I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”

Time went on in silence, and the music still blasted through the door. “It’s only 7:45, the club ends at 11.”

“You don’t think they’ll run out of food?” Kim asked.

“They might,” Gerald said. He took a deep breath in, and closed his eyes in satisfaction. “You haven’t changed your perfume.”

Kim looked down at herself. “No, I haven’t.”

He smiled, “I remember you were wearing my shirt and you spayed it with your perfume. When you gave it back, I didn’t put it in the wash, I just kept with me. I still have it.” He stared at her at the other end. “I try sometimes to find the smell, but everyday gets harder and harder.” His smile faded. “I missed you. I still do.”

“I’m sorry for yelling at you. I guess I just blew up. I haven’t talked about you since you left. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. This one is still fresh.” She might as well apologize, it was the only thing that might make this bearable.

“I think about you everyday. Wonder what you’re doing, if you’re happy. I sometimes feel like an idiot. I’m only nineteen, it seems like I’m putting too much on what we had.” Talking in the passed tense was like salt put on the wounds. “But then I remember that what we had was real, and you meant everything to me.”

She breathed in, “I wouldn’t let myself think about you. It made everything so much harder. I had to pass by the empty pool house everyday, I had to see Alessandra at school everyday…” she choked and swallowed the tears. “I had to live with all the reminders, and thinking about you was one thing I could control – try to control. So I couldn’t think about you.”

“I used to lay awake at night and remember the little things. The softness of your skin, the dimples on your cheeks, the way your nose crinkled when you laughed; the sound of your laugh. And remembering all those things, it made it hurt even more. Just remembering what I’ve done…it destroyed me too. You’ve become a presence in my life that I can’t get rid of…don’t want to get rid of.” He said softly, seeing a tear fall down her cheek. “I hated being the one to hurt you, and changing…it wasn’t worth it. Nothing would be able to fix not living with you.”

“Changing? You’re not…anymore?”

“Your life will always be in danger if you’re with me. They will hunt those who are, who were, who will be. I can’t do that to you.”

She smiled, “It’s weird. I can’t hold that against you.” She stayed quiet. “I’m angry because I know why you did what you did.” She admitted. “I’m mad because I understand why. I just don’t want it to be like this. I don’t want to be apart from you.” She stood up now, and wiped her wet eyes. “No one has ever looked at me the way you do. No one ever touches my face,” she sobbed, “or brush my hair out of my eyes like you do. Most of all, I have never felt this way about anyone. And I know why we have to be apart, I just want you to love me. I just want you to hurt the way that I hurt.” She covered her face in her hands.

Gerald stood up also, and wrapped his arms around her. It felt so good to have her where she belongs, with him. He her back softly and brought her down beside him, still having one arm around her body. He knew that staying like this would make it that much harder to let go, but for now…for the three hours they’d be together, they would be together.

“There’s something wrong with me,” Gerald whispered after awhile. “When I get hurt, I shut down. I am trying to fight that, because I don’t want to do that to Chris and Isabelle…I don’t want to do that to you.” He sighed. “I don’t want to lose the months we spent together. Everything you gave me…you gave me back my life. You let me trust me again. You fought for me. And now I hurt you.” He said, his chin touching my forehead. “You know, you say you depended on me, you needed me. I needed you too.”

“But you are okay on your own, Gerald.” She said to him. “Maybe you do miss me, a little. I mean, I’d like to think that you do, but me…I am the one whose life completely stopped, Gerald. And even though everything and everyone around me is trying to bring me back…it’s like half of me is there trying, but the other half…” she paused and looked him in the eye. “The other half is constantly looking, searching for my way back to you.”

He leaned against the wall and sighed. “When I sleep, there are moments I wake up and I try to reach for you. And then everything starts flooding back to me, and I got to move, I got to get up, I got to do something, anything to make myself stop thinking about you. You’d like to think I miss you? I miss you all the time.” He said looking at her.

She rested her head against the wall, looking back at him. They were now at a distance from each other, but all they had to do was reach out and they could touch each other. “I didn’t know that.”

“You know sometimes, I like to think that maybe we could be able to try again. I mean I thought about it a lot; what I could do to make things better. If I could do something to get passed what happened. I even thought about taking you to a movie…or see a play in the city.”

She chuckled, “A play? Don’t you think you’d be bored?”

He looked at her now, “No. Because while you’d watch the play…I’d be watching you.” Kim smiled. “You really get into that kind of stuff,” he reminded her. “You’re laughing, you’re crying, you’re squirming around, covering your eyes.”

Kim looked away embarrassed, “I don’t do that.”

“Every time you’re watching a movie…and it really started to worry me.”

“Are you talking about that one time…we were watching that movie and…” she said smiling.

“You were crying so hard. Your eyes were so small, they were like this,” he held up his index finger and thumb millimetres away from each other.

She pushed his hand away, “Come on, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that bad.”

He smiled, “What are you talking about? Your face was red, your nose was all runny. And I thought something horrible, terrible happened. I asked if you were okay, and you said you were okay. So I went to the kitchen for more popcorn, and I come back and you’re crying even more than when I Ieft!”

“Because it was the saddest part of Gone with the Wind.”

“You could’ve told me that.” He said.

Kim remembered that night perfectly. It was a week after he arrived. Mom and Dad rented the movie for family night, but they had to work and her siblings were upstairs. Gerald was sitting on the couch beside her, and she thought he was watching it with her. In the middle of the movie, he went to pop the corn and she was sobbing when Scarlett found out her mother had died and her father told her everything. “I was…I was just getting to know you. And I tried to act all tough. And besides, you were so calm…and cool, and in control.” He looked away from her shaking his head, but immediately met her gaze again. “I just…I thought for sure you thought I was really stupid.”

“When you finally told me you were upset over a movie…”

She smiled at the distant memory. “You sat beside me and you held me hand. Gerald…you were so sweet, so understanding. I think you were kind of confused and didn’t know what was going on, but you stayed with me. I remember we turned the movie on again, and I fell apart. I broke down. And I remember thinking to myself, ‘this guy is sitting beside me who has no idea what is going and he probably thinks I am insane.”

His smile disappeared but his gaze never left hers. “Actually, I was thinking…wow, is she beautiful. And I probably don’t understand her, and I probably never will. But I started to like you…a lot.”

Her eyes were glistening with moisture. “I don’t think I can ever watch Gone with The Wind again without you.” Kim said, letting a tear fall.

He caught it with his finger, and began to lean in. If he could just kiss her one last time, taste her lips, feel her against him.

But the door opened. “What are you two doing in here? Gerald? You guys can’t be in here.” A man in a heavy English accent said to him.

Kim and Gerald moved away from each other quickly. Kim got up and wiped her sweaty hands on her pants and looked at her watch. It was 11:06PM. She was late for curfew on a school night. “I should get going,” she said, looking at Gerald.

“Right. Yeah.” He said, trying to hide the disappointment in his eyes.

Kim nodded and began walking out. “Kim!” He called to her. She turned to look at him. “Do you mind coming back here tomorrow? I have another set, and I’d really like you to hear it.” He paused. “I wrote it myself,” he joked.

She laughed, “Yeah. I’d like that.” She smiled, and then turned back around to leave the studio.