Chapter Fourteen
TWO HOURS LATER, I'M packing, and I'm crying and crying because I know this isn't like me.
I may not have given him the words, but silence means yes, and so what I’m doing now...
I’m so, so sorry, God, but I just can’t.
I'm not the type to lie because I'm afraid.
I'm not the type to run away.
But I just can't...
I just can't risk giving myself a chance to be weak and start deceiving myself again.
So hurry, Kitty.
Hurry and just go before you humiliate yourself just like you did when you actually imagined someone like Dr. Collington would fall in love with you and even want to marry you—
I slam a door on the thoughts even as my body starts shaking with all the sobs crawling out of my throat.
Every time I think of how I've made a fool of myself in front of Dr. Collington—in front of the entire hospital even because who knew, right?
Who knew if they really believed me? What if they all knew that I pressured him into—
Stop it, Kitty! Just keep packing!
My hands are still shaking as I pull the zipper shut on a bag that's mostly just clothes shoved in wrong.
The guest room—my room, the room that was supposed to be mine—looks the way rooms look when someone is leaving in a hurry.
Drawers half open. Hangers on the bed. The closet door swinging on its hinge because I yanked it too hard.
Am I missing anything else? Is there something I haven’t yet packed? Or can I go now and never look—
Oh.
That’s when I see it, and the moment my gaze falls on the gift box at the nightstand, I’m so, so tempted to laugh and cry because I know.
Of course I know what this means.
When you’re at the end of your tether, that’s when you hear God’s voice most clearly, and so of course I know this is all Him, asking me gently to take a deep breath. Pause. And spend time with Him.
I find myself walking with wobbly legs even as a part of me is struggling against this.
Tick-tock, Kitty! Aren’t we in a hurry? So why waste time with this sh—
The moment I realize I had almost cussed in my mind when I’ve never been the type to cuss before—
Well, big mistake there, Devil.
I never wanted to think he was real, but he obviously was, and I’m all the more determined to reach for the Bible now.
It was given to me two years ago by Aimee, the local church volunteer at the hospital.
She had visited me on the first day of my confinement, and when she learned that I’ve never had a Bible my whole life, she had come back on my last day to give me this.
It feels so much heavier in my hands, and my tears start falling faster as I finally open the box and take the Bible out for the first time.
There's a card tucked inside the front cover. Handwritten. Small, careful letters on cream-colored paper.
Dear Kitty,
May His Words be a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path, just as they were to me, once upon a time.
Who am I? — A new creation (2 Cor 5:17)
How much? — For a price (1 Cor 7:23)
Why should I? — Because He did it first. (Luk 22:42)
What now? — You're still in His hand. (Jer 18:4)
Can I? — If He is your strength. (Phi 4:13)
Until when? — To the end of the age. (Mat 28:20)
Where next? — Wherever He is. (Ruth 1:16)
Your sister in Christ,
Aimee
I start to laugh as I finish reading them. I wanted this Bible to help me stop thinking of Dr. Collington, but the first page alone...
It's like finding out Aimee is nothing but Dr. Collington's twin since everything she's just written is another form of verbal sudoku.
They make no sense at all, and yet I still find myself opening to one of the tabbed pages, and I see a highlighted verse.
1 John 4:19
We love because He first loved us.
Oh, if only.
If only it would start making sense.
But none of the words are reaching my heart, and yet I still find myself flipping to another tabbed page, and—
Luke 22:42
Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.
That's when I realize I might've been better off not understanding at all.
Not my will, but Yours.
I suddenly can't stop reading those words again and again.
Not my will, but Yours.
Because this time, there's no way for me to hide. There's no way for me to pretend I don't know why, even though I've always known I owe my second lease in life to God—
A part of me has always resisted reading the Bible, and it's because I've always been scared...
Not my will, but Yours.
If I prayed to Him about Dr. Collington, He would tell me...
Kazeyuki was not His choice but mine, and God, oh God...
It's why for the past two years, I'd pray without ever listening to what He has to say in return, and even now there's a part of me that wishes I could just keep pretending and believing Dr. Collington's lies—
God, I'm sorry.
I'm so, so scared.
I don't know if I can give him up.
A part of me, that part of me that still resists and rebels against the idea of God being in control—it’s telling me to just throw the Bible away and forget everything.
That there’s no shame in staying in my comfort zone and keep pretending.
That if I want Dr. Collington to stay by my side forever, all I have to do is close my eyes and pretend—
But I can't.
Because His Word is a light I can't unsee, a truth I can't unlearn—
God, I'm so scared.
And even as the fear sends me crashing to my knees, and the pain in my heart starts eating me alive—
Your will, not mine.
I know I have to trust the God who made me live again.
Just please, please help me let him go if he's not Your choice.
Please.
Because I don't think I can do it on my own—
And that's when I hear it.
The moment I surrender everything to Him, I hear footsteps coming down the hallway, and when I open my eyes, I see...
Him.
No, not God, although that would be awesome, but him, with a small ‘h’.
Him as in Dr. Collington, and he’s walking towards me without the usual grace, and oh God—
A teary laugh escapes me when Dr. Collington, of all people, ends up tripping over empty space.
He slowly comes to a stop in my doorway, and as he gazes down at me with his ashen face, I...
I don't know why, but it just makes me start crying again.
"I had a feeling you wouldn't be here if I came back tomorrow."
"I'm s-sorry."
"Because you're leaving me?"
I don't know what to say. The answer is completely out of my hands because it has to be His will—
Kazeyuki slowly kneels down before me.
Oh God.
"I love you, Katherine."
I've never heard him speak like this—
"And I'm terrified—"
And I realize now it's because of that.
"—you'll never believe me."
He swallows hard, and it hurts, it hurts so, so much to see him like this, but I still don't know—
"I love you," he repeats doggedly. "And I wish I had known, I wish I'd realized this earlier, but I didn't."
His pain is my pain, but I just don't know...
"I'm sorry for being a fool. For making things worse with all the lies."
Please give me a sign, God.
"I don't know how to make you believe me."
Please let me know this is Your will, too.
"All I could do was pray. It's the first time I ever prayed—"
God, oh God.
"And He actually answered, Katherine. I actually heard His voice crystal clear in my mind, and His answer terrified me because He says it has to be His choice, and His choice is your choi—"
I throw myself in his arms, and I'm laughing and crying even as he falls on his back, and when he stares up at me—
"I l-love you, Kazeyuki."
He stares at me, still ashen. “My name.” His voice is still hoarse. Still rough. And impossibly uneven. “You’re saying my name again.”
A smile wobbles to my lips. “It feels right again.”
“I love you, Katherine.”
“I know.”
“I never...I...God, I...”
It’s my first time to hear Kaz lost for words, and it’s both a beautiful and painful sight, to see the man that I love made human by love.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” I whisper. “Just please kiss—”
The rest of my words melts into his kiss, and all I can do is cry as I kiss him back.
His will, not mine.
And this...this is His will.