Chapter 49
“I broke up with Daniel.”
No one seems shocked. Emoni nods, solemn.
Stu pours fresh coffee for all of us as we sit around the table. Sunny squeezes his hand in silent thanks, and he drops a kiss on the top of her head. “How did he take it?” Sunny asks.
“Fine,” I say as Halabuji walks back into the room with a pale pink throw that he puts gently across Halmoni’s shoulders. “As well as someone could take that kind of news anyway.”
“But he’s your fated,” Halmoni says. “I saw it myself and…”
I give her a look. We just had this conversation.
“He’s a gentleman,” she concedes. “A good person. He understands.”
“Yes, he’ll make a good partner for someone. Just not you,” says Halabuji as he takes Halmoni’s empty plate.
I watch how these men silently take care of the women in my life. And I think of Ellis. Ellis who blocks the sun from getting in my eyes. Who takes a shot for me when he knows I don’t want to drink it. Who is always watching, always taking care of me. Even when I’m not his.
What am I doing? My chair scrapes loudly against the tile as I get up. “I need to talk to Ellis.”
“Ellis-euh?” Halabuji exclaims. Everyone else looks extremely confused.
“Are you sure?” Halmoni asks, her voice betraying nothing.
I nod. “So sure.”
Sunny gets up and hugs me. “You got this. We love you.”
“I love you guys, too,” I say, choking up again. And out of habit, I look at Halmoni for reassurance. She nods, her eyes shining. That’s all I need.
In seconds I’m in my car. It’s not quite ten a.m. I’m afraid to go home first in case I lose my nerve—this rush of adrenaline. So I head east on Beverly and take it straight to Silver Lake, really wishing Ellis could be anywhere else.
When I park in front of Watson and Associates, I register what I look like. My pajamas—a white cotton two-piece—are dusted with a fine layer of soot. I flip down my visor. So is my face. I take out some Kleenex and do a cursory wipe but it’s kind of a lost cause.
Pride be damned. I get out and walk into the office. The front desk is manned by Parker, the guy who knew Ellis had been married before at the wedding dinner. He looks up at me with surprise. “Oh! Hey.” Then he looks me up and down. “Whoa. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” I say with a wave. “Is Ellis in yet?”
His forehead crinkles with confusion. “Ellis?”
“Yes, Ellis.”
“Not…Daniel?”
I close my eyes briefly. “Nope.”
“Yeah…he is,” he says, his shoulders raised a little in a defensive stance.
“But I’m not sure you going in there is a good idea.
” That’s when I notice the wall of glass behind him, which gives me a good look into the big open space full of desks.
With all the employees of Watson and Associates sitting in them, milling about, chatting with each other.
I see his point. I don’t feel like making a public display of this, yet again, in front of Ellis’s coworkers. And I’d rather not run into Daniel, either.
“Would you mind…” I start to ask.
Parker takes a good, hard look at me. “Are you about to rip his heart out? Again?”
“No. The opposite, I hope.”
Without taking his eyes off me, he picks up the phone. After a beat, he says, “Hey, can you come out and meet me in reception?” His expression stays neutral. “Okay, cool.” He hangs up. “He’ll be out shortly.”
The formal language almost makes me laugh but then it doesn’t, because I see Ellis get up from a desk. He looks like a mirage after a long summer spent in the desert. He’s in a plain white tee and beat-up jeans. A classic.
It’s been days since I’ve seen him at the park opening and I know at this very second that I no longer want to spend days not seeing him.
That seeing him, being near him, is essential to my being.
As he walks toward us, the surface of my skin starts to tingle.
I get both lightheaded and more grounded.
The moment he notices me, he falters. We make eye contact and confusion washes over him. He takes me in, registering my bedraggled pajama-state. The confusion on his face grows as he gets closer, but there’s also concern there. He opens the door and is in the lobby now.
“Uh, you have a guest,” Parker says, his eyes whipping between us.
“I see that,” he says, his eyes on mine. “Cass, are you okay?”
That Cass is electricity through my body. “I am. Now. Can we talk?” I glance behind him, and notice that a few of the coworkers are looking at us, having noticed that I’m out here.
“Maybe outside?” I say.
He nods, short and curt, and we make our way out, him close behind me. Even though we’re not touching, I feel him with every step.
We find a private spot tucked in an alley, and a warm breeze ruffles my hair as I take a breath.
“What’s going on?” Ellis asks when I stop. Then he takes another good look at me. “Why are you in pajamas?” He reaches out and touches a sleeve that has a line of soot on it. “Is this ash?”
His concern, despite everything we’ve been through, is a reminder of everything that made me fall for him.
“After the earthquake, our office caught on fire,” I say.
“What!”
“Everyone’s okay, but the second floor’s been damaged. It’s been…a long night. And morning.” I laugh weakly.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. He means it but he’s also confused. “Why…why are you here after all that?”
Emotion bubbles up inside my chest, making it tight. “I…I needed to see you. To tell you everything.”
Something shutters in his expression, and I need to make things right as quickly as possible.
“I’m sorry. That’s the first, most important thing.
I am so sorry. For putting you through this roller coaster of…
me, I guess. And I really needed you to know, as soon as possible, that I broke up with Daniel. ”
This lands less explosively than I wanted.
His eyes flicker, and his body flinches, but that’s it.
I go on. “Kissing you at the park opening wasn’t a mistake.
I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t regret kissing you, but I do regret hurting Daniel.
And that moment with you that was so true and real turned into something sordid. ”
His jaw clenches as he nods his head in jerky movements. I wish so much that I could undo all the hurt I’ve inflicted on him.
I pull something out of my pajama pocket. “You deserve an explanation. The real one, for why I turned away from you, why I denied the connection between us.” I hold it up and he steps in closer to look at it. When he registers what it says, his eyes fly up to mine, confused. “What is this?”
I hold up the scrap of paper with Daniel’s name stitched in it. “This piece of paper is ten years old. When I was thirty, my grandmother read my face and told me I would end up with someone named Daniel Nam.”
His eyes flash. “What?”
“This is our family secret. We don’t just read faces, we can see past lives. And in these past lives, we can find past loves.” I say these words slowly, knowing what they sound like. My body tenses, waiting for him to laugh hysterically before fleeing back into his office.
But this is Ellis. And Ellis has always taken me seriously.
“You can see past lives?” His voice is even as his eyes search mine for more information.
I love his eyes—the hint of amber when the light hits them. The long lashes and the wide way they hungrily take in the world. I nod. “Yes. And in mine, my grandmother found Daniel. He’s my fated. I’d been searching for him for ten years that morning I dropped you off at work.”
He’s looking past me now, a million emotions playing across his face. I give him time to sit with this. Letting it all sink in. Then he finally looks at me and asks, “What happened, then? Why did you guys break up?”
“My whole life I believed the reason my dad left, that my parents broke up, was because my mom chose not to be with her fated. Since I can remember, I was warned of what happens when you don’t choose your fated,” I say, my voice getting stronger as the emotions stirred by all these revelations surge through me.
“My mom was that warning. My family told me she rebelled and didn’t choose her fated, and that’s why my dad left her.
Us. But then…a few days ago, later on the night of the park opening, in fact, I found out that wasn’t true.
He was her fated. And despite that, it didn’t work out. ”
Ellis looks completely overwhelmed. “Cass…”
“So that’s why I’m here. Like this.” I wave to myself. “I found out about my parents. Then I flew to Michigan to meet my dad.” His eyes widen. “I know, long story. But I met him. Then I broke up with Daniel. And then the fire.”
I step in close to him and reach for his hand. He looks down but doesn’t pull it away.
“What came out of all that is—is this absolute clarification: that I want to be with you. That even when I met Daniel, it was always you.”
My voice cracks. I can feel my heart reaching out between us, begging his to open. But Ellis is still looking down, face hidden from me.
“I believe in fated love,” I say, still trying to make him understand. “But I also believe in making your own fate. It used to scare me, the idea of veering off course. But I’ve been off course since the day we met.”
He finally looks up. His expression is guarded. “But you and Daniel did have a connection. Everyone could see it.”
“Yeah, we did. He’s a wonderful guy, as you know. I connected with both of you.” I take a breath, my heart fast but steady. “But there’s only one of you that I fell in love with.”
His head shoots up. “What?”
It’s hard to talk around the lump in my throat, the beating of my heart.
“I love you, Ellis. I’m in love with you.
” I get lightheaded with the release of it.
“I used the age thing as a reason to ignore all the glaring reasons why it’s so easy to love you.
The way you never hesitate to help. The bigness of your heart.
How you make me want to soften the hard edges of myself and all my routines.
The spontaneity of your joy and how you spread it to everyone around you.
How, in moments, the magic and wonder I feel with you reminds me of my happiest moments with my mother. ”
He looks up at that, his eyes filled with an emotion I can’t place. Time stills as I wait for his response to my declaration. In the summer heat of L.A., with the breeze wafting over us—this love feels inevitable.
But.
He backs up. Takes his hand from mine. He won’t look at me, keeping his eyes lowered. “Cassia. I just…this is a lot. I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s okay!” I say instinctively, devastated. If I just keep talking, he can’t say it’s over, even as it feels like walls are shutting down inside of me, one by one. I feel like I’m dying. “This was too much. I get it. Um, let’s just start from the beginning…”
But he shakes his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t had enough time to think about all this.”
Each word is a tiny tragedy, but I smile.
I owe him a buffer from my heartbreak. “I understand.” Suddenly I am aware of what I look like—a forty-year-old woman in her pajamas, no makeup, in glasses.
Confessing her love to a twenty-eight-year-old who has the entire world at his feet.
“Just forget this happened,” I say, as my heart cracks in half.
Ellis looks at me with concern. “No, I don’t want to forget. I just…need time. Is that okay?”
“Of course!” My voice feels a million miles away. “I’ll just…you should get back to work.” And I spin around and walk briskly away, not wanting him to see the tears I frantically wipe away, feeling as foolish as a deluded lovestruck teenager.