Scars Upon Your Heart - 6. Epilogue

Someone somewhere is reviewing the situation and is looking for a little black and white cat…

Looking back at the old journal did make me laugh. I completed it; there was no more that could be put into it. No more I wanted to go into there. Collections of old things from childhood television programmes to the great details of my personal life. A journal of impossible letters. I kept all of the letters, emails, photographs and I put them all in this one little sketchbook. I’ve collected it over so many years and now it is time for it to stop.

I’ve kept it ever since I joined GA, keeping the little details of people I’ve met and got close to. I’ve got closer to more people as the years have gone by. Lucian and Cameron (god rest his soul) gave me all of their letters, just so they would be kept in a nice safe place. A nice, safe, sane, place. All of these individual stories bound and wound into one great big long adventure. It is amazing when you see things from different points of view; it gives you a new breath of life into an otherwise dead idea. Otherwise, I guess, c’est la vie.

I grabbed my coffee from the table, took a sip and took a deep breath. It was then, that I heard the bell ring.

‘Isaac darling, get the door for me.’ I called through into his office.

He called back with his sweet tone.

‘Of course’. He always loved it when I asked him to do things. I had found the perfect partner. Caring, loving, intelligent, physically demanding, and sexually demanding. All the things that make the perfect man. Am I glad I found him? Of course. Would I change anything. Well possibly. In all honestly, I wouldn’t change anything.

Currently my life was as perfect as it could be…

Isaac was hard at work marking term papers. He chose to mark the senior’s this year. I got off scot free and I only teach freshman and junior this year but next year won’t be very fun, I have both senior and postgrad students to deal with. Oh well, I guess someone always has to be hell bent on ruining my day.

‘It’s a weird package. Feels like a book.’ He said whilst handing me the package.

I took one look at the packaging and I ripped it apart.

If only I had paid attention…

If only I had paid attention to the way my address was written.

Curly letters, rounded a’s. If only I had seen the way his letters shaped themselves. If I had noticed, I would never have opened it. I should have noticed the swirl of the writing and the almost caligraphical style, considering the amount of letters I’ve read and sent to him…

If I had paid attention I would have been prepared… Things had been going far too well. They had been too good. Something was about to go wrong. And usually in my life when things go wrong, everything explores.

Jesus was I right…

I looked at the front cover and I couldn’t believe my eyes. A copy of the book. Spirit Keepers. One of the things that initially brought us together. I turned the book over to read the blurb, I already had about three copies around the house somewhere but I thought it was nice to have a read of it. On the back of the novel, there was a note attached.

It read as follows.

‘From when we were young. And for the passionate memories that you and I shared. Page 146 will contain all of the answers you seek. Lucian.’

I opened the book to the page and saw the chapter title, ‘The Final Countdown’. This was not going to be good. This was not going to be good at all. And, I was so right.

Someone somewhere is going to discover more than what the ‘truth’ is, they are going to discover where love truly lies…

I ran my finger along the centre of the book, where I felt a small piece of paper unwedge itself from under the binding. It curled into a tube. He had selected the exact page where I would be able to move it. Such an elaborate exercise for nothing.

I sighed and I unrolled the quite lengthy piece of paper. Oh so many regrets.

‘If you are reading this then I have finally decided to do what I have wanted to do ever since that day at the pier.

There is nothing left and I am doing this in such a way that you never will find me.

I’m going to disappear. I’m never going to return.

I apologize. Through the deep beating of heart, I regret having to leave but it is essential.

My mind is no longer settled here. A life here is no longer worth it.

I want a life of bliss, of security. And nothing bound to my past can give me that.

I have lost everything. My looks, my hopes, my dreams, my wishes. All of it. Sure, I maybe very successful but I discovered something recently. Something that I wished I could have found out years ago.

Sex can’t buy you love. Or me. Or anybody. Sex can never make you fully happy.

And now it is too late.

I have no idea what was wrong with my mind. I guess I took on too much at such a young age. It is so bad for you taking on such massive commitments of course it’s going to have a huge impact. Plus I always liked to be the centre of attention in the online world and when that became my actual life, I guess I just could not take it. I presume that the love that I felt wasn’t really love at all. It was all lust. Carnal lust. And my lust was far too much for my pretty little mind, body and soul to control.

I was weak. Weak Jason. And I guess, in this world, I cannot handle my own personal truths.

And so for now, I guess it is goodbye. No. Never goodbye. Merely, farewell.

It is time for me to go now. By the time you receive this letter, I would be halfway there to Switzerland.

A new chance. Then, of course. There is the option.

The alternative. Of course, should the opportunity come my way I’m not going to reject it. Should I need to follow in the footsteps of so many before me then I will. The clinic is only a few streets away from where I hope to stay.

A potential new life. Am I afraid? Yes. But I’m ready to embrace everything that is to come to me.

I need to escape myself and my past.

I’m sorry. I am so sorry.

I love…’

The paper was torn. I fell to my knees and I threw the paper away.

Of course I didn’t know… I didn’t know the cuts within his heart were so deep… If only I had known… I wish I knew. I wept and I rocked myself back and forth. It was crazy but it helped me bring it back together.

Then Isaac came in and protected me like he always does. He protected me so well. He surrounded me with the love, the care and the attention that I needed. He waited on me like I was a god or some sort of deity…

It took me days to recover. He was gone. No longer a part of my life. Maybe I was just being too dramatic, but to lose something that you feel is that close to you. It is so difficult to comprehend if you have not been through it.

Most of me was grateful but just that little part, the most important part was going to truly miss him. It was my heart that was going to miss him. Even though I was happy. I was in love. So much. There was a loss, such a great loss in my mind. His spirit and his essence had even left me, and that was the hardest part to deal with. Having to forget…

Once I had recovered, we went into the back garden and we burnt everything. Every book, every letter and every handwritten note. As he did with us, we had to eliminate every element of the past.

Isaac took me inside and set a calming record to settle my nerves.

I sat there, staring into the blazing fire, thinking of him.

I kept myself calm listening to the record. Isaac fixed me a hard drink and I downed it in one gulp.

Jesus did I need it. I needed the relief.

I had spent so many evenings looking into our open fire that I didn’t know what was what anymore.

It helped me to clear my mind after a stressful day lecturing.

We had destroyed every element of the physical memory of him but nothing could destroy how he destroyed my heart.

I still was thinking.

I couldn’t stop the thoughts. I couldn’t stop the thoughts that built me up and sent me higher than I had ever gone before.

This truly was my darkest hour.

And it was these thoughts of him that could destroy me just as easily.

I still thought that there was one chance, one single living chance that he was still someone, somewhere…

And then, without a trace, the record spun off into the eternal darkness…