That afternoon, although I did not remind Jamie anything about having lunch with Dylan Watkins, he remembered it. Dylan Watkins picked Jamie up from Minerva and set off for lunch.
His huge empty office makes me feel lonelier than I already am. And so, as rare as it sounds, I walk out of the office and return to my own desk.
On my seat, I take a box out of my handbag and open it. It is the necktie and the tie bar Jamie gave me. I pout as I look at them, soreness surges up my nasal passage in an instant.
“I am sitting alone here missing you, yet you are happily having lunch with the other guy out there… I hate you.”
As I hear my voice turning whinny, tears trickle down my cheek.
It took three and a half hours for the meeting to end, though a quarter of the time was spent translating languages between both parties from different countries. The whole meeting went pretty smoothly, thanks to me, of course. The clients are happy with us, and so, Jamie is happy too, and again, thanks to me, of course.After we sent Mr. Kanzaki and his colleagues away, Jamie returned to his desk, while I was requested to sit at one of the chairs in front of him.He works on his phone a few minutes before the conversation between the boss and his secretary starts.Jamie crosses his fingers on the desk. He puts a contented smile on his face as he looks at me.“What a pleasant surprise, Chandelier. I never knew
That night after work, I packed my luggage and proceeded to the Peyton Mansion.Jamie’s butler and maids prepared a table of palatable dishes for us. After we had our dinner, Jamie invited me to his theatre room to enjoy some films with him.Right, he has a cinema in his mansion, yet there aren’t chairs arranged orderly along different levels, there are just bean bags laying casually around the wooden floor.We sit in the beanbags lying in the middle of the theatre room, watching a documentary about a Japanese architect and his masterpieces. Jamie has a bowl of salad in his hands, while I have a bag of popcorn in mine.And Marie is here too, chasing her interactive
After a few hours of sleep, we woke up from bed, ate some breakfast, and prepared to leave.The time was four o’clock in the morning when we arrived at the O'Hare International Airport. As soon as we were onboarded on Jamie’s private jet, we departed right away.If there are no circumstances that will delay the arriving time, it should take just around thirteen hours of flight for us to arrive at Tokyo.All Jamie has on his jet are wine, fresh fruits, chocolates, and movies. Since I can’t have wine in front of Jamie, I ate some fruits and chocolates as we enjoyed the movie playing on the screen.Other than that, we have great news——Jamie brought one of his Donald Duck plushies with him.
Our second day in Tokyo, we set off for a meeting with Mr. Shimizu and his colleagues in the early morning. The meeting was held at their company building in Roppongi——Shikakui-Wakusei Gemu Kaisha.They are a video game development company, they wanted to assign one architectural company to build futuristic and pioneering towers for their quarters in different regions.It actually came to my surprise that the meeting would take the whole day!I was expecting it would be just a first round project briefing and we will proceed to coming up with tons of project proposals with Minerva’s designers, and we will visit Mr. Shimizu again back and forth until they are certain that Minerva gets the project.H
It is almost eleven at night when we are back in the ryokan. As usual, I take a relaxing bath at the onsen bath, and Jamie takes his bath in a private bathroom.However, just when I think that I am supposed to eat my cup noodles and Giant Caplico as my supper as usual, Jamie comes up with an idea.He passes me his Centurion Black Card as he mentions, “Go get some beer and wine, and anything you like, we are celebrating.”My eyes widened, “Celebrating?”Jamie nods, “I am going to bestow you with a night of celebration, to show my appreciation towards your help during this whole week.”Right, I wasn’t just being the t
A pain spreads across my face from the middle of my eyebrows, it wakes me up leading me back to reality. I hold my forehead with my left hand as I feel a serious headache——it seems like I’ve been drinking too much yesterday, now my head feels like cracking. Heck, I can’t even feel my right arm, what have I been doing with it yesterday? Do the sake bottles even weigh enough to destroy my arm? Besides, my whole body feels so sore, just like I’ve been doing exercise for the whole night. After I feel the headache slightly fade, I brush my hair to the back with my left hand, I take a deep breath as I try to open my eyes. I don’t know what time it
I vaguely remember, last night, when we started to mention Dylan Watkins, I went all upset and started to drink again.I was so drunk that my head was spinning, and my sight was blurred. All of a sudden, I felt warm, and so, I decided to stand up from the floor, walk to the fusuma sliding doors and open it.There are two sides in Jamie’s room that are installed with fusuma doors, one dividing his room from mine, and the other at the opposite side opens Jamie’s room up to nature.The night wind blew above the koi pond and brought the coolness in. I closed my eyes and took a deep inhale, I then walked to the engawa and sat down on it.There, Jamie held two bottles of sake and came to the engawa too, he sat
It is the numbness spreading across the back of my head when I recall the pleasure Jamie gave me last night that pulls me back from the memory.I look at him, who is still sleeping on my arm.I hear me mumbling in his dream, “Henry… I love you…”I don’t know why, but when I hear him, tears surge up my eyes——oh my God, I’ve been waiting so long to hear him say that to me…!No! Not him! He is a girl! I mean, she! She is a girl! Jamie is a girl!Oh my God.
After a few minutes travelling in my red Lexus LS 500, Jamie and I finally arrived at our destination. After Jamie gets out of the car, I pick up a red velvet box from the glove box and put it in my coat. I then catch her up from behind. It is a big house built next to the beach. The house is fully furnished and renovated. It is ready for people to move in and live in it. I am the architect who designed and built the house, however I haven’t decided what to name it yet. Well, anyway… I first bring Jamie through the garden on the beach, I open the door with the key and we enter the house.
The time is five in the evening. I am back in the office building, sitting on the couch, waiting for the interview session to start in approximately half to one and hour.I grab my phone out and check my messages again.I had made a few calls to Jamie through various ways, she never answered the phone, and now, there is still no sign of Jamie.Weimar is seven hours ahead of Chicago, which means it is twelve at midnight at where Jamie is.It is already the next day in Weimar, and that makes this the second day I lost the sign of Jamie.Weird… This is weird.Jamie never leaves me hanging for m
April 2023. Two years later. It is spring in Chicago again, a time when the florals come back to life again, well so do the people. The warm breeze brings the voile curtains up, allowing the morning sunlight to shower on my white bed through the French windows. That is when I am woken up by the sound of this hectic city. I stand on my balcony in my robe, yawning and stretching my body at the same time. “Good morning, Chicago.” I take a glance at the scenery of the city from the top of this building, I see people and vehicles all over the streets, everyone is ready for work and vac
June, 2021.It had been almost one month since the accidents happened.I was discharged from the hospital, rested at home for a few days, took some medicine, did some simple rehabilitation practice… I am almost fully recovered.The news reported that Melonie Myers was brought into custody by the local police. The police told me that I no longer need to worry about stepping out of my house.Also, it is Wednesday morning, a regular working day for me.And so, I am now back to work at Minerva, no longer as the CEO’s secretary, but as the CEO and the owner of Minerva; no longer in skirt and lipstick, but in suit and tie.
Air flow, machines, birds chirping, and a woman sobbing… Those are the first things that come into my ear when I gradually return to my consciousness.They sound really vague at first, but turn louder after as I slowly open my eyes too.There, I find myself in a ward bed. My face is covered with an oxygen mask. My arms are surrounded by tubes and wires.And, I see someone burying her head in the bed, holding my hand tightly in hers.“I’ve lost our baby… I can’t lose you too, Henry… Please wake up...” she sobbed.Slowly, I raise my other hand, and lay it on her head. I caress her gently, stroking her hair th
Assuming that it must be Mr. Hurlock behind the door, I unlock the door and open it without peeking through the cateye.I ask as soon as I open the door, “Yes, Mr. Hurlock? Did you forget someth-”However, just when the door is fully opened, the face of the person standing in front of the door is revealed in front of me.It is a lady in black attire, with a bike helmet on her head, her black hair draped over her shoulder, and she holds a knife in her hand.It isn’t Mr. Hurlock, it is...“Hi there, Henry.”“Melonie Myers…”
It is almost midnight when I sit in my living room alone, waiting for Jamie’s butler to show up. It is always a quiet night like this that makes people feel lonely, isn’t it? Tears ooze out of my eyes abruptly, they trickle down my face one after another. No matter how many times I wipe them off, no matter how hard I try to stop myself from crying, my tears just won’t stop. I cover my face with my palms to cover my sound, I sob as quietly as I can, not hoping to wake Jamie up. I try to stop myself by clearing my head, yet every quiet moment like this keeps reminding me of the fact that we’ve just lost our child. Our dear child… If you can hear us,
The accident and our loss hasn’t been too kind on us, especially for Jamie. The impact of losing our child hits her heart and mental condition so badly. She had been crying for days, she didn’t eat much. She fainted a few times. She became so tired and weak, that the doctor kept her in the hospital for another few days.Tonight, Jamie is just sitting on the bed, sometimes leaning on my shoulder, imagining how different our life would be if everything never happened, how our life would be if we hadn’t lost our child.What gender will it be? Will it be a little princess? How heavy will she weigh when she is born? Will she look more like Jamie or me? What name will we name her? How will we celebrate her first birthday? How excited will we be when she says her first word or takes her first step? Will she first say mommy
“Jamie…”Not knowing how much time has passed, I gradually woke up when I heard myself mumbling.I first feel my senses are unblocked, just like when one who sinks in the ocean for a long time gets back up from the water.The next thing I feel... is my body covered in pain, especially my head.“Umm…”Holding the pain back, slowly, I try to open my eyes.It is the moment when I open my eyes again, bright light seeps into my eyes. I squint into the light, my eyes take quite a while to adapt to the light.