Amish Jedi: In a City Far, Far Away

Episode 16.1 ~ Eeyore

Holding the letter in my hand, I realize I'm in the middle of my wedding. "Right now?" I ask Miriam.

"Yes." She nods vehemently, fire-red flyaways poking out of her white kapp. 

I glance at John, but his back is to me. I wonder at that, but only briefly. Slipping my finger under the flap of the weathered envelope, I pull out the letter written on yellow, lined paper. I know exactly which pad in Daed's office is missing a sheet. 

Zia,

Please forgive me in advance for what I am about to say, and further for not telling you sooner. 

I don't know where to begin, but I suppose you'd understand this best as a story. And, of course, I'm no good at telling them so here's a brief summary:

When you first left in September, John was a wreck. Everyone was trying to comfort him, but he shunned us all. Eventually, we convinced him to attend a singing. He seemed to feel better afterward, so he kept coming. 

John and I kissed after one of the singings. And that led to more. He left right after I told him that I'm pregnant.

If you can forgive him and you still love him, marry him, Zia. He's yours. He always has been. 

I know it doesn't seem like it, but I love you and I am very sorry.

Your sister, 

Hannah

I'm not sure if I'm breathing or if I even remember how to. My hands are locked on the page, frozen in place.

"Zia." Jason's fingers touch my arm. I didn't notice he was here. "You need to breathe," he says gently. 

I shake my head. 

He sighs and pulls me into a hug. I'm still frozen, so my form just smushes into his. I don't even care that my hair is probably getting messed up. It doesn't matter now. John did sleep with someone. He didn't tell me. She did. My sister did. 

He didn't just sleep with her, he made a baby with her. My niece or nephew. If I go through with this wedding, the baby will never know what it is like to have his parents together. I will have robbed that from him as his parents have robbed me of my heart. 

The realization, the decision being made, breaks me. The hole in my chest opens wide again as if whoever repaired it used the cheapest and flimsiest of materials. I don't know how long it takes me to regain my bearings enough to turn and look at John. Everyone seems to be in the same places I remember them in, so maybe not that long. 

His face is screwed up in grief, telling me what I already know — every one of Hannah's words is true. 

My expression twists to match his. This is it. We are over. 

"Please," he manages to get out. "Forgive me... I don't... want... anyone but... you." 

I shake my head and glance back down at the letter. "You're going to be a dad," my voice is gruff but I manage to get all my words out more coherently than I expect. 

"Please, Zia..." His own words seem to stab him in the gut. "I'll do anything..."

I shake my head again. Jason was right about John, I can't trust him. This entire time he kept a secret so monumental he knew if he told me the truth, I'd never accept him back. But he tricked me anyway because I am what he wants. What he finally realizes he wants. Rather than give me the option to choose with all the facts, he attempted to entrap me. He used me in a way the friend I grew up with for fifteen years never would. Or, at least, I don't think he would have. Maybe I've never truly seen him until now, or maybe he's just made a series of desperate and selfish decisions that have killed my old friend and given me this faint reflection of him. One that, despite myself, I still love and would marry if it weren't for that tiny growing baby, his baby. 

"I made... a mistake." He's recovering, regaining his fight. "The biggest mistake of my life." He steps toward me. 

I realize I'm still half in Jason's arms because he stiffens at the approach as if John's a new werewolf. I suppose that would make Jason the vampire — Edward. 

"Please, Zia, forgive me..." 

"I do," my voice has nearly no emotion in it, I sound a bit like Eeyore at Piglet's a funeral. "But I'm not going to marry you..." There's the emotion. My voice cuts and breaks like a wave against a reef. 

John falls to his knees. "Please... please," his voice cracks and breaks against that same reef, the one that's grown between us. 

Through the haze, I manage to twist off my engagement ring and hold it out for him to take. "Give this to Hannah." 

John is too broken to speak, but he shakes his head. Still fighting a losing battle. I will not bend this time. I can't. "I don't love her..."

"I do." I set the ring on the nearest chair, Jason moving with me. 

"The car is waiting out front," Jason says, and his words are like a match thrown into a gasoline spill. 

"You wanted this!" John screams. His faces ignited. "You wanted her to know!"

Jason's jaw tightens, but he replies calmly. "And you didn't."

"I was going to tell her."

"When?" Jason counters almost too calm, he's Owl and John's Tigger. Only, I used to really, really like Tigger. 

"After the honeymoon," I answer, understanding John's mindset. 

John's gaze softens. "We would have made it work. We still can."

I shake my head, not able to look at him act like this. "You'd only break me more than you already have." 

"So you're going to be with him now?" John spits, anger marring his handsome face. 

I don't know what to say to him anymore. I realize I'm crying when a tear drops from my eyelashes to my cheek. 

"Come on." Jason directs me toward the door. 

"No," John lunges toward us, but I catch a glimpse of Patrick and Frank each grabbing one of his arms before my back is to the scene. 

I cast forward, numb from my gut to my limbs. Cold. Empty. My only defense mechanism to the pain that will surely attempt to drown me once I'm alone. 

John calls after us, "Zia! Zia, please!... I love you! Please don't do this! You're — you're my best — friend! Don't—" 

Jason pulls me into the car. I faintly register that we're in the backseat of his new-smelling vehicle and someone is driving. The after burn of John's words catches up with me. I'm too depressed to be embarrassed about clutching to Jason's suit jacket and sobbing all over the expensive material. 

Before my brain can take in anything else, I'm in my room. Jason and Miriam are there. Someone slides off my shoes. Then they tuck me in, dress and all. When they turn to leave me, I don't want them to go but the only word I can get out is, "Why..." The full weight of everything crashes down on me all at once, drowning me. 

As if the initial tidal wave isn't enough, aftershocks beat against my water logged body as if I've done something to personally offend the sea. Like dump oil into it or something. Didn't the sea know that wasn't me? That was them! That was her! 

Hannah could have called me the moment John arrived in Greenwich Village. She could have saved me then and taken John back for herself. Rather, she waited until my most vulnerable moment to crush me. And she couldn't even do it face to face, she sent our younger sister. 

A wave of acid rises in my throat. Behind the condescendingly nice words in her letter is pure selfishness. Now she can say that she piously did the right thing. Really? What part of any of what she did makes her one letter absolving? And the worst part is, she's going to get him. She took him, pretended to give him back, and is going to end up winning him anyway. She's going to have my whole future and all it cost her was a letter and a sister she never cared for anyway. 

Faintly I register Miriam on the bed beside me, stroking my hair, humming a lullaby. That brings another wave of pain down on me, replacing the bitterness with suffocating sorrow.