WAITING FOR THE BEGINNING

46. The Heart is a Terrible Liar

"You understand...he may not wake up. For a long time." Tao Zen tilts Ping Ping's face to look him, making sure that she understands the message. "Or ever again."

"Um." The only sound she can utter. "Doesn't matter. I will return this to him in person."

Tao Zen takes a second look at the girl - something has changed since he bid her farewell nearly 3 months ago. No, more accurately -- something has changed in the past hour. Ever since they forcibly removed her from Wei Xin's gurney and he brought her here, walking woodenly like a zombie.

It becomes clear to him that she is not leaving until she sees Wei Xin. Even for one last time. Perhaps the shock of seeing him will send her away.

"Come." Tao Zen stands. "I'll take you to him."

She is not prepared. Few are ever.

The man lying in the bed looks less like a man than when he went into the operating room. Gaping wounds are stitched; red and swollen bruises darken to blackish, blue and purple. The bandages and tubes and electrodes hooking him up to life-saving machines that breath for him or monitor him obfuscate visitors.

Ping Ping gasps and clasps her mouth, fighting the sobs and the sorrow welling up in her heart.

"Are you sure you want to be here?" Tao Zen gently blocks her view. He reaches out his open palm. "I can return it to him."

Ping Ping muffles herself and takes a nearly full seven minutes before she chokes out: "Can I be with him for a few minutes...?"

After the door whooshes close, the room fills up with the rhythmic sounds of the lung machine and the heart monitor.

Ping Ping wills herself to approach the man lying on the bed.

The room seems to contract with each step and her breathing more constricted.  When she finally comes to his bedside, her hand trembled forward not sure if she should touch him.  

"Wei Xin."  Her tears fall into his hand. "It's me. Lee Ping Ping. I've come to see how you are."

Another quarter of an hour passes with her tears drenching the sheets around his hands and the bandages around his hand protecting the IV.

"Don't die."  She touches his hand. "You haven't fulfilled your promise to me."  

When Tao Zen returns, he finds Ping Ping knelt next to the bed. Her head resting on the bed and her tears dried on her cheek.  

She waits as if any time he will wake up. Like he did so many times before. The mornings in the village when she's woken to him holding her and staring at her. Or pretending to be asleep with his eyes closed. 

Three times she asks to have more time.  When the evening sky has faded into dusk and then pitch dark midnight, Tao Zen pulls her gently up, supporting her wobbly legs.  

"It's time."  

She nods, exhausted and resigned.  She puts the ring back on her finger.

"I thought you are returning the ring."  Tao Zen inquires.

"Yes.  When he's awake."

As the he settles her into an unmarked car, she grabs onto his hand.  "Uncle Tao, please let me know when he wakes up."

"Yes."  He smiles for her and it fades as the car pulls out.

The darkness envelops De Yi and his feelings mutating from frustration to anger to fear to sadness to betrayal and back again.  By the time her keys jingle in the door lock, he's rationalized some of the feelings and suppressed others.  He has determined that his goal is to take her away tonight.

It takes a minute for her to adjust to the darkness.  "De Yi."

"Did he live?"  He means to sound caring and gentle.  Not angry.  The best he could muster is cold and distant.

"Hard to say."  She trembles as she looks down.  "In a coma."

That's just as good.  He doesn't want to sound gleeful.

"What's your plan."  He asks gently and kneels in front of her.  

De Yi holds her trembling hands in his large warm supple hand. His finger touches the small gold band. He is unable to control his feeling. "Do you still love him?"  

"I..."  Ping Ping pauses, unable to lie.  Unable to tell the truth.  For she herself is not sure what her heart feels.  To tell De Yi that she still loves Wei Xin causes her heart to crumble.  Yet telling him that she doesn't love Wei Xin seems untrue.  "I don't know."

"Do you love me?"  De Yi asks with resolve and a small crackle in his voice.  "Do you remember any of our love?"

It seems redundant that he should ask the question.  She would have never made love with him, so many times, if she didn't love him.

It never occurs to her that loving Wei Xin means not loving De Yi.  Nor that loving De Yi means abandoning Wei Xin.  

With each passing second, De Yi's heart sinks towards the abyss of hopelessness.

"I do."  She looks at him with all the sincerity in her heart.   "I do love you."

She loves me.  But doesn't know if she loves that other man. Then...

"Let's stick to the plans we made."  De Yi grip her hand tightly, ignoring the ring from the other man.  "Let's leave everything behind and have a fresh start."

"I can't." Ping Ping looks up to him and up close, he can see that her love for him does not negate her love for the other.

"Yes you can." He lifts her finger with the ring. "You just have to want to. You have to choose."

"I..." 

"If you love me..."  He pulls out his box, containing the custom designed ring from 3 years ago.  He sets it down next to her.  "The choice should be simple."