"I'm a failure."
Bethany sits at a lunch room table, in Jadaiah's restaurant, surrounded by wandering humble folk. Sitting across from her, is Jadaiah. They are each holding a cup of hot cocoa. Jadaiah extends her arm and touches Bethany's hand.
"Don't say that, honey... Why would you say that?"
"Jadaiah... It's Christmas Eve, and I have absolutely no one in my life... I have nothing.... I 'am' nothing."
"Oh that's nonesense, Beth... You are a strong beautiful woman who is in her prime. You're a powerful--"
"Don't pretend you don't see it, Jadaiah. I've lost everyone I ever cared for. Do you have any idea how hard it was to fill out those papers? Reporting my daughter 'missing'? It felt like I was giving up on her. In a matter of speaking, I was... Because deep down inside, I know they wont do a damn thing to find her... And just like that, I'll become one of those parents who outlive their children."
"You haven't failed. Your only downfall is how hard you are on yourself and you will only fail if you allow yourself to."
Bethany scoffs and shakes her head. She then sips from her cocoa.
At Aaron's house, Samantha is laying in bed, on her side, staring at the wall in front of her. Unbeknown to her, Aaron has come downstairs and is behind her, slowly walking toward the bed.
Samantha sees a red rose being slowly lowered in front of her face. Aaron is holding the rose by the stem, letting it hang upside down as how lowers it into her path of view. Samantha takes a deep breath with her eyes closed and then rolls her eyes.
"Go... Away... Aaron... Please."
Aaron lays in bed behind Samantha and gently caresses her face with the rose.
"It's Christmas Eve, my love... You know what that means, don't you?"
"That it's been twenty-five days since you kidnapped me."
"No, honey, no... Do you remember back in third grade... The week before Christmas vacation, when you looked in your desk at school and you saw this...?"
Aaron presents a note along with the rose now. Samantha does not acknowledge it and remains quiet. Aaron gets up from the bed now and walks around to sit on the floor in front f Samantha. He places the rose on the night stand, and then unfolds the note.
"Alright, since yoy wont read it, I will. Hopefully this refreshes your memory... Ahem... 'Dearest Samantha Lawrence, I know we're just friends. But please accept this flower, and don't allow our bond to end. Yes I know it's pretty, but let's face it so are you. And the flower's beauty will decay, but yours will remain new. Next year I'll give you two flowers, and the year after that, I'll give you three. Then four, then five, then six, then seven, every year on Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas, Samantha Lawrence. Love Always, Aaron Walsh."
"I don't want your damn christmas flowers, Aaron. Flowers are for the dead, so save your money for my burial."
"Your 'burial' Sam?"
Aaron gets up from the floor and leans in, giving Samantha a kiss on the forehead. He places the rose in her hair. She remains still and allows her angered eyes to follow Aaron's movements.
"I don't even want to think of such a thing. I'd never let you die, as long as I live... I'd be willing to give up my life, Sam, if it meant you would continue to live yours..."
"You drugged me and kidnapped me, and now you have me chained in your basement... Yet you have nerve to tell me you want me to 'live my life'? I don't think even you actually believe what you're saying."
Aaron shakes his head slowly.
After sipping cocoa from her cup, Bethany licks her lips and makes eye contact with Jadaiah while smiling.
"Do you actually believe what you're saying? Or is this a generic set of encouraging words?"
"Bethany, when God puts obstacles in your life, all these trials and tribulations are a test if your strength and character. He would never give you a burden He wasn't sure you could bear. You are filled with self doubt right now and that is exactly what the devil wants from us, you need to shake off this doubt and find peace in God. "...For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace." First Corinthians, Fourteen Thirty-three."
"Where was God when my daughter was taken from me... Where is God right now, actually? Is he here? Because if He is, I might need a word with him. He needs to be out looking for my daughter. He needed to be with my husband when his plane went down. He needed to be with me when I was so young and so stupid to believe my husband was faithful..."
"You're talking dangerously, my dear... God isn't to be challenged, or dared. You don't call him out, you pray. He may not be visible but he is always present and he has never left you. He never will, because we are his children. There are times in which He places people in your life for a reason. He wants you to know you are not alone and you have a frkend in Him. "Come unto me, ye who are weary and overburdened, and I the lord shall give you rest." Book of Matthew, Eleven Twenty-eight."
"That all sounds very lovely, Jadaiah, but I need more than just faith..."
Back at Aaron's house, Samantha is now sitting on the couch and Aaron isn't in the basement with her. She clicks the button on the remote control, turning the television on. She begins to click, going through the channels and nothing on the screen interests her.
Aaron carefully comes down the spiral staircase. He has in his arms a very large bouquet of red roses. The size of what he carries is almost equal to that of Aaron himself, an it has been professionally arranged to form the shape of a ball. Aaron gets to the bottom of the stairs and walks toward Samantha.
"Look what the delivery guy just dropped off..."
Samantha hasn't noticed what Aaron is carrying, since she has not bothered to even turn to look at him. She gasps lightly when Aaron gets in front of her and puts the giant ball of flowers next to her on the couch.
"...Happy Christmas Eve, Sam..."
"I suppose this is the part in which I am supposed to pretend you haven't made my life miserable and thank you?"
"Only if that's what you'd like to do... All that I am really looking for is that you accept the gift. Nothing more."
"You speak as if I had a choice. What am I going to do? It's not like I can go out and return them."
"Wont you at least look at them?"
"I can see them. And why are there so many? Last year you gave me fifteen flowers, but now instead of sixteen, you bring a thousand."
"Three hundred, actually... Reason being, for the past sixteen years I've been giving you one flower, two flowers, three flowers, four... increasing the number by one each year, but... This year, I am closer to you than I've ever been, so... Instead of adding a rose to each year, I decided to multiply. So, it's one flower, two flowers, four flowers, eight... So ultimately, three hundred. Basic math."
"What will you achieve by doing this? Do you think I'm going to accept your love because of your gifts?"
"I think you've already accepted my love, Sam. What I am trying to achieve here, is to hold a magnifying glass to the glimmer of hope inside you that tells me you love me too. That spark... That connection... I'm not trying to convince you that I love you; you already know I do... I'm just trying to help you accept the fact that you feel the same way. You know that lovely poem I read to you earlier? I wrote that to you over fifteen years ago, and do you know where it was? In your dresser's bottom drawer... Along with thousands of others. O searched through every single piece of memorabilia you kept, and... I did not find a single item that was given to you by anyone other than me, Sam... I'm sure a lot of different guys gave you things, but you didn't care for them as much as you care for me, which is why you never cherished their gifts and you never kept the things they gave you... In fact... You had a boyfriend in tenth grade... Roger, was it? And you have absolutely nothing from him."
"Aaron, stop. You're getting worse by the day. I remember when your little crush on me was innocent and even cute. Like the way you looked at me and Roger back then and how you would argue everything he said, but... Now you're killing people, Aaron. You did it to Michael just because you "assumed" I was with him and you did it to Cliff just because Nathan told you he liked me. This isn't an innocent crush any more, Aaron! You're fooling yourself into thinking I love you, and you're hurting anyone who seems like they can get in your way."
"Is that what you think...?"
Aaron takes a seat across from Samantha. He takes the television remote from the coffee table and clicks the TV off. He sets the remote back on the table and looks at Samantha.
"Let me tell you a little more about the love you've never acknowledged, Sam."
At Jadaiah's restaurant, Bethany takes a deep breath before letting out a sigh. Jadaiah has a look of concern in her eyes as Bethany proceeds to speak.
"...Growing up, I had four brothers, we lived with mom and dad, and I even had a dog named Percy... Percy died when I was ten years old. I cried for days over that pup; he was so young... I couldn't understand why people, and animals, had to die... The concept of it felt so cruel... I started thinking about how sadistic a god would have to be for this to be a rule for life... But I found comfort in my mother, who helped restore my faith in God... And then she too was taken from me. My mother died when I was twelve. I didn't know where to turn to, being the youngest, and only, daughter in a household with five men, I felt alone. I wanted to leave. I wondered where God was then too... My oldest brother died from heart disease... The youngest, was killed in a war we shouldn't have been fighting in the first place. My father passed away from kidney failure, and one of my remaining brothers moved to Europe. This was all before I turned eighteen. To think I was in love with life, and everything I ever liked about it was stripped away over the course of six years..."
Jadaiah starts rubbing Bethany's hand to comfort her. Bethany's eyes well up with tears.
"...And that's when he came into my life... Nathan was a breath of fresh air to me. My only moment of clarity, and my only hope for happiness. He was my light, he was my savior at the time... We fell in love and we got married... We had a beautiful porcelain doll of a baby and we were happy... Or at least I was... But then what does your God do to me? He takes Nathan from me as well... And I don't mean he took his life... He took the one certain thing I felt I had; he took his love. Nathan ran around giving my love away to another woman, and I had no idea. He died and I remained his indefinitely because of the loyalty that I trusted him with. But even with him in my heart, I felt alone again. Alone in this world to fend for myself, and now I had a daughter that needed me even mote than I needed Nathan. I found reason and endless motivation just by looking into my baby doll's eyes. And now, Jadaiah... That motivation is gone. I have no idea where my daughter is... And to make things worse, I've disrespectfully allowed myself to doubt the only person who cares for Sammy as much as I do. I have no father, no siblings, no husband, no daughter..."
"You do have your daughter, Beth. You will find her... But you also have me. And you have Aaron! Now if God did--"
Bethany scoffs once again. Jadaiah takes a deep breath for patience in reaction to Bethany's negative reception of her words.
"Alright, look... You listen to me, Beth. I'm gonna be real with you and you might not like what you hear. I aint even gonna talk to you 'bout faith no more, I'm gonna tell you about struggle and overcoming the odds. If you don't get yourself out of that funk and quit your childish moping and self pity, aint nothin gonna get better. You gotta take life by the horns and make the best of every situation. I know missing your daughter must be the toughest thing a mother can go through, I feel you, but just piling together all the bad things that happened in your life is not gonna fix that. You better get your behind up off that seat start making things happen."
Bethany shakes her head slowly, completely unmoved by what Jadaiah just told her.
"I already tried that... I made it nowhere and fast. Jadaiah, I hired a private eye -two, actually- and with the help of Aaron, we searched and I put out posters, and... Now there are two more missing people, and I ended up betraying Aaron's trust, so now... What? What else can I do?"
"Come to church with me on Sunday. That's what you can do."
"I need something that would help the situation, not something that would help the way I feel about it."
"The invitation will always stand. The doors will be open for you."
Jadaiah now gets up from the table and walks away with her cup of cocoa. Bethany wipes a tear from her left eye and looks around at the people who are smiling at one another. She sees herself alone even within a crowd. She stares at her cup of hot cocoa for several minutes in deep thought.
Aaron is in his basement sitting across from Samantha. He has his hands folded in front of him as he speaks to her.
"I've never had a girlfriend, Sam. I've never had eyes for anyone else beside you, and I promised myself I would wait for you to be ready for me. I saw you go out and date guys here and there but in my mind, I was studying this. Every time you had a peoblem or fallout with guy you were dating, you would come to me. And thanks to everything you used to tell me, now I know what not to do. I have saved the best of me, or all of me, just for you. I've never had any sexual interactions with anyone, because I am waiting for you. And it's always been like that... It always will... Until the day in which you decide that you want to be mine."
"That... Is never... Going to happen."
"I think it will."
"The only way that I would ever sleep with you is if you actually kill me and then rape my dead body."
"That... is sick, Sam. A disturbing thought."
"Well what can I say, Aaron. You've made me into a sick, disturbing girl. You are a sick, disturbing man, and everything you have done in the last two months is, in fact, sick and disturbing."
Aaron sucks his teeth and stands up from the seat. He walks away toward the spiral staircase, and Samantha doesn't look at him. She grabs the remote control and turns the television back on. As Aaron begins walking upstairs, Samantha shouts without turning to him.
"And bring me some food! I can't eat these damn flowers."
Aaron shakes his head and runs his had down his face while exhaling as he exits the basement.
At Jadaiah's restaurant, the people who were eating and serving are beginning to leave, and Bethany's hot beverage has gone cold. The light band around the finger where her wedding ring once was, is still as much a reminder of Nathan as the ring itself would be. Bethany hides her hand.
"Everything I ever believed in... Is gone?"
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Author's Note**
I am very open to any questions anyone may want answered in future chapters, or anything that you would like me to explain or go into more detail as well. Please don't forget to vote and fan me if you like my work :) Thank You so much for letting me share this with you. -GB