Stay with me Forever

I was dreaming of going back to the time I had committed my greatest mistake, to change and correct it. I left the only love of my life because of reasons like misunderstanding and incompatibility. We were always in strife and believed that we were not meant for each other. But, since then, I have realized that I made a mistake leaving her and living my life without her by my side. Since then, I have been thinking about going back to that time so that things would not be like this so that she would have not left me so that she would have not vanished… died.

It was a paradise to me, then; having someone to love. Seeing someone you love in the very first rays of the sun up to the very last moment of your restless eyes. Having someone who cares for you and who consoles you when you’re breaking down. Having someone who comforts you after the day’s toil. Having someone who listens to your every complaint about how problematic life is in this tiresome world. And having someone you think misunderstands you but is only thinking of your welfare and betterment. However, that paradise is lost.

I’ve been yearning to go back to that time if only God would permit it if only science would permit it.

After a decade of perseverance and diligence towards my field of study, Astronomy, and Physical Science, I was able to create; I mean invent a portal through which I could move to a different part of the time, the future, and the past. Of course, it was because of my overwhelming desire to return to my one true love that I even endeavored to achieve such a feat.

My eagerness to go back to the time I committed my biggest mistake spurred me to place myself in the portal, having set the date in its generating computer console. I stepped inside the portal and within a few seconds; I was on the other side of time, the past. The place I saw before I was still the same as in my present time, since only a decade had passed. I had already forgotten every single step I took in that time except the time when Helena and I were in strife.

I entered the door of the apartment we were renting and there I saw Helena preparing our meal. It was a fair day, the same time of year as when I had left her on her own; had taken my few clothes and had driven my car far away from her just because my mixed emotions told me to do so. Upon seeing her, my heart pounded, and a feeling of warmth that circulated my entire body, probably because I had missed her so much but also because I couldn’t believe that my probing mind had invented something that could bring her back to me. I immediately headed for her and embraced her from behind with all my strength, all my love, and all my being. She tried to flee from me, perhaps because it was an abrupt act on my part that scared her, perhaps she thought it was not me or perhaps because, if she knew it was me, she wondered why I was acting in such a way. She turned around to face me.

“Oh, Marco, you surprised me. What happened?” she asked, a smile on her face.

“Nothing… I just missed you so much…” I embraced her again; wanting to hold her close to me until the end of time, although I knew this time does not exist between the two of us. She clasped her hands around my torso and hugged me tight as well. I did not notice how my tears fell from my then-lonely eyes until they streamed down onto her shoulders and she asked me, “What happened, Marco?”

I couldn’t speak. Only a deep sigh escaped as I continued to weep, physical convulsions surging up from deep inside my chest.

It was the longest embrace in the entire world. It was the longest embrace a man and woman can have in this world. And it was my longest weep since I was born.

“Helena, I missed you so much… I love you… You are my life… my everything…,” I told her through the sobs.

“Marco, I love you too,” she said, obviously completely perplexed as to this sudden outburst of emotion. She certainly wasn’t used to hearing such phrases from me.

Being with her at that moment, everything else in my life totally faded away. I forgot all about my career as a physicist and astronomer. Indeed, I forgot about my present life completely. I focused on taking care of her and making love to her all day and night for one week, knowing that the next week would be her time to leave me in my past and at this moment. I did not know yet if I could defer her death or whether this was something only God could do, which reluctantly I still believed.

The week passed in a loving haze until the fated day arrived, when I knew she would leave me. I stayed beside her every second of the day, trying to protect her from the forces of nature. In my ‘other’ life our neighbor had told me a car had accidentally hit her; so I refused to let her out of the apartment, especially at the hour I knew her death had occurred. I pleaded with her to stay with me all the time. She did. And nothing bad happened.

I knew I could return to my ‘present’, but I couldn’t leave her. I wanted, no, needed, to stay with her forever.

I thought it was all fine, Helena and I, holding each other like time for us, did not exist…but I was mistaken. Having missed her so much, I wanted to be with her at all times; wanted to talk to her at all times; wanted to make love to her at all times. I truly believed that now we had survived that fateful day that Helena and I would grow old and die together, embracing tightly while lips not apart. But this was not to be.

The morning after the day of reckoning, I woke up without Helena beside me. Without even pulling on a pair of underpants, I roved the apartment to look for her, but she was not there. I then put on my clothes and went out to ask the neighbors if she was with them. She was not. I felt a slight panic in the pit of my stomach and cried. I rushed out of our building, darting around all our local haunts: the shops, the grocery store, the parks, and even hospitals. My last resort was to go to the police station to report her disappearance, but I was simply told I had to wait for a few days before filing a missing person report. I did not know where else to look for her, so I waited, but she did not come back. The pain I felt was physical. I felt like I had done the previous week when I had seen her for the first time after so many years. I considered returning to my ‘present’ when suddenly the door of the apartment opened and in walked Helena, hand in hand with another guy. He was teasing her, comforting, kissing her; I could not watch. What was happening?

I hid behind the shower door while Helena and this guy were in bed together. I covered my ears and scrunched up my eyes, but eventually, I could not stand it anymore. I climbed out of the shower room and pulled the guy away from her. We dropped to the floor and wrestled. I grabbed hold of his neck, securing it in an armlock and applying as much pressure as I could. I could hear Helena was screaming and crying my name… only my name…

I looked up at her piteous yet adorable eyes. She was still weeping and uttering my name, but she was not looking at me. She was looking, helplessly, at the guy who was choking within my grip. She glanced at me, a look of complete desperation in her eyes. I was so affected by this look that I immediately released the man to the floor. She stopped weeping and calling my name. She looked at me astonished, as if she did not know me, and then gazed for a moment at the man lying face down on the floor. The guy crawled away from me to the corner of the room. Helena followed him protectively, all the while not taking her eyes off me. She reached behind her and helped him up, and it horrified me to see the guy’s face. It was mine.

I could not move for a moment, nor utter a single word. Helena helped the ‘other’ me to sit on the bed. Before they could act further, I dashed outside, climbed in my car, and headed for my present apartment in San Isidro. While driving, I thought about many things. How was my present now, if I was still with Helena in this past? Was she now with me in my ‘present’? Did, a decade on, we have our own family? I drove as fast as I could so that I could get back to the present. I was excited, yet worried.

I drove my car fast, desperate to get home. Half a mile away from my ‘present’ apartment, which was still a shrub, a ten-wheeler truck appeared around a bend on the road ahead of me. It was driving at a terrible speed and seemed to take up most of my lane and its own. I slammed on the breaks but within a second the truck was yards from my car. I swerved to the right, but it was too late. The truck hit my car, and it sent me flying. The car rolled maybe fifty times before it flew over the edge of a grassy precipice and landed on a huge sedimentary rock next to a river. While the car rolled around, I felt myself being flung, resulting in what was bound to be many cuts to my arms, head, and back and I felt sure that all my bones were broken. By the time the car impacted the rock, I was unconscious. All I saw was an abyss.

***

“Darling, how are you? I missed you so much!” Marco held Helena in his arms and kissed her.

“I’m better now, that you are here,” replied she with a teasing tone.

“Do you remember the man who tried to kill me in our apartment ten years ago? The man that you always said looked so like me?” he asked.

“Of course, why?” Helena was astonished that he would bring up this incident again, so many years on.

“The Police just found a rusty, old wrecked car down by the river near San Isidro. Undergrowth had totally hidden it. I went there last week to write a report for it. There was a body still in the vehicle.”

“How could you possibly know that it was him?” she asked, scrunching up her eyebrows.

“The CCTV footage from the shop across the road from our old apartment. Remember, we submitted it to the authorities? Well, not only does it show that the car my attacker escaped in is the same as the one they found by the river, but the dead man’s clothes were still intact. It was definitely him. I was allowed to watch the DVD of the attacker's escape again. It was him, no question.”

“You’re really a good investigative journalist, Marco. That’s why I’m proud to be your wife.”

He moved towards her and embraced and kissed her again as it would never end, like they could stay like this forever, and like time did not exist. After the kiss, Marco drew his lips close to her ears and said, “Darling, stay with me forever…”