Forever Yours

When I got woke from my little escape from the world, I woke up alone. Zack was gone. I looked around the apartment for him, but he was nowhere to be found. I did find a not on the kitchen counter. It read:

Rain,
I got called in for an emergency at work. I’m sorry for leaving without saying goodbye, but I didn’t want to wake you. If you need me just text me. I don’t really know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call if I’ll be later than six. I love you.
Forever,
Zack

I put the note down and walked over to fridge. I poured myself some cola and walked over to the couch. I sighed before taking a sip. I had no idea what to do without Zack. Is that a bad thing? I think so. I looked at the time. Four o’ clock.
I turned on the television and as soon as I started to flip the channels, there was a buzz at the door. I put my drink on the table next to the couch and then got up.
“Who is it?” I asked into the intercom.
“It’s Carly”
I buzzed her in and within a minute she was knocking at the door. I opened the door and she gave me a great big hug.
“I came over to see if you wanted to have dinner,” she said.
“You came to Malibu from Burbank to see if I wanted to have dinner?” I asked, looking at her with suspicion.
“Okay, maybe not.”
“What’s up?” I asked, showing her to the couch. “Want something to drink?”
“Got anything stronger than cola?”
“Sorry, no.”
“That’s okay,” she said.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s this guy I’ve been seeing,” she said with a pouty face.
“What happened?”
“I just found out that he’s married.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah,” she said. She started to cry. “I was starting to love him, ya know.”
“Tell me everything,” I said.
I grabbed a box of tissues from the end table and handed it to her. She wiped her face and started to tell me the story of how she met this guy at work party. He was eyeing her from the other side of the room for most of the night and she was really attracted to him.
He’s twenty seven. He’s just over six feet tall with chocolate brown hair and warm green eyes. After a few hours, he walks over to her and starts to put the moves on. He offers to buy her a drink, but the party is an open bar. They laugh over a few drinks and at the end of the night he asked her out on a date.
Of course she agreed and he continued to woo her over a period of three months. He would take her to romantic dinners and weekend getaways. He told her that he was falling in love with her and she told him the same.
She went to a business dinner to talk about a project and suddenly he strolled in with a woman on his arm. He looked at her with a face of shock, but they went about the dinner like nothing had ever happened.
“I just wanted to die, Rain.”
“Carly…why’d you come all this way? I know that we’re good now, but you must’ve made friends in Burbank that you could’ve spilled your guts to.”
“Yeah, but none of them would listen without judging me. You never judge me and…I feel so horrible for the way I treated you so long ago because you wanted to follow your heart. Like I said, you’ve never judged me and that all I did.” She wiped her face again and then looked around. “Where’s Zack?”
“He got called into work,” I said. “He won’t be back for a while.”
“How are things with you and Zack?”
“They’re good.”
“This is a great apartment,” she said.
“Carly, stop changing the subject,” I said
“I already poured my heart out. I feel a lot better now.”
The door opened and Zack walked in. He looked shocked to see Carly.
“Carly, hey,” he said.
“Hey, Zack, I just came to talk to Rain. I’ll leave in a minute.”
“You don’t have to leave, Carly. You and I may not be the best of friends, but this is Rain’s apartment too. He can have anyone he wants over.”
Zack walked into the kitchen and put his keys on the counter.
“How was work?” I asked from the living room.
“Busy,” he said. “One of our clients was about to back out. They called me in to talk them out of it.”
“Did you?” I asked walking into the kitchen to meet him.
“You don’t even have to ask,” he said confidently. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into a kiss. “I have to go to the bedroom and work on some mock-ups for my next project.”
“Honey, you just came from work. Can’t you rest a while and…maybe we can have dinner.”
“Carly’s here,” he said.
“She can have dinner, too can’t she?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said.
I could tell that he wanted to have dinner alone with me. So, I wrapped things up with Carly so Zack and I could start cooking dinner.
“Did your nap help?” Zack asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You know, I hope you won’t be mad at me for saying this, but, seeing you so upset over this with your dad makes me think that you’re not as unforgiving of him as you think.”
I couldn’t really process what he was saying. How could Zack even think that I would be able to forgive my father?
“What’re you trying to say, Zack?”
“I’m saying that no matter what he did to you…he’s still your father and that means something whether you want believe it or not.”