My Valentine

My expression doesn’t change. “Hi mom,” I say. “Okay.”

I answer her questions in monosyllables as we walk out to the car. I know my lack of any detailed answers is upsetting her, but really, there are no answers for her questions. All I’ve been doing is studying. I don’t go out, I don’t meet people, I don’t make friends, I don’t date. There’s nothing to tell her. I tell her that, and looks at me as she drives, not smiling anymore.

I go to my bedroom, close the door, curl up on my bed and cry, on and on. I’m here, where we were together, but where’s Nicholas? Why hasn’t he found me? It’s almost a year now, and I miss him so much.

“I’m not hungry,” I say, when mom knocks on my door to tell me there’s lunch.

When I go down for dinner, my eyes are red from crying. Dad looks at me sharply but says nothing. My mom glances sideways at me, and I can see that she’s worried. Did she think everything would be okay now? Did she think three and a half months would make a difference to how I feel?

“I called Cindy to let her know you’re back for Christmas, Kiyomi,” she says. “She’s coming round tomorrow morning to take you out.”

For a moment, I’m going to say forget it, but Cindy was my best friend. Maybe she knows what happened to Nicholas. Maybe she can tell me something. Anything. Maybe Gary or Ken or one of the other guys knows.

I talk with Cindy, but it;s meaningless. I know she was my friend, but that friendship doesn’t really mean anything to me now. It ‘s like I’m talking to a stranger, and after an hour, I go home and go up to my room. I don’t bother going down for dinner, I don’t bother responding to mom. I lie on my bed and cry. I can’t stop crying.

Where is he?

Ten minutes after my mom gives up, my dad breaks my door down.

“I’ve had enough of this nonsense, Kiyomi,” my Dad says, dragging me off my bed and downstairs to the dining room. As soon as he lets go of my arm, I turn aan walk out. Something hits the back of my head, hard. The floor comes up to meet my face, my nose is bleeding.. I close my eyes and lie there.

“Jesus, dad.” That’s Johnny’s voice. I push myself up onto my hands and knees, and then collapse again as the room spins. I puke onto the Persian rug. Johnny carries me upstairs, back to my bed. I lie there, ignoring my mom when she comes to check on me. I can hear her crying, and there’s a gray satisfaction to that.

Later, when my head stops spinning, I open my laptop, login and change my ticket. They have a flight leaving at five in the morning for Vancouver with seats available, and there’s a connecting flight to Toronto. Once I have the flights confirmed, I call an Uber. I’m packed in ten minutes. I write a note and leave it on the kitchen table, slip out the door, reset the security system and walk down to the street. The Uber’s already there, outside the gate. It’s two am when I arrive at the airport, and three hours later, I’ve passed through immigration and security, boarded the plane, and I’m half-asleep in my seat as the Airbus lifts smoothly off the runway.

By the time my parents wakeup, I’ll be halfway to Vancouver.

Vancouver to Toronto. I catch the train downtown, find the next train to Kingston and buy a ticket. It’s evening when I finally arrive in Kingston. There’s messages in my voicemail, text messages, emails. Mom. Dad. My brothers. Even one from Cindy. I send a reply. It’s straightforward.

“Arrived in Kingston safely. If he ever hits me again, I’m leaving and never coming back.” I don’t say home. It’s not home. Not anymore. I turn my phone off and sleep.

There’s no tears. No anger. No pain. There’s nothing.

Only sadness and emptiness.

David asked me out on a date. I haven’t seen or heard from Nicholas in a year and a half now, not since that morning we were torn apart. There’s nothing. No trace of him, or his parents. I know his dad owns businesses, and I search and search but I never knew their names. I’m looking for a needle in a haystack. David’s friendly, we talk after classes. We’ve gone off and drunk coffee together, he even makes me smile sometimes. When he asks me, I think about it and say yes.

Maybe if I date him, I’ll forget Nicholas.

I was wrong. Halfway through dinner, I think of that first date with Nicholas, him and me, dinner in a restaurant like this, and the sadness comes. The pain. The loss. Gray despair fills me and the tears trickle down my cheeks.

I can’t stop crying.

David asks me what’s wrong, but I can’t tell him. I can’t anything except sit there, filled with sadness, overwhelmed with memories that won’t go away. He takes me home, his arm around me, he helps me walk up the steps to the front door. When I can’t find my key, he knocks and asks one of my housemates to take over.

Natalie calls Scott, tells him what's happened, and Scott talks to me. I listen, but I can’t stop crying. Natalie takes over, talks to Scott. I have no idea what they talk about, and I don’t care. All I care about is Nicholas, and I don’t know where he is. I don’t know what he’s doing. Does he still care? Does he still love me? What have his parents done with him?

I’ve decided. I’m not going out on any dates again.

It’s December and I’m well into my second year at Queens now, studying Engineering. Dad apologized. Sort of. I fly to my parents’ house for Christmas. It’s not home to me anymore. It hasn’t been home since my parents’ separated me from Nicholas. I wouldn’t be going home except Mom and Dad insisted and Scott flew up from Palo Alto to pick me up and take me to Toronto airport and fly back to Hawaii with me.

This time, he keeps my return ticket. I don’t have the email. He wouldn’t forward it to me, and I’m not strong enough to say no, not strong enough to argue, but I tell myself that once I’ve graduated I’ll be able to get a job. I’ll have my own income and I can separate myself from my family if I can find the strength within me to do that.

I stay in my room except for family meals.

My Christmas presents stay under the Christmas tree unopened. When my mom asks me if I’m going to open them, I look at her blankly.

“No.” That’s all I say. “No,” and then I stand up and walk upstairs to my bedroom. The lock’s been removed. I half expected that. I have a security wedge in my bag. I jam it under my door, shower, take my sleeping tablet and climb into bed. It’s a familiar bed, but it’s not mine. Not anymore. Nothing in this room is mine.

“Kiyomi, what’s wrong?” It’s my mom’s voice, outside my door, pleading.

Good. I want her to suffer for what she did to me. I want to hurt her, the way she hurt me. I turn over and go to sleep. The sleeping tablet helps, and there aren’t any dreams. It’s not the dreams that are the worst though. It’s the nightmares, and when I don’t take my sleeping tablet, the nightmares come. Those presents with my name on them stay under the Christmas tree, unopened, day after day. After a week, they appear in my bedroom. I collect them in a plastic trash bag and take them out and drop them in the recycling bin, unopened.

I can’t wait to leave. To leave this house that’s no longer a home behind me.

Walking through security, I hear my mother’s voice, calling after me. Calling my name. Calling goodbye. I don’t look back. I’ve made up my mind. After I graduate, I’m not going back. Two more years. That’s all. I just have to survive two more years, and then I’ll leave my family behind.

What will I do? I have no idea. I’ve never had to do anything for myself before except study. I’ll manage, although really, I don’t know why I even bother trying. Without Nicholas, what’s the point? He was my sun, he was everything that made living worthwhile, and without him, there’s nothing except gray rooms, gray streets, gray people who mean nothing to me.

Nothing at all.

It’s my third year at Queens now. I’m doing well academically of course. I’m sharing a house with half a dozen other girls this year. I’ve tried to be social but I hate it. Other people hold as much interest for me as cardboard cutouts that can speak. I’m a cardboard cutout myself, speaking the words I’m expected to say back. They don’t mean anything, and sometimes, when my mom calls, I can’t remember a thing about what I said afterwards. Noises.

I made the right noises, or at least, I assume I did.

I’ve been doing my best not to think of Nicholas. I wasn’t good enough for his parents and he did what they wanted. He wasn’t strong enough to disobey them and come to me, and I? I wasn’t strong enough to disobey mine and when I did, I couldn’t find him. He’d gone, vanished. His parents had gone. Everything is gone, leaving only memories. There’s nothing of us left but memories, and those, I cling too. They’re almost all I have left of us.

Every now and then I can’t stop myself from looking at the only photo of us that I’ve managed to save. That photo of us together in that hotel room on that Valentine’s Day night. That huge bed covered in red rose petals, the two of us together, naked, surrounded by roses. We’re both smiling, my face is glowing with happiness. His is…I have no words. Radiant?

I can’t even remember now what happiness felt like. I can see in that image that I’m happy, and I can remember being happy, but I can’t feel that happiness. I don’t know what happiness is anymore, and I’m so sad. That was over three years ago. I’m twenty one now and I still dream of what might have been if we’d both been stronger.

Today is one of those days. I know I shouldn’t torture myself thinking about him but I do. I click on the folder that holds his photo. I look at that innocuous file name for so long, not opening it. I know that if I open it and look I’ll start to cry again and I’ve managed to not cry for weeks now. I open it. I look. I see us. I drink in the sight of him.

I wonder where he is now. What he’s doing. Does he think about me? I sit there silently, that image on my monitor, filling the screen, memories of him filling my heart, the tears trickling down my cheeks. Wishing he’d been stronger. Wishing I’d been stronger. Wishing we were together now. Remembering when we were.

I remember everything as if it was yesterday. That enormous bunch of roses he gave me on that first date. Surfing with him. Lying together on the sand. Being held in his arms. Smiling as he held my hand. Sitting beside him in his Morgan. That hotel room, full of roses, their scent filling the room as we made love again and again, as if the roses were an aphrodisiac. My every memory of him is of roses. Roses and him. The hotel room we’d stayed in together that night, filled with roses, the floor, the bed, everything covered with those red petals, the color of the virgin blood I’d shed that night, the scent of roses filling the room, the petals coating our bodies.

The two of us together, naked, rolling in those red petals as I finally gave myself completely to him. Rose petals surrounding us as we made love all through that long long night. Rose petals everywhere. The agony and the ecstasy of finally being together completely, the love, the belonging, the desire, everything that we shared. The promises we’d made to each other. The hopes that we’d shared for our future together. The joy of being with him, of giving myself to him in that single night of endless love.

Shattered hopes. Shattered dreams. Torn from us by our parents. He was the most precious thing in the world to me and he’s gone. Lost. He’s only a memory to me now, and I wonder if that’s what I am to him. Only a memory?

I stare at my monitor, my mind a blank, as empty as my hopes for my future. I click again. The image disappears from my monitor but not from my mind. Never from my mind. I wipe my eyes, dry my face. Stand. It’s time to head for class. I need to study tonight as well. Exams are looming, I need to do well although it’s hard to say why now.

But I will. What else is there for me to do?

Christmas comes again, and I fly back to Hawaii. To my parents house. I have a room there that I used to live in, but it’s no longer mine. It’s empty of everything that was me. Bit by bit, on every trip home, I’ve cleaned out everything that’s me. A lot’s gone in the garbage, everything my parents ever gave me, discarded. Some I’ve taken back to Kingston with me, boxed up in my closet. Clothes dropped in charity bins. Now? It looks almost like a hotel bedroom, as stark and colorless as my soul.

My parents have stopped supervising me so closely now. They want me to go out. They want me to go to the Tennis Club, meet my friends, meet guys. My mom’s almost desperate now, but it doesn’t mean anything. I’m not even that interested in connecting with my old friends. It’s like I’m talking through a fog to the ghosts of friends past. There’s no connection there anymore. There’s nothing.

Cindy tried to apologize to me for what happened, but I can’t even feel anything. Anger? Upset? Sad? None of those. “It wasn't your fault,” I say. “It was just bad luck.”

“Cindy’s engaged,” my mom says hopefully on that next visit home. “To the Fujimoto’s oldest boy.

I shrug. Cindy told me. “She invited me to the engagement party tomorrow evening,” I say.

“Who are you going with?” my mom asks, even more hopefully.

“I’m going by myself,” I say, watching her face fall. It doesn’t mean anything. Even hurting her is meaningless now.

“Did you meet anyone nice?” she asks, the morning after that party.

“No,” I say blankly, nibbling on a piece of toast. It was good to see Cindy again, and some of my old friends, but it was like I was seeing them through a fog. A fog of time and indifference, talking to friends who seemed almost strangers. Strangers with whom I had almost nothing in common.

Johnny’s still living at home, but he knows better now than to try and set me up on a date with one of his friends. The last time he tried, back at Christmas, I looked at him like he was something that’d crawled out from under a rock. Mom knew better than to say even a word when I stayed in my room for the rest of the day, curled up on that bed that’s no longer mine, staring blankly at the wall.

Valentine’s Day. Today is February the 14th. The saddest day of my life.

Four years to the day since that single night in paradise with Nicholas. Four years since he and I last saw each other. An eternity. I wonder if he’s forgotten me. I’ve done well so far this year which is strange, because my heart isn’t in my studies now at all. I’m not quite at the top, but I’m close. My parents are happy with my results.

They think I’m over Nicholas at last.

I don’t disillusion them. I don’t care what they think, and if they want to think everything’s fine, and I’ve forgotten him, they can. I know the truth. I know that without Nicholas in my life, really, it’s all meaningless. I’m just going through the motions, making the noises, studying like an automaton. I can’t stop myself thinking about him. Every day is a struggle. To get out of bed. To go to classes. To study. To try and stop myself thinking of him. It’s been like this for four years and it’s getting worse.

It’s been much worse since Christmas. Maybe it was Cindy’s engagement party and seeing all my old friends, but without Nicholas there. I miss him more than ever. Sometimes now I don’t get out of bed all day. I don’t eat. I don’t anything. I lie there, staring at the wall, ignoring my housemates when they tap on my door and ask me if I’m okay. I know Scott talked to them. I know they watch me, but really, there’s nothing to watch. I’m just a cardboard cutout going through the motions, pretending to be alive..

My parents have no idea. They think I’m doing well. They’re happy that I’m over an infatuation with a haole boy they saw as completely unsuitable. I talk to Mom and Dad every week, although they’re not really conversations. I say yes and no, I tell them everything is fine now but it’s not. My Mom keeps asking if I’ve met any nice Japanese-American boys. There aren’t many of those at Queens. I don’t cry now, but I never answer those questions. I ignore them, just as I ignore my Mom’s attempts to match make when I’m back home for those short visits. Just as I ignore those questions about what else I do besides study.

I don’t do anything else at all. I eat, sometimes. I sleep. I study. Sometimes mom sounds worried, sometimes she sounds anxious. Sometimes she sounds almost desperate but I can’t bring myself to feel anything for her, not anymore.

They separated me from Nicholas and for that, I can’t ever forgive them. I’ll be an obedient daughter, for now, but I’ll never forgive them for what they did to us. I share my academic results with my parents, but nothing else, nothing personal, nothing about my life. I have no life. I have nothing else to share and I wouldn’t if I did. There’s nothing beyond my studies. That sense of duty is what keeps me going. Without that, I would have just walked away from all of this long ago. I’m not sure now that I’ll even be able to find the strength to walk away from this after I graduate. I have nothing left inside me. I’m empty. Weak and empty.

I have no idea what I’m going to do after I graduate. Without my studies, there’ll be nothing at all.

I’m sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee, knowing I should head upstairs to study, because study is all I have left, but there’s no motivation. No interest. Just a dullness inside me that won’t go away, a dull grayness that expands with every month that passes. There’s no life inside me, no warmth, no reason to keep on going. I exist, but there’s no meaning to my existence. I just am, without any joy, without any happiness. Sometimes it’s hard to even find the motivation to eat. I’m taking sleeping pills every night just to sleep now. Sometimes I look at the container and think how easy it would be just to take them all and put a stop to this endless misery.

The snow is piled up outside, the afternoon sun shines through the window, a golden warmth that does nothing to warm the chill inside me. A chill as deep as the Canadian snow outside the door. A car pulls up. Someone climbs out. They’re walking up the path to the front door. I see the movement, the shape, but I can’t be bothered looking at anything except my coffee. What reason is there to look? It means nothing to me. The doorbell rings. One of my housemate’s answers, I hear her voice, talking.

It’s Valentine’s Day today. Guys have been dropping off flowers and pushing Valentine's Day cards through the mailing slot in the door all morning. Valentine’s Day. It’s been four years now, and I feel the tears coming. I better go back up to my room, because I know what’s going to happen now.

I’m going to curl up on my bed and cry.

My housemate’s calling, “Kiyomi, there’s someone for you.”

“Okay, coming,” I call back, reluctantly. I hope it’s not one of my brothers coming unexpectedly to check on me, or the guy from that extra Math class I’m taking asking me out on a date again. He’s nice enough but I’m not interested. I told him when he asked, and I’d tried just that once, with David, but really, I’m not doing that ever again.

At the door, I see a bunch of red roses with two legs beneath them. My heart sinks. This isn’t good. I can’t look at red roses without feeling that choking unhappiness. Not just red roses. Any roses. My eyes begin to well. I wish he hadn’t brought them with him because I’m going to cry and I hate that. I hate crying in front of other people and then they’ll ask what’s wrong and I won’t be able to explain because I can’t and that will make everything far worse.

“Kiyomi?” The roses sink.

I see a face above them. For a moment I can’t think. Can’t speak. Can’t anything. My heart stops beating, then it thumps wildly and the world spins in a blaze of golden sunshine. Is it him? Is it really him? How? Why? What’s he doing here? I stand there, gaping, unable even to breathe. I’m going to faint, I know it.