To Color Your Life - Chapter 53

“What are you doing here?” Emily walked around the man, took the keys from her pocket and inserted them into the lock. “Did you even look at the time?”

“My phone got discharged. I’ve been waiting for you since eight o’clock,” Peter replied, straightening the sleeves of his shirt, which he had previously rolled up.

He always did that. When he was alone- he could indulge weaknesses, if there was someone else nearby, then he had to be perfect to the end. Emily once admired this feature of his. It was now she understood that she had mistakingly taken the man’s external desire to please each and everyone for perseverance and seriousness.

“Are you crazy to hang out at my door for four hours?! And if I hadn’t come at all, would you be sitting here and getting frozen until the very morning?” Stop, Hayes. Why do you even worry about his well-being? He’s nobody to you. “Your Molly or, Dolly, or whoever she is, did she go crazy to not have found you at home?”

“Regina.”

“What?”

“Her name is Regina,” he corrected Emily.

Yes, I wouldn’t give a dime if her name was even Cleopatra! Emily was not going to memorize the name of the one with whom her ex played tricks behind her back!

“And no, she wouldn’t go crazy. Well, at least about me. We broke up.”

Oh, what a pity! Shall I comfort you and pat you on the back? What a bitch this Regina girl is, huh? She left such a person! Or did he leave her? What the hell does it matter!

“Your personal life doesn’t concern me,” Emily opened the door, “Ok, let’s cut it to the chase. Tell me what you want and leave. It’s too late. And I’m tired.”

Peter hesitated, but seeing the girl’s displeased look, he said, “You should have had some of my research papers left over. Can I pick them up?”

Are those the ones she almost threw out the other day? It’s a pity. She should have burned them. It’s just because she would feel ashamed to ruin the work of another person. Even if that person was Miller.

Kind, kind Emily. You even left him without throwing any scandal. Maybe that’s why she stepped on the same rake a second time? Thinking about Evans made her want to hit herself or someone. Oh, for that there was a great candidate opposite!

“Peter, I’ve had them for a year. Why so much interest? Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow. Well, actually, this morning. I have a flight to Beijing at six,” the man explained.

“You could have taken them after your business trip. Or even asked to send them by mail. You know both my e-mail and my phone number.” Emily went into the apartment, tossed her shoes aside. She did not invite Peter inside. And he wouldn’t come in without an invitation. She knew that too.

All right, we need to get these damn research papers out of the table and give them to him. Then nothing else will bind them for sure. Except for memories and six years together.

But even this will be forgotten over time.

“Here. Take it.” Emily thrust two thick tomes into his hands and prepared to close the door.

“This is not a business trip. I am leaving the country. For a long time, maybe even permanently.” Peter put his foot forward, blocking the door. “I wanted to talk to you and ask for forgiveness for everything. May I?”

So the research was just an excuse? Ha, fool, it was obvious. Otherwise, he would have taken them straight away. Or maybe she took them for a reason? She decided to keep them in the hope that this will be the reason to meet again? After all, back then she still had feelings for him.

“I have nothing. I can only offer water or coffee,” the girl answered calmly and stepped aside. Peter knew her well enough to know that Emily had let him go inside.

“Just water will be fine, thanks,” the man smiled discreetly and closed the door behind him.

They went into the kitchen.

Hmm, her kitchen has seen more visitors in the past three days than in Emily’s entire year of living in the apartment.

“It’s pretty… cozy… in here,” the man said, looking around. He sat down at the table and nodded, thanking the girl for the water.

Peter was clearly nervous. Emily could see it in his crunchy back and fingers gripping the mug tightly.

“Why China?” she asked. She did not want to drag out the pause.

“I was offered a good place at Bejing University. With the possibility of career growth. But the contract is very strict, and if I break the rules, then the sanctions are serious.”

“I see,” she nodded. What kind of conditions and what sanctions for violating them, Emily was not willing to find out about. In general, she noted with surprise that she did not care at all.

Whether what happened today was to blame or whether her heart was healed of a disease named Peter Miller, she didn’t care. As if this man was a stranger to her. Maybe it was already so?

“You know, I have long wanted to apologize to you for what I-” the man began hesitantly.

“For sleeping with your Regina, and feeding me with your bullshit about scientific conferences? To hell with that one. These apologies are no longer relevant. So I myself was a fool if I didn’t notice it. Is that all?”

Peter sat with his head bowed and said nothing. Emily hasn’t seen him for a year, but during that time he has changed. He looked angular, apparently lost weight. Even a little reserved, although he was usually quick on the draw. A small receding hairline appeared on the top of the head. Did Kelly’s curses work?

“For that too,” he raised his eyes and looked at Emily, “But I wanted to apologize for something else first. I do not make excuses for my actions. As a man, I behaved disgustingly. I closed my eyes to the obvious things, demanded what I had no right to demand.”

“Peter, if you decided to pour out your soul and calm your conscience before leaving, you could write it all on paper and burn it. You didn’t have to come to me for that.” Emily felt only growing irritation at the man’s words.

“I didn’t love you.”

The girl grabbed the back of the chair next to her. Peter’s words were like a slap in the face. A very painful slap. She thought she felt nothing, but a short phrase and the dried crust on the old wound was torn to blood.

“Sorry! I put it wrong!” the man hurried to correct what he had said when he noticed Emily’s face turn gray. “I meant I didn’t love you enough. The way you deserved it!”

Emily sat down in a chair and smiled bitterly. That’s the whole truth. The real reason why everything happened the way it did.

She knew it. She felt it too. But she pretended that nothing was happening. The memories of their first kiss – bright and sensual – were like a guiding star that gave her hope in the dark when she did not understand what was happening.

“For all six years, I could not forgive myself for that situation at the university. And every time I kissed you or we made love, I thought about it.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Peter?!” Emily brusquely wiped her cheeks, which were already wet. She didn’t notice when she started crying.

The man fell silent. The deep wrinkle between the eyebrows and the pursed lips were so unusual for him.

“Do you remember that night? The one when rite of passage for the freshmen took place? I took you to a dark auditorium and there-”

“There we kissed for the first time,” Emily chuckled. Well, at least he remembered that. Oh, thank you Professor Miller for such an honor. “You know, now, after your words, it seems to me that this was generally the only time when you really kissed me.”

Peter put the mug aside, ran his fingers through his hair, clenched them into fists, and hummed. With such a lingering and stifled roar, like a beaten beast.

“It was not me.”

“W-what?” Emily asked, hoping she had misheard the words.

“You heard it right. The person who kissed you that night… It was not me!” he slammed his fist on the table and sobbed. He was crying bitterly, like a child who, for the first time in life, had found out what the pain of loss looks like. “Lord, Emy, forgive me. I was such a coward. For six years I have been such a coward. Forgive me…”

“W-what do you mean, it wasn’t you?! Peter, what’s going on?! ” Emily had a chill. The only vivid memory turned out to be a sham. A knockabout comedy.

Miller wiped his eyes and, calming down a bit, replied, “I screwed it up, Em. That was such a screw up that could cost me my entire scientific career. And they, a bunch of rich sons of bitches, caught me. I had no choice, Em. For that bastard, it was just a game, but for me, it was the matter of my entire life, you know?”

Emily shook her head. She didn’t understand anything. More precisely, she was beginning to understand but definitely did not want to hear this truth. Impossible. It couldn’t be.

“They had a bet among themselves. And they were betting for girls. He liked you. He said he would hide my problem if I gave you to him. One kiss, Em. Not even sex. Just a kiss. And I agreed.”

“Who was this guy?” Emily asked in a hushed voice.

“His name won’t tell you anything.”

“Who was that Peter?!”

God, if only she was wrong. Let it be anyone, even the devil himself, just don’t let her hear that name!

But God forgot about her today.

The man took a deep breath and said in an even tone, “The one who kissed you then was a final year student in the Faculty of Economics.. His name was Justin Evans.”