The Road w/ Anna Part 9
The next day Ana made her way back to Santorini where she felt everyone’s eyes on her with whispers as she walked by. She felt as if she was back in high school again where scandals always seemed to surround her but this time it was about her nearly drowning last night in attempt to just let everything go away enough so she could think straight again. She hadn’t spoken to Dmitri about the horrible subject of him being a father quite yet but she knew that she had to know the truth from his lips before she could decide what to do next. It was the only way she could let go of him completely. She didn’t know if she was doing the right thing by deciding this yet she knew that she had to know in any case. How else would she be able to heal after all that’s happened?
The air in her music class was heavier than usual that day even though there was a breeze coming through all of the opened windows. The atmosphere was abnormally silent for even their professor had an air of unease about her. Ana had been one of her most loyal students and she had taken an almost motherly care to her. She knew Ana had seen a lot in her short years yet she carried the eyes one someone so much older.
Mrs. Harrison had been such a woman to see her potential yet now she had seen a whole other side of Ana that she had never seen before. A side that was vulnerable and in need of a shoulder to lean on. Mrs. Harrison had tried her hardest to help Ana in anyway that she could and here she was seeing her perfect pupil trying to keep it all together.
After class she came up to Ana, “Is there anything you want to talk about, Ana?” she asked as everyone else cleared the room towards their other recommended classes.
Ana looked up from her books with a shake of her head, “If there really was anything you know that you would be the first to know, Mrs. Harrison. Until then I think I’ve got everything under control as best as I can for now.” She then walked out of the room feeling slightly guilty for not telling her the truth but she knew that her professor wouldn’t understand.
Just as she was about to turn the corner she saw Trent slowly coming her way. They collided causing her books to drop from her hands and scatter to the floor. Trent burst in a fluffy of apologies as he helped her pick up her books.
He finally looked up at her with soft eyes, “Ana.” He breathed out with a sigh.
She looked up into his dark eyes with unease, “Trent, thanks for helping me.” She managed to say.
He nodded as he looked down, “So are you going to the big performance tonight?”
She looked down, “My brothers’ still in the hospital so I might have to miss it if I don’t some back in time. He needs me more than the performance right now so maybe next year when things aren’t so difficult.”
“I wish you would go.” He said with a sigh, “I’m going to do a piece that I hope goes well but if not then lets hope that it does its duty. How is he doing by the way? I heard some pretty nasty stuff going around.”
They walked along the open air hallway as she held onto her books tightly not looking at him, “Better than before but the doctors want to do some more tests just to make sure nothing comes up unexpectedly. He still pretty weak from the treatments they’ve been giving him. He’s going to start chemo next week when we go back to the states. They have better doctors there who know his history so they’ll know what to do to make sure he’s comfortable. I never thought it would come back this quickly however. My father sent off an email this morning to make sure that he’d be arriving business instead of coach like before. My father still treats him like he’s a little boy sometimes especially when he’s worried. Then again we’re all worried that something might turn for the worst. It usually does in our family with our track record and Jack is no exception to that.”
“Is that why you jumped?” He asked her curiously as they suddenly stopped walking and she turned away, “There have been rumors going around that you tried to off yourself after you went to the hospital.”
She looked down with a shake of her head, “I needed to do something that would make it all stop. There’s a lot going other than just Jack being sick. He told me that Dmitri fathered a child a year ago and that his girlfriend at the time gave it up for adoption.”
“He told you about Nikki’s kid?” He said in shock just as she quickly turned back to face him.
“You knew about that?” She asked in shock, “How long have you known about that, Trent?”
He looked away, “For a while. No one was supposed to say anything about it but since you know it’s out in the open. I tried to tell you, Ana, but you and I weren’t speaking to each other so it became impossible especially since you were already with Dmitri every waking moment. I know I should have said something but I figured you would find out on your own like you always do.”
Ana shook her head, “I can’t believe that after all we’ve been through you never once told me why I shouldn’t trust him. How do you expect me to trust you after all of this? You and so many people kept the one thing from me that could have saved me from making the biggest decision of my life. I don’t just shrug something like this off to the side just so I won’t have to deal with it. Why does everyone think that I’m some fragile doll that needs to be helped all the time? My brother is dying and my heart just got shattered. Things I can handle on my own like I’ve always done but keeping secrets from me crosses the line in so many ways.” She then quickly moved passed him with a huff.
Instead of going to her classes she went up to the hospital to see her brother sleeping as they shaved his head. She had spoken to one of the doctors earlier and had told her that Jack was relapsing quickly so much that they asked him if they could shave his head. He agreed right away before he drifted off to sleep and hadn’t woken up since which was five hours ago.
She thought of everything that happened since she came here and seeing her brother getting sicker than he was back in the states while the love life now but nonexistent with the betrayal of the one she thought she loved. She had somehow lost herself in between and now she felt as if she had become the one thing she had sworn to never become. She hadn’t thought of her mother since the last time she had written that letter that now drifted somewhere in the Mediterranean sea.
Ana had pushed Trent away so many times that he had been the only one who had been willing to come back to her each time. It was strange to think that despite all that happened she still cared for him so deeply yet she knew it wasn’t enough to save herself from what she knew would happen if she ever told him. History would be repeated and she would be the cause of so much pain. It wouldn’t be fair to Trent or anyone else who got in the way.
As she sat there Dmitri came into the room and sat down next to her, “We need to talk, Annie.” He whispered over to her as she nodded, “I never meant for you to find out about Nikki giving up our son for adoption. We knew at the time that it was the only way either one of us could live our lives without wondering if we were ready to make that commitment. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made but I don’t regret doing it. The way I see it he’s better off without me in his life after all I’ve done to screw mine up. Hurting you again was the last thing I would ever do but I see I’ve failed in doing that. Nikki refused to have an abortion so she was the one who found a good family that was willing to take him without question. She’s still trying to make up her mind on whether or not to go through with it however. I know that you probably don’t believe me right now but it’s the truth.”
“Then why does it seem as if you came to me thinking that I would forgive you just because you knew how I felt for you?” She asked sternly, “Do I look like doormat to you? You lied to me, Dmitri. You know how much I hate it when people do that to me yet you still did it. I thought I had loved you but it turns out that it was for all the wrong reasons. How could I ever think to look at you the same way again when you’ve done the worst kind of betrayal there is? It’s not just me that you’ve hurt by doing this. Look at Jack and tell me that you don’t have any regrets. All I know now is that before you came here I had hope and I was happy with just having the ability to move one for once. I met someone who changed everything for me and I ended up hurting them because of my screwed up feelings for you. I’m not going to do that anymore, Dmitri. I am finished with all the lies and deceit you’ve given me over the years.”
He shook his head as he looked away with his teeth clenched, “What exactly are you saying, Annie?”
She looked over at him as she said sadly, “I think it’s safe to say that it’s over between us and that we should just move one. We gave it a shot bit it wasn’t enough to save us from something like this. We were meant to be just friends for a reason and not make it out to be some teen fairytale where the girl next door ends up with the boy next door. It’s just far too complicated than either one of us imagined it would be because too many things got in the way.”
Dmitri held her hand in his, “You mean someone else got in the way. I had a feeling it was something like that for a while now but I’ve been too blinded to admit it. I know that I’ve forced things to happen between us and for that I apologize. I just wanted things to work out so badly that I didn’t bother to even ask if you wanted to as well. I mean you’re the perfect girl but all I’ve seemed to do it screw everything us. You really like this guy Trent don’t you? I’ve seen how you look at him as if you’re thinking of what could have been. It doesn’t have to be like that, Annie. You could go to him today and I would understand.”
Ana shook her head as she sighed once more, “I can’t do that, Dim. He had a girlfriend and he still think I’m with you with issues to sort through as if he would be yet another one of my problems. Besides I don’t know if I’m ready to handle any more rejection right now. I think it’s time that forget anything about him and just face the fact that I’m clearly not meant to live a normal life where things go my way without consequences.”
Dmitri looked her in the eyes, “Yes you are ready, Ana. You’re just afraid to let it happen. So you took a chance with me and it didn’t work but I’m not going anywhere because I’m foremost your friend no matter what happens. The best advice I can give you is to not give up and to go to him. Trent hasn’t given up on you so why would you start giving up on him?”
Ana looked over at her sleeping brother, “Maybe because I’ve given up a lot for the greater goof of things. It’s just how it has always been I guess. I’ve been trying to keep our family together for so long that I didn’t think I needed anything else to keep me going. We’ve been through so much heartache that I didn’t think I would ever fall into the same pattern. It’s not me to just allow someone to come into my life like that without there having to do anything out the ordinary. Like everyone expected us to get together like some Nicholas Sparks novel but look at how that turned out.”
“Maybe it’s time that you let some romantic novel come to life, Annie.” Dmitri said as he stood, “It’s time you just followed your heart for once. See where it leads you and maybe just maybe you’ll figure out that it was worth it all along.” He then left her in her thoughts as she looked down at her shaking hands.
For hours she walked along the shoreline in thought until she came across Trent who looked as if he had been doing the same thing but for a longer period of time that she had.
He stopped just as soon as she did as he looked down at his sandals, “I thought you were still at the hospital with Dmitri and Jack.”
She moved a strand of hair from her face, “I left a while back. My best friend gave me some advice that I thought I should take into consideration but I think I’m done thinking about it. I realize now that they were right to have told me. I mean I’ve been running away from so many things in my life that there’s one person I shouldn’t have ran from in the first place.”
“And who would that be?” He asked with slight hesitation in his voice.
“You.” She said simply, “I thought I was in love with Dmitri for so long that I didn’t think that I had a right to fall for someone else. I was worried that it would just lead me down the same road my mother took but I was wrong. Just because she gave up on the one thing that would have made her happy doesn’t mean that I don’t have a chance to make it right. I screwed every possible good thing with you and I still left him know that I would be risking everything. It’s the most I’ve ever done in my entire life and for the first time I don’t know what to do.” She shrugged her shoulder as she looked away as he took a step towards her.
