| Subject: À la Vie! – Chapter 26 |
Author:
Diane
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Date Posted: Sunday, October 31, 01:29:58am
In reply to:
Diane
's message, "À la Vie!" on Tuesday, October 19, 01:16:54am
Michael slipped his pen back into his shirt pocket and relaxed back into the corner of the couch. He didn’t know what Nikita was up to, but he was sure that whatever she had to tell him would be worth the wait.
He heard the bedroom door open, and Nikita walked shyly down the stairs. Michael’s jaw dropped. She was wearing his old black À la Vie! T-shirt, the one in his paintings. He couldn’t believe she had kept it all these years. She sat on the other end of the couch and drew her bare legs up behind her.
“I can’t believe you still have that thing,” Michael said, breaking the silence.
“You don’t know what this “thing” has done for me, Michael,” she said in a low voice, her eyes downcast. “I needed you so much when I was a child, and holding on to this shirt was like holding on to a part of you. When things got really bad, I knew you were close by, watching over me, waiting to make me feel better.”
“Oh, God, Nikita,” Michael uttered, his voice filled with raw emotion.
Nikita continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Even when I grew older, and I knew you weren’t coming back, a small part of me never gave up hope. I felt like, if I had this shirt, then one day we would somehow find each other again.” She smiled crookedly. “And we did.” She looked up to see tears in Michael’s eyes.
“I tried to find you,” he said hoarsely. “When I got home from school, I went to the beach, but your house was gone. I didn’t know where you were. No one could help me. Not even Crazy Walter.”
Nikita smiled at the memory of the old man.
“I gave him my address in Marseilles, but you never wrote, so I guessed he never found you.”
“Then I saw the paintings in San Francisco,” said Nikita, her face solemn again. “I knew at once that the little girl was me, but I didn’t know if you even remembered my name, or if you would want to see me. When I found out we were both living in Marseilles,” Michael’s head shot up, “I checked you out. You had a wife and son.” Michael closed his eyes in pain. “I moved to the States. I had to get away. I couldn’t bear knowing that you were so close and that you hadn’t waited for me to grow up.” She looked at him from beneath veiled lashes. “Stupid, huh?” She forced a laugh.
“I did wait, Nikita, as long as I could. Then my father died, and made me swear on his deathbed that I would marry Elena Vacek.” He looked away. “I had no intention of following through, but Elena turned out to be pregnant, and she named me as the father.” He closed his eyes again, then opened them to her, letting her see into his soul. “I had never slept with Elena. You know Adam is not my biological son, but I love him as though he were. I’m moving heaven and earth to try to get him back from his whore of a mother.” Nikita began to speak, and he silenced her with a wave of his hand. “Adam is my problem, not yours. I never should have mentioned it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you see, Michael? Fate has brought us together again. We are two halves of a whole. We complete each other. I was functioning without you, but I wasn’t really me. Part of me was missing. That part was you.” Michael digested her words slowly, and knew she spoke the truth. “If you have a problem, then we have a problem,” she continued. “I’ve already put a call through to Ambassador Wolfe in Marseilles.”
Michael’s eyes widened in surprise. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” she smiling gently, placing her left hand on his arm. “We’re a team. No one is ever going to split us up again.”
“You have a deal,” Michael agreed emphatically.
“Should we shake on it?” offered Nikita.
“Or we could seal the deal with a kiss,” proposed Michael impulsively.
Nikita visibly withdrew into her shell again.
“What did I say?” asked Michael, truly confused.
Nikita chewed her lip again, then took the plunge. If she couldn’t tell Michael, then who could she tell?
“I-I don’t know how to kiss. I’ve never kissed anyone before.” Her face turned crimson, and Michael had the good sense to keep the look of total disbelief from his countenance.
“Then I’ll teach you,” Michael pronounced. “Just like I was teaching you to swim. Only this time we’ll finish the lesson, okay?”
“Okay,” came the whispered answer.
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