The Story of Emma & Jack (Part II)— Day 33 of 99 Days of Wander
They were both lying in bed, Jack on his left side and Emma on her right side. They were both feeling like strangers that are not supposed to be lying in the same bed. They felt like they were really really old friends standing in front of a huge crack not knowing how to get to each other…or whether they should.
>>> Read Part I here
Jump?
Run the other way?
Wait?
— “Wait for what? Nothing can fix this… How can we fix it? Do you really see a way to fix it? What do you want, Emma?”
— “I don’t know…Everything is so complicated.”
— “Of course, everything is fucking complicated! You have just spent three nights with another man… He has fucked you three nights in a row… He has touched you and kissed you… Oh, fuck, I can’t even think anymore about this shit. I can’t believe it… This is a nightmare… Fuck… You’re a fucking bitch.”
— “Where are you going?? Stop, let’s talk about it… It’s not that simple…I… I just wanted to see, I didn’t know what happened.. It just happened…”
It was too late to say anything… He was gone. His smell was still there, his devastation was still there, his thoughts were still there but he was gone.
The only familiar thing left was Emjag. But even her dog was staring at her in disbelief and blame.
What has she done?
She was smoking a cigarette, sipping her turmeric latte and staring into the distance of the blue sky, the ocean and the surfers. The noise from the dumb Russian tourists was barely recognizable in her thoughts.
Freedom. Peace. Calmness…
She finished her latte, paid her bill in Thai Bhat, put on her helmet, inserted the keys into the ignition lock, turned the acceleration handle and the bike took her forward.
Forward had become her mantra for the last 14 months. Every single step she took, she was looking forward. What’s ahead, and not behind. What’s out there, and not over here. What’s next, and not what’s previous…
What has been left behind was just too painful to remember, too much to take in, too complicated to process. All the tears and regrets, the blame and the screams, the hate and the fights… all of that was out there, and not here.
Here and now was her hair flowing free in the wind, her pack of Marlboro Ice, a Macbook Pro and and iPhone in the bag-pack… her short skirt and bikini top still wet from the ocean — were everything she had needed to survive. Here and now. One step at a time. Just survive.
Of course, she was scared. There were many firsts on her journey.
First time one-way ticket to Bangkok, learning to drive a motorbike by herself, first time sleeping in a hostel with dirty smelly bagpackers, the mushroom shake and the hallucinations, the motorbike accidents, getting a wrist tattoo, the dengue fever and one week in a Thai hospital, that one time she had to sleep on the street…
The full-moon party, lady boy cabaret, ping pong show, diving into the deep blue ocean, buying weed from the local dealers, a bathroom full of cockroaches… all that like a kaleidoscope twirling and twirling around.
Scary, strange looking big men… That first time when he had cum inside of her, when she was tossed and turned around them all… That first time he didn’t manage to hold the steering wheel and she felt herself flying off the bike and rolling on the street in front of a car… That time when he was taking her to super fancy hotels with white bathrobes, expensive breakfasts and flowing champagne glasses only to say goodbye in the morning…That first one night (and many many after) stand, that first mindless following him into the motel room, the first time when she was slapped in the face during sex…
Black, brown, white, yellow… all their colours have kind of mixed into this one type… the masculine type with a hard on, strong with desire. Of her.
But that was all she wanted really: being desired. Giving it all away. Cleansing, wasting, giving.
She took so much from Jack, she broke his heart into million pieces so now it was payback time. She has been on a journey of collecting those broken pieces one by one and sticking them into her own heart. To redeem herself. To set him free. To punish herself in a way that he would never punish her. To show him that she wasn’t worth it. That he was right.
It didn’t really matter what she was wanted for: intelligence, her body or her big gray eyes that Jack so loved. Whatever floated their boat. And the girl who wanted to be a big hot designer in a big hot city found herself in the same boat. And, oh boy, that boat was rocky…
Sometimes she would wake up not knowing where she was… who is next to her or why she was there… She would quickly put on her summer dress disgusted by the last night’s smells and sensations, grab her blue summer wedges and her white panties that she wasn’t going to put on, and she would slip through the door... unnoticed. Unseen. Unrecognizable.
She was a different kind of Emma.
All she knew is that she needed to keep moving forward. Even in a worn out boat with no engine, with scratches and leeches. With greasy hair and smudged mascara, with legs wide open and eyes wide shut.
Wind was her patron and waves where her best (and worst) friends…
Until that one morning when she walked into the pharmacy next to her bungalow asking “Plan B, please…”
The Thai guy knew exactly what she wanted and looked like he had heard this question so many times, it sounded like a “Paracetamol” request.
She had been bleeding for the third time that month. She was on her way back from yet another romantic “getaway” when she felt it coming up abruptly. It was rising from the bottom up… Wanting to get out… A feeling of protest, a feeling of self-worth… something that was forgotten a long time ago… Maybe during the time she said YES to seeing HIM after the “DesigneRR” conference. She didn’t know exactly and it didn’t matter.
It was there and then, that she knew what she had to do but didn’t know what it meant. It came to let her know that she was done.
Wasting herself on men. She had to stop wanting to be desired, giving them what they didn’t really deserve so easily… not appreciating who she really was.
She stared into the distance for a long, long time and she had made a decision:
Love. Faith. Freedom. No Expectations.
Most importantly, she decided to give these to herself, not waiting, not begging, not hoping.
Here and now. Tomorrow, the day after and always.
And so she had created a hole in her boat and let it sink. She jumped out and let herself free flow into the ocean of self-love, self-faith, freedom and no expectations.
She unlocked her iPhone, opened the Skyscanner app and typed in “Koh Samui, Thailand” in the from field and “Medellin, Colombia” in the to field.
>>> Read Finale here.Disclosure: The characters depicted in this piece are for the most part fictitious ;) Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental (or served as inspiration.)
xoxo,
The “Wondering” Wanderova
