Clockwork Romance (25 page)

Once inside the elevator, I push one. The doors close, as I lean against the wall, feeling as though I’m unable to stand on my own. I can feel the lift going down, as I keep my eyes closed, resting. The bell dings and the doors open again
. Slowly, my eyes open as well, seeing the lobby of the building just steps away. I look to the ground while I walk, noticing that all the blood has vanished from my clothes and from my face. I walk to be greeted by a man, possibly in his thirties, dressed like a butler.

“Good evening, sir,” he greets. “Are you feeling okay?” He sees that I am far from okay.

“Do you work here?” I ask, the energy drained from my body.

“Yes sir,” he says. “My name’s Fredrickson. Clyde Fredrickson. I don’t believe I’ve seen
you here before, sir. Are you new?”

“No, I’m not. I was trying to find my girlfriend who lives on the fourth floor, but she’s not home,” I answer. “What’s going on here? I’ve been losing my mind up there. There’s something wrong with this place, isn’t there?”

Since he works here, he tries to maintain a helpful attitude. “Sir, I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. There’s nothing wrong with this building. Perhaps you better come with me into the lounge area, that way you can sit and rest for a moment.” He takes me over to the other side of the lobby where there’s an area full of couches and chairs. I sit down at the end of a couch, while he continues, “Stay here, sir. I’ll go get you some water.” He leaves for a second while I calm down some more. He return about a minute later with a coffee cup half-full of water and hands it to me. “There you are, sir,” he says, still maintaining his cheerful attitude.

“Thank you,” I say, taking a sip while he sits at the edge of a chair across from me.

“Ordinarily, sir, my employers would have me tell you to leave, since you yourself don’t live here. But I can tell that you are shaken up from something, so I thought I should help you,” he tells me.

“That’s kind of you,” I return.

“So you say there’s something going on here? What did you see?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I think… I think I’m beginning to feel better.”

“Well, that’s good then,” he replies.

“Yeah, I think I’d be better if I just went on home,” I say.

“If I may, sir, it is pretty late. I wouldn’t mind if you stayed here until morning. Plus, I’d hate for something to happen to you. After all, you said yourself you weren’t in the best of minds.”

“No, no, it’s fine really,” I say. “I live pretty close. I’ll be fine. But thank you, really.”

Just as I was about to stand, Clyde says, “Alright, sir, if you wish. And I’ll be sure to tell Karina you were here when she returns.”

Clyde mentioning her name keeps me from standing. “I… I never told you her name.”

“Well, no sir, you didn’t,” he agrees. “You told me you were trying to find your girlfriend who lives on the fourth floor. Karina is the only female occupant we have on the fourth floor. The rest are either vacant or occupied by men. So I just naturally assumed you were talking about her. I do apologize if I startled you. I probably should have made that clear before.”

“Oh, it’s quite alright. I’m just a little jumpy, that’s all. I suppose before I leave, I’ll try calling her again.
” I try reaching into my pocket, but I can’t find my phone.

“Sure, sir. We have a telephone behind the desk if you would like to use it,” Clyde offers.

“Alright. I think I may have left my phone in my car,” I say.

“Your… car, sir?” he questions, as if he can’t understand.

“Yes, why?” I ask, trying to clear up any confusion.

“Well, it’s just, why would you have a phone in your car?” he asks.

“Because I must’ve forgotten to bring it with me,” I say, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

“I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m not quite sure I understand. Please forgive me, but I… don’t know what you mean,” he says, increasingly confused.

“A phone. A cell phone. To call people. You don’t know what that is?” I say, trying to make him understand.

“Of course, sir. I know what a telephone is, but I’ve never heard of a cell phone. The only phone in this building is the one behind the front desk, over there.”
I look to where he’s pointing at, but all I see is an old telephone on the wall with the numbers arranged in a circle and a speaker attached. The receiver hangs on the side of it. I look back at Clyde, who’s giving me the same look Karina gives me when she thinks I’m losing my mind.

“What year is it?” I ask him.

“Sir?” he says.

“What year is it?” I ask once more.

He looks at me with an honest face and says, “Nineteen twenty-two.”

I give him a deep stare while the year he just told me sinks into my head. “I have to go now,” I say, finally standing up.

“If you think you’re well enough to leave, then of course. But I would advise that you at least rest before you go,” he says, still sitting.

“No. I think the best thing for me to do is go home and rest there,” I tell him.

I was about halfway to the front door when Clyde stands up and says, “Karina told me she doesn’t love you anymore, Luke.” I turn around to see Clyde staring at me with a straight face as he continues, “That she never has.” There’s a silence between us while I look at him with fire in my eyes. He goes on, “She also told me that you’re obsessed with her. That you can’t stop thinking about her, nor leave her alone. She says you don’t even know who she really is.”

He continues to give me his straight stare, but saying nothing more. I turn around and walk fast to the door. I cannot get out of this building soon enough. I open the door, not looking back at Clyde, and go outside. The rain has stopped. In fact, it doesn’t even look like it’s been raining at all.

The streets are dry, and there are no clouds in the sky. I turn my head to see if Clyde is still positioned there in the lobby maintaining his stare. I don’t see him, instead I see something completely horrifying. The doors have been boarded up like an abandoned building. I’ve no way to describe what I’m seeing. I’m so shocked by what I see, I trip on the curb and fall into the street. Looking up, I see that I’m right. Most of the windows are boarded up and some are just broken and shattered. It doesn’t look like anyone has touched this building in years.

Chapter 20

None of this is adding up at all. Could it be that I’ve been sneaking into a deserted building for the past two and a half months. It doesn’t even look possible to enter the building at all because of the boards. I look around the streets to discover I am in the current year I should be. All seems normal, but then again, I don’t even know what normal is anymore.

A few letters from the word “Apartments” on the front of the building are missing, right under the word “Queens.” They are all rusted and tarnished. Slowly, I find myself back on my feet. I stumble to my car, refusing to look at the rotten building any longer. Where the hell is Karina?” And what the hell is going on?

I drive slow, not wanting to get worked up and drive recklessly and crash only blocks from my apartment. I manage to get home safely, but to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m dreaming or in a living nightmare. I walk like some kind of psycho killer with a thousand yard stare. At least my apartment building is normal. At the moment, things seem fine, but could just as easily go awfully wrong once again. I keep myself from imagining it and continue to walk up the stairs to my floor.

I see my door straight ahead, but look at it as if it’s foreign to me, though I know it’s not. It’s a normal door, and I’m standing in a normal hallway. Now I feel like I’m going crazy
because nothing is out of the ordinary. I unlock my door, but take a deep breath before opening it.

My room is fine. Everything is in order. I walk forward and take off my jacket, throwing it on the couch. I empty my pockets and place everything on the coffee table. All I want to do now is get undressed and go to sleep. I can worry about everything else in the morning.

Wait a minute.

My lamp is on. My back is to my bedroom, and I’m afraid to turn around. I never turned my lamp on
earlier before I left. There’s no reason it should be on. Slowly I turn, and see the figure of a woman lying on my bed, with her back to the headboard. Karina. She’s giving me a dark grin and seductive eyes. Silence.

Uncomfortable silence. I’m waiting for madness to consume me, when finally Karina says, “What took you so long?”

I return a dark look in my own eyes, slowly stepping towards her. “What are you doing here? I demand in a low key voice.

“Waiting for you.”

“How did you get in?” I question further.

“The door was unlocked,” she says, keeping that same maddening look on her face.

“Not it wasn’t,” I snap back.

“No, no it wasn’t,” she agrees.

“So why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re doing here,” I tell her.

Her head tilts back a little, her chin rising. “I’m sensing that there’s something you want to tell me,” she says.

“There is.”

“So say it.”

What is really frustrating me is how calm she is being. She looks like she’s trying to get inside my head. “There are two things,” I say. “One is a question, one is a statement. I’ll start with the statement.” I gather my thoughts from earlier, most of which have already escaped me. But I remember the gist of it. “I don’t want to date you anymore. I don’t want to place the fault on anyone, but I think it’s what’s right. And I’m sorry. I’ve found someone else.”

“Hannah,” she says, as if trying to remind me.

“Yes,” I say. Karina doesn’t even look the tiniest bit affected by what I’m saying, like it just passed through her ears and out the door. But she heard.

“So what’s the question?” she asks.

“The question is… who the hell are you?”

“Who am I?” she repeats, finally giving a different expression.

“Yes. Who are you? And what are you trying to do to me?” I demand.

She leans in, hands resting on the surface of the bed, and says, “I’m Karina, Luke. You know who I am. The love of your life.”

“Yea, well, lately I’ve been doubting that,” I respond.

“So why don’t you tell me who I am, or who you think I am,” she says, putting me the one under question.

“I don’t know,” I tell her.

“Look into my eyes, Luke. Look at my face. My hair. My body. Do I look familiar to you? Do I look like someone you might recognize?”

“You don’t look like anyone else,” I say, getting nervous.

The look in her eyes tells me she’s as aggravated as I am now. As she stands up from the bed and steps towards me, she exclaims, “Wrong, Luke! Wrong! Why don’t we go back in time about ten years? High school. What girl did you love more than any other? The one you told me about the first night we went out. What did she look like, huh? What did she look like?”

The memories are starting to rush back to me. I know who she’s talking about, but the memory is only fuzzy. But there is one important detail I am able to recall. The girl from long ago. It was Karina. Her name was Karina. I remember her. She was the girl I was never able to talk to. I was too shy, too unpopular. But now, somehow she is with me. Here.

“She looked like you, Karina. You’re her,” I say, overcome with emotion.

“And you wanna know something else?” she says, sounding less angry, and more like a friend. A friend helping another. “You don’t belong with me. You belong with Hannah. You understand? That’s why you’ve been going crazy. You can’t… be with me.”

I look at her like I’ve no idea what she’s talking about. What does she mean? What is really going on? Nothing makes sense anymore. I stare into Karina’s eyes, hoping she’ll take
back what she just said. I want her to say that this has all been one massive joke. “What do you mean… that I can’t be with you?”

She maintains her empathetic look, and answers, “Because I’m not real.”

Those words feel like nails being hammered into my ears as I fail to hear anything else. They sink in while I begin to feel lightheaded. I don’t ask her to repeat what she said, because I heard it loud and clear. Plus, I don’t want to hear it again.

“What, what…” I mutter, before she says, “Karina? Karina is real. She’s out there living her life in the world. And she still probably has no idea who you are. You… created me. Who you’re seeing right now. Eventually you knew that you and the real Karina were never going to be together, so you just did the next best thing.
You see, this is why none of your previous relationships never worked out. You couldn’t stand the thought of being with someone else, so you ended them. But when you decided to change, you needed help. That’s where I came in. I’m just a projection of the real Karina.”

My head is spinning. Dizziness becomes me. This is too much for me to take in all at once. But there’s another detail I’ve thought of. “Why couldn’t I have been with Hannah from the beginning? Why couldn’t I have been happy with her all along? Why did you have to come in?”

The way she’s looking at me. I know nothing is there, but Karina is all I see. I’m not staring into anyone’s eyes right now, but they look so real. “Because you sent her away, don’t you remember?” she reminds me. “You did so to give yourself time to get your life together. It was a good thing you did that, since that was the plan all along. Hannah is the one girl who can make you happy, who you can really spend the rest of your life with. Think about it. If you had dated her from the beginning, everything that went through your mind while you were with me would have plagued your mind the entire time you’d be with her. All those feelings of keeping your past hidden. You told me. You don’t have any more guilt, Luke. If you had told Hannah all those things, there might be a chance that she wouldn’t forgive you. And that would make her just another ruined relationship. Now, you don’t have to say anything. Especially about me, which fortunately you haven’t done so far. You should be with her, Luke.”

I walk to the nearest wall and put my back to it. My back slides down the wall until I’m eventually sitting on the floor. I don’t feel like crying, but still remain overwhelmed. It’s hard for me to even put an expression on my face. “What about everything? The entire time we’ve been together? That was all just a fantasy? It was nothing more than my imagination.”

Karina comes closer and sits down on the floor right in front of me. “Everything is fine now, Luke. You wanted me to love you, and I did. But you knew that you couldn’t be with me forever. That’s why I suggested that we separate and see other people. That’s when you started being with Hannah. Subconsciously, you knew you didn’t need me anymore. That’s why I changed. And that’s why I tried to kill myself. But yet you just couldn’t let me go. All the bad things that’s happened, all the things you’ve been seeing, was just your mind trying to separate itself from me. You needed to figure out on your own that we were no good together. Unfortunately, it had to end like this, but it’s what needed to happen.”

I remain on the floor against the wall, so overwhelmed. Little by little, the pieces are putting themselves together. I continue to look Karina in the eyes. Oh, those beautiful green eyes. I am alone in this apartment, and I have been ever since I first began having insomnia. Was everything really necessary, and why couldn’t all of this just been easier?

“What about your apartment? What was going on?” I ask.

“There was nothing there,” she answers, “You imagined every bit of it. My supposed building had been condemned for years. Honestly, I don’t know how you never noticed that. “

“Oh, God,” I say to myself.

“You’re a good man, Luke. Coming from me, it might not be that significant anymore, but I mean it,” she says, attempting to comfort me.

“You want to know something crazy?” I ask her, as if things aren’t already at their craziest.

“What’s that?”

“You’ve been the best friend I’ve ever had. She only returns a smile and a pitiful look in her eyes. “So what now? Am I supposed to live happily ever after with Hannah?”

“If you can manage it,” she returns.

“And what about you? What happens with you now? Are you just going to go away?” I question.

“I’m afraid not,” she tells me. “Not until you get one last piece of closure.”

“What?” I ask.

“You need to find me. You need to get that burden from your chest before you can truly move on. Until then, you’re only going to go on feeling like you’re losing your mind.” She holds out her hands and says, “Just like right now.”

“How am I supposed to find you? You could be anywhere in the entire world,” I tell her.

“But more likely than not, I’m still here. Why don’t you try looking sometime? You’ll be bound to find me. And once you do, I think you’ll know what to say,” she says.

“Yeah,” I agree. I do know what to say, but how on Earth am I going to find her. With my luck, I’ll run into her the next time I go out somewhere.

“And if I had my own mind,” she says, “I’d still say that I love you.”

“And I would say the same.”

Karina leans forward and we share a final kiss. But I know she isn’t real, and that this whole time, I’ve been making love to no one. Finally, a tear rolls down my cheek as everything is put into perspective. When our kiss is over, I open my eyes. Karina is gone.

I let out a loud vocal full of grief, as if a loved one has just died. I fall forward and fall to the floor, still waiting for somebody to tell me that this has all been a joke. I shout into the floor, my voice muffled by the carpet. What am I supposed to believe now?

I do remember
Karina. She was the girl I had a crush on in high school. But I never told her anything even to the day we graduated high school. I haven’t seen her in the past ten years. How am I supposed to find her? What if it’s impossible? I remember her so clearly now. She was one of the prettiest girls in school, no,
the
prettiest. I didn’t have an interest in anyone else but her. She was one of the nice girls, the kind who was always helping other people. But she was also popular and out of my league, which was the reason I never spoke to her. I never thought a girl like her would ever be interested in a guy like me. And my doubts have made that true. And instead of finding that out for sure, I chose to save her the trouble and reject myself for her. But that didn’t do anything, nothing at all.

It doesn’t change the way I feel and it doesn’t stop the dreaming. I gave up one small chance to live a life full of regret. That is how I have lived. When I finally started dating other girls, nothing seemed to satisfy. I didn’t love them the way I thought I did, the way I should have. My life of regret has forbidden me from moving on. Thinking about it now, it’s making more and more sense after every second.
My life now is no different than how it was ten years ago. At least until I met… Karina. She changed me. I became a better man. Now I have the chance at something else. Someone real. Hannah. But nothing will stop unless I am able to make amends for the last time.

I loosen my tie, which feels like it’s choking me to death. I don’t even feel like getting myself off the floor. I feel too overcome with what’s happened to even move. However, in time, I calm down. My heart returns to normal, that sense of danger I keep feeling is gone. I feel okay now, so I pass out.