Never Say Goodbye

Chapter 3

"Where are we going?" I eagerly looked out the window.

"You'll find out, I have a little surprise for you."

"You do? What is it?"

"Oh no I'm not telling you, not just yet" He looked at me and I gave him my best Bambi look, as he liked to call it. He slow smile spread across his face then looked down and sighed. "I never seem to quite resist that Bambi look of yours, do I? Alright I'll tell you only part of it, but the rest you'll have to wait for. While I was in training I met someone that can more or less help you with your career. I told him about you and he agreed that any time I was in town I could bring you down and he'd give you an audition."

"You did? Who was it? Wait, I have an audition?" He laughed and put his arm across my shoulders. I scooted in and put my head on his shoulder.

"Yes, you have an audition, but don't think of it as one alright?"

I snuggled a little closer to Charles. Several minutes of silence passed by "I missed this."

"You miss what?"

"Miss you, miss your arms around me, but most of all I miss you. I was so scared when your mom called me. I barely got out that you were only missing and not yet dead. She was crying so hard. To be honest I cried too. I didn't know what to do or think. I felt . . . Hollow. It was as if anything I said or did just wasn't real, it was almost like I was in a bad dream. That first month was the worst. Even Judy said that it was scary to be around me, she said that it was almost like I was just a shell. It took weeks until she could just even get a reaction out of me." His arms tightened around me and kissed the top of my head.

He didn't say anything for a while then after a few silent minutes he whispered softly. "The one thing that kept me alive and going was you."

"Seriously?" I looked at him teasingly, "a bit of a clichè don't you think Charles?"

He didn't joke back only stared at me seriously. His eyes were probably the saddest I had ever seen them. He looked at me with an expression that scared me, full of remorse and fear. It seemed as if he almost wasn't looking at me all. "I would sometimes just wonder off and play through memories of you. Whether it was the day we first met or our first date. Remember you were so nervous you dropped your drink all over yourself? I couldn't help it, but I fell in love with you at that moment. Sometimes I would try to remember that smile of yours. All of it, I would play out every memory and run your voice over and over again in my head until it would be almost impossible to forget.

"Sometimes I could hear your voice as clear as a bell." He stopped for a while and looked down. "There was one time, when I was in Austria, I heard you so clear I could have sworn you were right next to me. When I was captured there were about six other men with me. We ran out into the woods then some stupid Nazi spotted us and they started to shoot. Only two of us were hit. I was shot right here." He took my hand and put it over his shoulder. "That's where it hit. I could have just stayed there and let them catch me or die bleeding out, believe me it hurt so much I almost did, but I heard your voice yelling at me. You said, 'Keep going! Get up and run you big lug, remember you have a promise to keep. You have to come back home safely to me remember? Get up and run you're not getting out so easily.' Always nagging me, even across the world. I listened though and got up, we gathered the other wounded man and I don't quite know how, but we got back."

I couldn't say anything I was speechless. So, I just stared at him with my hand over his shoulder. We arrived at a familiar place. The beautiful awe inspiring decor was simply dazzling at night, which made it all the more hard to believe that a man owned and ran the place. Richard's was even more mesmerizing in the night than in the morning and I won't lie it made me feel proud to know that I was going to work in this beautiful place.