Chapter 40: Confession

I give Samuel a small smile "My father taught me that encouraging a person at their worst is far more worth than praising them at their best."

Samuel smiles back at me, reassuringly. "Your father sounds to be a nice person."

"He is," I say, nodding at his words while looking down at my folded hands on my lap.

"What I was taught was that success was everything... If you are successful you are praiseworthy."

"Everyone is praised at their success but if a failure isn't encouraged, he may forever lose the courage to try again."

"I'm sorry. Anna told me about him... and I know part of you wants to do this for your father." He takes a sharp breath. "Sarah, you're a proud daughter. A very strong and admirable person, I am sure that your father feels the same way." I giggle, his words releasing me from tension and I look up from my plate to him. "That sound was new to me." The corner of his mouth lifts up into a grin.

"What sound?"

"Your laugh."

"Hey, why'd you stop eating?" I say, looking at his plate suddenly.

"I swear there's the perfect amount of salt to it..." I giggle at him again and his grin widens. "It was just your eyes that had too much salt in it." He said, pointing towards my eyes and I wipe my already dried tears from the back of my sleeve.

"Thanks, Samuel," I reply, looking at him and dig back into my stew while he does the same.

"For what?" He asks before biting.

"For looking out for me from the start even though you were a stranger." He murmurs something under his breath which I couldn't make and then looks back at me.

"I did nothing... It was just a favor to Anna." He mumbles out.

"Still, it's a big thing to me. You went out of your way for me and that cannot be in your list of favors."

"Sarah-"

"Enough talking, finish your stew," I say, pointing at his plate which was half filled.

"Yes, mom." He breaths out and I bite back a smile.

I poured both of us some juice and we peacefully finished our dinner but the silence didn't stay for long.

"Can I ask you something?" He says before sipping his juice.

"If I say no?"

"That doesn't matter." I roll my eyes at him and give him a why-ask look.

"Have you ever thought of liking someone else after you know... your lost guy?" I clench the glass tight in my hands, my hands turning pale.

He was a hard topic... After we tried so much to find him and when everything became impossible, every door got shut on our faces, my family never discussed him and never did I bring him up. It was nice in a way but... After so long it was still hard to talk.

The mere possibility that we may never find to where he was still didn't pass me. I was still hopeful, after all, I was doing this for him.

"No," I replied and looked him in the eye, not faltering, not giving him any clue that may give away that I have given up on him.

I'm still strong and I'll find him.

He clears his throat. "I don't get it, Sarah. It's been so long and-"

"I know you'd be thinking it's stupid of me to go to such lengths for a person who may even not remember me now. I am a person who's just hung up on some childhood memories..." I look into my glass and run my finger on the rim before taking a deep breath."It's easy to fall in love but staying in love is difficult."

"You know being here, I learned lots of things. I've observed so much from just sitting at the front and watch people come and go." I swirl the glass of juice as I say. "There's a big difference between lust and love. Where there is love there maybe be lust but where there is lust there isn't love."

"When you see a person or you merely know them and the person makes you skip a heartbeat, you feel butterflies in your stomach and things happen with you... It's lust that wants you to just devour the person. But when you are in love, you want nothing with other person's body. You just want their soul with whatever body it may accompany. Love makes you wait, makes you patient, strong and courageous while lust makes you think for the time being and wants nothing to do with other possibilities. It just satisfies and relishes you with your current desires."

"Lust has an expiration date but love doesn't." I gulp the last sip of the juice as I sat the glass down on the table. I look at him and find him watching me, trying to read me carefully.

"Say, Samuel." I hear him clear his throat.

"Yes?" He croaks out.

"Suppose you like a girl but next day she comes with a burned face, all the prettiness is turned into ashes, or broken legs now she isn't ever able to walk for her life... would you still be able to like her?" He remains quite but still looks at me.

"Of course you're not sure right now but let's suppose you would still like her and you call it 'love' but then after a few months or maybe a year if a thought crossed your mind that; Wow, the couple in my neighborhood are so cool, you start comparing yourself with others or maybe you start taking interest in other girls and believe me love is all about happily accepting and not compromising nor enforcing upon yourself."

"When you talk like this... my opinion of you being a creature out of this world gets stronger." I chuckle softly. "No seriously... if we all start to compromise maybe the divorce rate will fall down as it is today." I shake my head at him bemusedly and his face turns serious as if lost in deep thoughts suddenly.

"My mother makes my belief on love stronger each day... It's been years since daddy's accident and even now there hasn't been any change, he can't even croak out a word properly. It gives me tears every time I talk to him but my mother, she wakes up every morning with hope in her eyes for my father. Even today she's the same with him... she talks to him daily, telling him about her day and everything, makes him talk even though most of his words aren't understandable but she does. She understands him. She's with him in sickness and health and I believe even after death." When I looked at him, he was smiling at me, his eyes glistened. He took a deep breath before he rubbed his face and looked at me again.

"I wish to meet your parents someday." He said lowly and smiled almost to himself.

"Maybe you could." I shrug my shoulders before his face changed into something that made me wonder if he was somewhere again in deep thoughts.

"Sarah... What will you do when you find him?" His question felt like a sharp knife.

I've thought of it so many times before but nothing came to me. I just felt that I had to wait for the time and...

"...I just want to know if he's safe. I don't want him to accept me but I want to make sure where ever he is, he's actually fine and happy even if that happiness doesn't include me."

"I've never thought about love like this. It sounds so kind and... pure and yet so difficult." He says with a slight frown.

"It's easy when you actually fall in love."

"You really love him, Sarah..." I smile looking down at my hands and just shrug my shoulders, looking back to him. His jaw clenched hard and his eyes carrying unreadable emotion when he nods at me slowly.

"Are you okay?" His expression suddenly changes and he smiles at me rather awkwardly.

"Yea, yeah... Let's get your dishes cleaned."

"Oh no. I'll do it-"

"I'm not leaving until I help you with them." And I helplessly give up, noticing that he wouldn't budge until I allow him.

The next five minutes we took washing and cleaning the dishes, I washed the dishes while he applied the soap to it. The next thirty minutes we took setting up the apartment. Apparently few boxes were still waiting to be unboxed so he helped me with them all. He also changed some setting of the furniture in the apartment saying that this should make the apartment look even bigger and it actually did so I agreed for him to make those changes also I needed a man to move that stuff, it wasn't like I could move them all by myself. So we did it together. It was actually fun.

I sat tiredly on the sofa in the living room when Samuel came from the kitchen with the gift box in his hands with an excited grin.

He is such a kid sometimes.

"C'mon open this up." He says excitedly, giving me the gift box.

"Umm okay? But you didn't have to-"

"Just open it, Sarah." He rolls his eyes.

"Umm... Thank you, Samuel." I say, smiling at him and he smiles back at me.

"But do I have to be careful with the wrapping? I like ripping, it's so fun." I show a toothy grin and he heaves with a smile still on his face.

"Do whatever. Just open it."

I excitedly tore down the wrapping until I find a plain black suitcase.

"A suitcase why... thank-you so much."

"Not just a suitcase" He sets himself on the arm of the sofa I was sitting on and opens the suitcase. Inside of the suitcase, at the top corner was a four pin code lock which wasn't even visible until he showed it to me. He entered the code and a hidden compartment fell open.

It was a very small section consisting of a note pad, pen, recorder and there I find a small rectangular device which had few buttons and a small screen...

"It's a pager," Samuel replies, noticing my confused and curious gaze.

"And what is that?"

"You can say it is an advanced form of a telephone. It's not as common as yet and I had to do a lot to arrange this thing."

"Samuel... Why? I said it wasn't necessary but you still-"

"Oh! Come on you woman. Would you quit whining for a second?" He eyes me and I shut my mouth.

"This suitcase is for you to take it with you to your new office. Whenever you feel like you have to report something urgently so you contact the saved numbers. In case if I don't pick up there are several more numbers that are going to help you out. All those people you've met during the training have their number in it. And the note pad, pen, and the recorder is for the information you want to write or record someone and keep it hidden with space here." He says, pointing a deep squared space "This is where you can put anything you feel like you want to keep it hidden for example any paper or anything which fits here. And the best thing about this suitcase is if you enter the code incorrectly more than four times in a series, it'll automatically start a countdown from 10 minute and it'll explode." I gasp as a shiver runs down my spine. Also, I've already been trained enough to overcome such shocks but it's still a shock.

"This is how we are going to communicate. You are going to report me through this device also... you can't possibly talk to your family on the line phone so this is it. You are going to communicate through this and no one in the hell could trace this number unless and until you keep this device safe. It's small enough for you to hide so... you have to be careful understand?" I nod as I eye the pager thing and he teaches me how to use it.

It wasn't so difficult and he also made me call my home and talk to them through it. It was kind of awkward at first, talking to my mother in front of him while Maria kept intruding and it took so much to not blurt any rude words in front of him to her.

He was glad too that I talked to my family and he kept smiling at me while I talked to them although he was trying very hard to control his laughter whenever I shouted at Maria through the phone at least he now knows that how weird my sister can be. When I was finished talking we just looked at each other and then we suddenly broke out laughing.

It was refreshing.

We laughed until our stomach hurt and eyes watered.

He looks at his wristwatch and stands up immediately. "I guess it's time for me to go." I stand up as he moves toward the entrance door. "The big start is coming for you the day after tomorrow. I wish you the best of luck."

"Thank you." I smile lightly at him, his eyes soft towards me, looking at me like they didn't want me to move from my place.

"I had fun today."

"Me too."

"I loved the food you made too."

"You already told me that. Anything else that you want to mention?"

"And... even though you wore your usual gown and scarf and braided your hair, you still look a doll to me." He says, winking an eye at me.

And that did it to me.

I shoved him outside the door while he laughed loudly and shut it and locked the door from the inside.

"You should start practicing personal space yourself!" I hear him yell through the door between laughter.

"Jerk," I mutter as I smile to myself, leaning behind the closed door.

What is happening to me?