Falling In Love With You Again

4

James POV

James stood frozen near the door of the small Filipino restaurant, his hands shaking so violently he had to shove them into his coat pockets. His lungs burned, refusing to draw in air.

No. It was impossible. He had stood over her cold, bloated body on a stainless-steel table in the Manhattan morgue. He had watched her casket descend into the muddy earth under a relentless rain. He had drowned in his own self-hatred for two excruciating years.

Yet there she stood.

She was Cheska. It would be a grotesque lie to claim otherwise. The soft curve of her nose, the melodic lilt of her voice, the exact shade of her eyes, it was her. But she wasn't the broken, skeletal ghost he had spit on and thrown out into the storm.

This woman was vibrant, her dark hair cut into a chic bob, her cheeks glowing with health. She was breathtaking.

She was the exact Cheska he had fallen in love with under the high school bleachers—the girl who used to laugh until her stomach hurt, the woman who had made his world feel safe before he ruined everything.

She was blushing, giggling soft, affection-filled words into her phone to someone named Dear. She looked completely, undeniably alive.

A silent, scalding tear spilled over James’s lashes, carving a path down his cheek.

"Oh my god..." the young Filipina cashier suddenly gasped, her eyes widening in recognition. "You're... you're that actor, right? James McHolland?!"

James didn't even look at her. His entire universe had shrunk down to the woman at the counter. But the woman, this Elena—didn't even glance at him with a shred of curiosity or recognition.

There was no hatred in her eyes, no lingering pain, no history. She simply gave him a brisk, dismissive glance, picked up her takeout bag, scoffed at his bizarre behavior, and pushed past him out the door.

As the glass door chimed behind her, James watched her walk down the street toward the clinic, humming a soft, cheerful tune. She didn't know him. She didn't care.

His phone buzzed furiously in his pocket. It was the director, shouting over the line that the set was ready and they were waiting on him.

They were shooting the climax of the film, a gut-wrenching scene where his leading lady Flora, her on and off girlfriend in real life, dies bloody and dying in his arms on a rain-slicked road.

Moving like a hollow automaton, James walked back to the set. He sat numbly as the makeup artists dabbed fake dirt and sweat onto his forehead.

His assistant hovered nearby, offering him a bottle of water with a nervous expression, waiting for James's usual diva complaints about the noise or the heat. But James said nothing. His mind was a chaotic storm, spinning out of control.

Cheska is alive. Cheska doesn't know me. I killed her spirit, and she came back without me.

"Positions, everyone!" the director yelled through his megaphone. "And... ACTION!"

The scene erupted into chaos. Fake rain poured down from the overhead cranes, soaking James to the bone as he dropped to his knees on the pavement. He pulled the blood-covered actress into his arms.

In that instant, the actress vanished. All James saw was Cheska.

He saw her lying on that horrific morgue slab. He saw her crying on the floor of their bedroom as he slapped her. He saw her begging him in the rain while he spat in her face.

The crushing weight of every broken promise, every cruel word, every night he chose vanity and another woman over the angel who had sacrificed her entire life for him, slammed into his soul like a physical strike.

His chest heaved as an agony so profound, so utterly excruciating, tore out of him.

Tears gushed from his eyes, hot and blinding, mixing with the artificial rain. He clutched the actress against his chest, pulling her so close it crushed her costumed frame, and let out a raw, shattered scream into the sky.

"I'm sorry!" James sobbed, his voice cracking violently, a wretched sound of a man drowning in his own hell. "I'm so sorry! I was too late! I hurt you... God, I hurt you so much! Please... I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

He wasn't acting. He was standing at the grave of his own soul, crying out the words he had begged to say to Cheska every night for two straight years.

He buried his face in her hair, his whole body violently convulsing as he wept, screaming his regret into the wet pavement, begging a ghost for a forgiveness he would never deserve.

Silence descended upon the entire set.

The director forgot to call "cut." The stuntmen stood frozen in the artificial rain. The crew members, camera operators, and extras watched with wide, tear-filled eyes, completely paralyzed by the sheer, terrifying reality of his grief.

It wasn't a performance; it was a man bleeding out emotionally in front of them. The leading lady lay in his arms, her eyes wide with genuine shock at the terrifying depth of his anguish.

Finally, the director slowly lowered his headset, his own voice hoarse. "...Cut."

Flora looked at him, raising her brow, “What the hell was that, James?”

He ignored her.

Yet, nobody moved. Nobody cheered. The heavy silence hung thick in the air, broken only by James’s desperate, ragged sobs.

His assistant scrambled forward, trembling, and gently handed him a towel and a cup of water.

James slowly forced himself to his feet, wiping his wet face with a shaking hand, his eyes bloodshot and vacant. "I'm sorry..." he rasped, his voice barely a whisper. "The scene... it got to me."

Without waiting for a response, he turned and dragged his drenched, shattered body back toward his private RV.

Behind him, the crew slowly began to whisper, wiping tears from their own cheeks.

"Jesus..." a camera operator murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. "That was... that was the most devastating thing I've ever seen. It felt so real. It felt like he was actually losing his entire world."

Henrick stood by the monitor, his eyes fixed on the silver RV parked at the edge of the set. He didn't join the rest of the crew in marveling at the brilliance of the performance. He knew better.

As a long-time friend who had shared late-night bottles of scotch with James long after the cameras stopped rolling, Henrick knew the dark, jagged history behind those tears.

He was there when the news broke two years ago, when the secret came out and the press clawed at James, labeling him a monster, a liar, and a murderer.

The media had fed on the tragedy until the official investigation concluded that the poor girl had thrown herself from the cliff, taking her own life in the ocean’s depth.

The public moved on, but James never did.

Henrick watched as Flora August stepped out from her trailer, crossing her arms and glaring at the RV with a scowl.

Their forced love team dynamic was a constant headache on set. Flora was wildly possessive, throwing tantrums whenever James ignored her, desperate to turn their media gimmick into a real relationship.

But James treated her like a shadow. He was a hollow shell, stuck in a permanent state of mourning for the wife he had failed.

Walking over to the RV, Henrick knocked gently on the door before stepping inside.

The interior was dim. James was sitting on the edge of the leather couch, still drenched in fake rain and mud, his head buried in his hands. His shoulders shook in silent, agonizing hitches.

Henrick closed the door behind him, cutting off the noise of the set, and sat down in the chair opposite his friend. He didn't offer empty platitudes or direct professional praise.

"That wasn't for the camera, was it?" Henrick asked softly, his voice heavy with quiet empathy.

James slowly raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark circles, looking smaller and more broken than Henrick had ever seen him.

"I saw her, Henrick," James choked out, his voice a raspy, destroyed whisper. He clutched his own hair, pulling at the roots as if trying to wake himself up from a nightmare.

“You did what?”

"I saw Cheska. Right down the street. She... she was holding a bag of food, wearing bright clothes, laughing on the phone with someone..."

Henrick frowned, a pang of deep sorrow hitting his chest for his friend. "James... man, you know that's impossible. We went to the funeral. You buried her."

"I know!" James screamed softly, a fresh wave of tears spilling over his cheeks.

"I know how crazy it sounds! But it was her! It was her voice, her eyes, her face! She looked at me, Henrick... she looked right into my eyes and she didn't even know who I was. She called herself Elena. She looked at me like I was a complete stranger. She didn't recognize me, she—"

James slumped forward, pressing his elbows to his knees, his hands trembling violently.

“Or that woman was just someone who looked like her?” Henrick asked, frowning at him with genuine concern.

"She was happy," James sobbed, the words tearing out of his chest like jagged glass.

"She was glowing, Henrick. She wasn't the broken girl I destroyed. She was alive... and I'm still trapped in this hell. I ruined her life, and now... even if my mind is playing tricks on me, the universe is mocking me. I'm dying, Henrick. I'm f*****g dying inside."

“James…my friend, it was not her, impossible, she died, and it's been two years, move on, my friend,” Henrick stayed silent as he looked at James closing his eyes, placing a firm, steady hand on James's soaked shoulder. There were no words that could heal a wound that ran this deep.

“It was her, I know it was her.”

James was a man serving a life sentence in a prison built by his own regret, forever haunted by the love he threw away.