In Love And War by Ruben Rivas (ebook offline txt) 📕

hangout the weekend coming up, Adam agrees to go. Jake decides not to tell him that is going to be a double date. The next morning Jake woke up with a bad stomach ache, he still could not believe what had happened last night. Meanwhile thru-out the week Bethany hanged out with Amy at the mall, the two shopped all day for a dress this weekend. The weekend was here, a beautiful day to a beautiful evening and Jake felt bad, as if something was going to happen. Adam walks over to Jakes house ready to head out, Jake tells him, “I have a bad feeling about tonight” and Adam responds “Like what”, Jake: (while walking back and forward with frustration) “You remember those two girls we met this summer at that party?, Adam: “Yeah”, Jake “hum… it turns out that one of those girls is related to Bethany!” Adam: “WHAT! Are you serious, how do know that?” Jake: “Bethany and I ran into her last weekend, dude I was shitten bricks, but uh… Bethany invited her out tonight with us and we’re going to double!”, Adam: “DUDE!”, Jake: “Bethany wanted you to go us, I couldn’t so no I’m not going to ask him” Adam: (with a disappointing look) “Ok, but you do realize this is going to be an awkward night”. So the guys leave to go pick up the girls, Adam looked quite familiar to Amy she asked him she known him from somewhere, Adam responded, “UH… No I guess I just have one of those faces”. Later on that night, dinner was the most awkward moments any of these people been in; the night finally came to an end. Once Jake Dropped of Adam and Amy, on the way to Bethany’s house Bethany felt something wrong with tonight, Bethany asks Jake, “What was up with you guys tonight?” Jake: “What do you mean” Bethany: “You didn’t say a word during dinner, plus you kept your head down most of the time, was something wrong with the food again?” Jake didn’t know what to say, so he decided to tell her the truth. “Listen, I don’t know how to tell you this but, I’ve met Amy before.” Bethany: “Ok, how did you know her?” Jake: “During this summer while you were away Adam invited me to a party, and met two girls there, Amy and another girl, we danced, drank a little and..“ Bethany, “And WHAT?” Jake: “And… We slept together that night, I swear I never meant for something to happen”. Bethany with a disappointing look, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Without saying anything she got out the car and ran into her home bursting with tears. Jake stayed outside her house the entire night also in tears but of guilt, thinking of what he has done to hurt his love. The next day she saw his car still parked outside her house, she walked out still in tears, Jake sees her walking over gets out the car and.. Bethany slaps him Tells him, “It’s over, I never want to see or hear from you again”. Then she walks back into her house, Jake with more tears running down his face walks back into his car and drives of. As the last year of school for Jake and Bethany went on the two never spoke to each other. Graduation came still no words have been exchanged with each other, as days turned to weeks and months turned years.

 

CHAPTER IV: Unforgotten Memories

 

I decided to take a trip across Europe with Adam, backpacked to Europe. To learn new things meet new people, to get a different look at things, but for every day I was overseas I wrote a letter back home to Bethany telling her how much I missed her and how I been doing, what I been seeing, learning, mostly everything single thing I did within the day from start to finish. I wrote her for a whole year and a half, five hundred and thirty-eight letter and not one response back, nothing. I tried not to think about it as much but I was too hard to forget, to me

-Love is the richest of all treasures. it is the soul and it is indestructible, so therefore eternal. Without it there is nothing and with it there is everything… -

 

And I was not going to forget about the girl I love, I was going to try and try to get her back no matter what it took. Back home Bethany was receiving letters from Jake daily but she never opened any of them, not one. She placed every letter in a large black box in her closet. Seeing so many letters coming in a month of letter turned to months to a year, she didn’t want to keep receiving these letters anymore. Bethany’s mother decided to move to Cleveland, Ohio for her daughter’s sake. Bethany’s grandmother moved into her house while they were away. Every day Bethany thought about Jake, wondering each day what those letters said. She was being strong for herself to not keep hurting inside. She found a job as a cashier for a coffee shop in the city to keep her mind busy. A few months have passed and she hasn’t thought about Jake, at all. At work one day Bethany caught another mans eye that always goes for coffee in the mornings, his name was Brian. Bethany soon then began to date Brian for months, she started to think this relationship was heading towards Love. Bethany cared about this man just as much as she did for Jake, but Brian was not the man Bethany thought he was, Brian only was with Bethany till he got sex, when Bethany gave it up to him, he was gone with another women. All that had happened to Bethany but yet she did not shed a tear, that just made her think more and more about Jake. Its been three years since she last seen him. Now she wondered where he was, how he was doing and if he still was thinking about her.

Back in Europe one morning Jake and Adam are having breakfast, Jake could not stop talking about Bethany to Adam. Adam saw that no matter what they did, where they’d go, Jake will still always be thinking about her. As a friend Adam tells Jake,

-Adam- “You need to go back home and work things out with her, you need her”,

-Jake- (with a smile)”you really think so”

-Adam- “Yeah man, I do”

So Jake and Adam get the first flight back to Los Angeles, California Jake gives it a day to think about what he’d say to Bethany when he sees her. The next day Jake goes over to Bethany’s house and a little white old lady opened the door, Jakes never seen this woman before so he felt a little lost. So he asks the woman,

-Jake- “Hi, is Bethany home?”

-Woman- “I’m sorry she no longer lives here, she and her mother moved away about eight months ago”

-Jake- “What!..”

-Woman- “Yeah, I’m sorry how did you know my granddaughter?”

-Jake- “oh, you’re her grandmother, yes mam my name is Jake,..”

-woman- “oh, your Jake!.. Come in, come in”

The little old woman was receiving letters from a Jake for months now and never knew who this Jake person was. She showed me all the letters she received, a little over two hundred and forty letters were here. I asked her if she knew where they had moved too, she said Cleveland. Her mother made her because she was hurting over some boy. The only thing that came to my mind when I heard that was, she still cared for me, she still had feelings towards me. What I failed to realized is that eight month is a long time. I asked Adam to come with me to Cleveland but he refused to tag along, he said,

-Adam- “No, you need to do this on your own”.

 

CHAPTER V: Searching for forgiveness

 

So I left towards Cleveland, Ohio I was lost didn’t know where I was nor where to go, all I knew was that she was in this city of thousands of people. A week went by and I still haven’t seen her anywhere but I never gave up on her. The next morning I walked into this little coffee shop having my coffee, their she was, she walked in as beautiful as she always was even more than what I remembered. I could not believe I found her, as I got up from where I was sitting I took ten steps towards her, she turns around, sees me, we both stand still for about ten seconds just staring at each other, she walks out the coffee shop. I followed her outside and said,

-Jake- “Bethany! Please, I need to talk to you, this is important, please”

Bethany turns around slowly, tears falling down her face. She didn’t want him to know she’s been thinking about him. So she says,

-Bethany- “How did you fine me? Who told you I was here? I left for a reason”

-Jake- “Your Grandmother told me everything, you left because your mother made you”

-Bethany- “You don’t know that”

-Jake- “Can we talk, please”

-Bethany- “About what, their is nothing to say”

-Jake- “I miss you,…”

Bethany walks away from Jake; he didn’t follow her because he felt this was a lot for her to take in at the moment. Bethany’s mother later that day saw Jake; she wanted to know what he was doing here. The two talked for hours, Bethany’s mother was pleased to know someone cared for her daughter this much to travel halfway across the US for her love. She invited Jake to her home to have a talk with Bethany. Bethany’s mother new how I felt and she understood me better than anyone I knew, she also was going thru a faze, an old love one was returning back into her life, she told me the reasons why she chose to move here, it wasn’t only for her daughters health from what she was feeling it was because her and her ex-husband (Bethany’s father) were trying to fix things between them. She made me promise her not to tell Bethany the other reasons. She also promised me she would talk to Bethany for me. I took two days for Bethany to finally talk to me, I felt like back in high school that young kid new in a school meeting this amazing girl for the first time again. I hadn’t planned what to really tell her, all I knew was I loved this woman. We caught up in the past years apart, I told her how I was backpacking in Europe with Adam for a year and a half, how she always had a part in my mind, day and night. As for her , she hadn’t changed one tiny bit, all was the same nothing new to tell me, at least that’s what she told me. A week has gone by, Bethany wanted to try our relationship again, and once again the happiness in our lives was here. We gave it a week before we decided to move back to California, then we were off.

 

Chapter VI: No place like Home

 

Being back in Los Angeles was great, never felt better knowing I’m back with the woman I love. I decided to look around for work, I landed two part-time jobs, mornings working in construction from 6AM to 1PM and also as a door to door salesman selling vacuums for fifty to sixty dollars a piece. At twenty years old with no work experience and no fancy college degree that’s as best as I could get to start with. Bethany glad with the way things were starting to look once again with Jake, everything was just like before, nothing was different. It’s been a week now since Jake and Bethany came back home. Bethany started feeling sick for a couple of mornings now, she