The Closer (18+) ✓

| 7.2 | in the strictest confidence

❝'Cause if one day you wake up and find that you're missing me
And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I could be
Thinking maybe you'll come back here to the place that we'd meet
And you'll see me waiting for you on the corner of the street

So I'm not moving.
I'm not moving.❞

Chapter Seven:
In The Strictest Confidence
(cont'd)

Hans blinked. Once. Twice. A couple more times before opening his mouth and closing it, again and again like a fish. Clearly, this wasn't the kind of reaction he'd grown up receiving but I was glad to be the one giving it to him. I cleared my head and waited for him to start, hoping that he would because I really did want to know the truth. The truth behind his carefully placed mask.

Hans turned on his back again, assuming his previous position as he closed his eyes. This time, it wasn't a way to block me out. I knew, because the very next second, he started to speak.

"My mother's name was Anya." He stopped and for a second, I worried that he'd thought better than to tell me. But it was to smile at the memory of his mother. A smile I was close enough to see was both beautiful, and broken. "She was a dream. Beautiful, honest, optimistic. She believed in life, you know? With this boundless energy that not just anyone has. She'd grown up all her life in this small village in the Netherlands but she dreamed of the world. Of more than what was given to her. That's when she moved to the city. Her family didn't approve but she did it anyway, chasing after adventure... "

I sat back, my back meeting the headboard and listened with undying attention as Hans continued. It almost seemed too good to be true, how easily he'd accepted to sharing but I wasn't planning on stopping him.

"Mom worked a lot of jobs. She wanted to explore her options, and try everything. One of her jobs was as a singer at this popular cabaret in town. It was her favorite, brought her a lot of attention." Hans paused and opened his eyes which were a haze, clouded in the dreams of the past. "That's when dad met her."

I nodded along to let him know I was listening. The movement registered at the corner of his eyes, causing him to look away from anywhere near me again.

"Dad was never a romantic. He was there on business, and when he first saw her performing, he was captivated, just as everyone else was by her magic. I don't think he'd ever intended for her to be more than a night's worth of pleasure but..." Hans shrugged ever so slightly. "I guess mom became his exception."

It sounded like every girl's perfect fantasy. Fall in love with a stranger from another land, have the love affair of your life and marry the man you're destined to be with. Although I had chosen to forget this story, to one day hear it from Hans himself as I was now, I knew this wasn't going to end with Anya's happily ever after. That knowledge is what made it all the more harder to hear.

"Dad would fly in frequently to see her under the guise of it being 'for business'. They started something special. At least, that's what she told me. That dad was one of a kind and that he loved her more than anyone else ever had." Hans gulped and brought one arm to rest atop his forehead, covering his eyes. "But he stopped visiting all of a sudden. Stopped sending letters or calling. He cut her out of his life and she never found out why."

My hands tightened in their grasp on my lap, knowing what was coming.

"I grew up for the first seven years of my life without a father. I had a lot of questions. Why did she work all the time and have no one to take care of her? Where was my dad? How come he never came to see me? Why did we live in a small, dilapidated apartment when she kept saying I was meant for so much more? Every night when she tucked me into the small bed in our room before sleeping on the floor below me, she would promise me the world and every happiness in it. She would tell me I was the most loved. And I believed her. So I never asked."