Dear Me

By Anthony Henry Joseph Maria

True love is the only thing Mason Gallo ever wanted. He found it in a troubled girl named Keats Cameron in Niagara Falls. Now Keats has disappeared and Mason is searching for her trail. It leads Mason back into a world he longed to escape, a lifetime filled with sadness and loss. But Mason will do whatever he has to find his true love again. He will never give up. He will never stop.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony Henry Joseph Maria
• Release date: Jan 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301907410

Anthony Henry Joseph Maria

Anthony Maria is thirty three years old. Was born and lives in the City of Roses, Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Married to Rachelle Norris, has a three year old daughter Avie James, and currently expecting a second child. Dear Me is the authors first published novel.

Book preview

By Anthony Henry Joseph Maria

Copyright 2013 Anthony HJ Maria

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design by Joe Maria

Cover Images by Julie Maria & Siniša Ivan

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to my wife, and family

Table of Contents

Title page

Part 1

A Page from the Diary of Keats:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part 2

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Part 3

A Page from the Diary of Keats:

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Part 4

A Page from the Diary of Keats:

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Part 5

A Page from the Diary of Keats:

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

A Page from the Diary of Keats

Chapter 31

About the Author

Connect with Me Online

Part

1

A page from the Diary of Keats:

Please listen carefully before these thoughts…

Slip away as they seem to be

Where does the time go?

I wonder if a thousand lifetimes

Would lead to the same destiny

All I can do is hope

I hope for this to be our destiny

Always, in every life, and every dimension

From the destructive natures we live through

We have sparked pure love

We have detonated a love cataclysm

We exist forever

If not in reality

Then in our gracious hearts and minds

Love is love again

You remain the last thing I remember

The dearest thing inside my mind

Until we meet again…my love

Yours,

Keats

Chapter 1

Tell me…

Does this theory of true love exist?

Or am I mistaken?

Because I think it does…

But everywhere I look I don’t see it

Have you all forgotten?

Love can be beautiful, pure, and everlasting…

Are you too jaded, too afraid, to experience real love?

What if you are?

Is that good enough for you?

Not me…what is will only be…

Every time she disappears, Keats ends up in the same places. We’re staying at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. I paid the manager a ton of money to rent a suite people claim is haunted by the hotel’s chief architect. Supposedly he committed suicide by leaping from the North West window. Keats loves that kind of shit. I love to prove it’s fake.

When I found her poem on the nightstand, my heart dropped. My stomach developed a punishing knot. For a while I couldn’t breathe. The walls closed in around me. My world crumbled once again.

This is how it always goes. First I stumble, and think about giving up.

Then it hits me…this sharp electric spark…this vibrant light. I get up, and buy a plane ticket to Windsor, Ontario.

Because one time, a long time, and further from anything I ever dreamed possible…She was it. The last thing I remember. The last thing on my mind…

she is it

I remember the curves of her toned frame. How fragile she held herself. How her skin was like a peach, so smooth, so soft, and so deliciously ripe.

I remember the scent of her perfume, like tangerines, and the oceanic breeze…wonderfully fresh, sexy, and female.

I think of the curly strands of blonde hair flowing from her head, making my heart jump beats. The sly, reluctant smile, which seemed to exist despite her best efforts to stop it.

Most of all…I remember the white light exploding behind her, as she opened the door…My door…

It hit me like a lightning bolt…she hit me like a thunderstorm. In the back of my mind, something clicked. I would never be the same as before. I was changed…life was different. Life had meaning, and she was it. The last thing I’d remember, the very last thing on my mind…

always and forever more

People used to tell me about life. I‘d hear things like, life is hard, and then you die, or life isn’t fair, and you only die alone. There was a time when I would have agreed. That was before her. The way I feel now, I just can’t. I know they are all dead wrong.

Life is completely beautiful…a supremely orchestrated mystery…a grand opera. Life is like a birthday gift that nobody sees you open. When you do, an instinctive smile hits your face, and a warm feeling floods your veins. Because in your heart, you know it hits the mark. It's the perfect gift.

Life has a plan. If you look hard enough, life will give you what you want. The question is, are you able to see it through to the end?

I feel like that daily, and I know by our conventions of life I shouldn’t. No one would call what I have perfect, and most people would say it is a horrible situation. But I don’t see it that way…

I think most people die without ever truly seeking what they desire the most. Instead, the tragic side of humanity catches them.

we are made of fear

They heed the poor advice of unhappy people. People who say you can’t, you won’t, there isn’t. It’s a horrible fate to live in a box of trepidation, and acceptance.

I think the key to life is to love. Loving someone you can. Loving someone who loves you back. Loving someone you love truly.

Unhappy people are willing to accept less because it’s harder to push forward. It takes a certain kind of capacity to be happy. It takes strength to find true happiness. You can never accept less. It also takes sacrifice. It takes absolute commitment. It takes self-dependency. It takes resolve.

Unhappy people would rather be doing what other unhappy people tell them is right, than think for themselves.

They live in keen moments of fake happiness. But are they happy at all? They accept this stasis of non-fulfillment, as a reality of life. They are so afraid to put themselves out there, to be vulnerable, that they’ll live in a tightly knit quilt of denial. Entire lives, wasted in fear. Lives wasted in acceptance. Life in a box.

life is a box

Jealous as they are, they have no choice but to preach their unhappiness to others, and attribute it to brutal realities. They look at people like me with spite. They join forces against me, thinking power is in numbers. They try to find faults in me. They try to tear me down. But I never waver. I have the truth on my side. I have love on my side.

I believe that happiness is found in truly loving someone more than yourself, and I am that way.

I truly love a girl more than myself. More than any pain it causes me, and more than any inconvenience of insecurity.

To me, there is nothing more secure, than the feeling of love in my heart.

To feel that one absolute surety, that singular emotion, makes the entire puzzle of life suddenly come together.

Love is like the border you need, to fill the rest of life’s puzzle in. It allows you to understand life better. It allows you to see the plan…the life plan.

The mental stability of love is eternal, and lucid, and transcendent. All it takes is strength. It takes knowing your heart, and listening to it. Forget the things people tell you, forget the things you’re supposed to do. Be selfish, sufficient, and strong.

Unhappy people will try to make you surrender, try to get you to submit yourself, to the cause of mass consciousness. The only true way to be happy is to be selfish. Only when we all stand on our own, and seek what we truly desire, will we all find happiness.

We can all love, and be loved. It is our ultimate destiny. But if we accept loving or being loved, not because it’s true, but because it’s convenient, then it becomes an issue and it slowly kills you. Destiny is not delivered. It’s sought out.

I know this because my father showed it to me. He was a man who found his one true love in life. My father stayed the course, and accepted nothing less than the most. He endured years of loneliness and solitude. But once he found her, he knew it, and absolutely nothing would stand in his way.

My father is the reason I continue to stay the course. In many ways it’s because of him this all occurred. I know that without him, I may have never met her.

Some words have lifelong effects, and sometimes we don’t even realize it till well after we’ve heard them. This happened to me the day before my father disappeared when he said,

"Mason, I met a girl who swept me away from everything. She replaced all my fears and sorrows with hope and courage. She fills me with continual strength, and energy, because I know she existed, and I had her. I mean whatever happens to me now, it doesn’t matter. I have lived to see the truth son. I had nothing until I met her, until I spoke to her, touched her, and loved her.

"She is beyond every single thing I ever thought I’d have. I would be nothing if it weren’t for her. On top of all the amazing things I was born into, all the privilege in my world, I realize it was all shit until her light descended on me. Her beautiful sense of life that made me finally realize how precious it truly is, and how much I took it for granted.

You’ll know it when you find it, Mason. It will speak to you. Until that happens, don’t ever settle for less. In the end, there’s one thing you can take away from me, Mason. A special love exists for everyone, a singular love that separates the many from the few. Wait for it, son, and once you have it, never, ever, let it go…

Chapter 2

When my mother died, I was too young to truly understand what it meant. But I was certainly old enough to feel a great loss in my life.

I felt this overwhelming sensation, like vital parts had been cut from my body. She was an organ inside me, crucial to my survival. And when she was gone, I couldn’t function properly anymore. Regardless of how little I knew her, she left a never-ending mark.

I remember my grandfather, speaking to me on the day of her burial.

Life is not fair, Mason. It’s just not right. A man should never have to bury his children. And yet I can’t help feeling a great sense of culpability here. I feel responsible.

He looked at me with his big green eyes. Put his brittle insect-like hands on my shoulders. Stared straight into my soul. I looked up at him, too young, and too pure, for such a bitter reality. He said,

"I hope this never happens to you, Mason, my boy. This is a father’s worst fear in life, I guess. I never imagined this day happening. Not in my worst nightmares. She was a beautiful girl, a beautiful daughter, and now she’s gone, she’s gone forever. My beautiful daughter, she was so young, so pure. She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve me…

"This is tragedy, and it’s all because of the family, Mason. I know you can’t understand what I mean right now, but trust me, one day you will. It’s our fault, my boy. But believe me, as much as I blame myself, I certainly blame your father more. I will never forget it. I will never forgive him, for this.

"I hope he gets what he deserves. I hope he dies decrepit, and alone. I hope his cells disappear to the point that he’s like a child again. Like a pathetic disgusting mess of a person, like a sad intolerable newborn. I hope his life is a cruel horrific journey from here on in. I hope that one day he’s sitting where I am now. So that he’ll know, so that he’ll understand.

Don’t buy into the bullshit, Mason. Life is meaningless. Life doesn’t matter one God-forsaken bit. In the end you realize it’s all nothing. You are nothing…

Even before my mom died, my Grandpa was an angry man. I tried not to let his words affect how I saw my father. But I grew up with his words entrenched in my subconscious. I can’t say I’d ever truly realized it, until now. But those words definitely manifested themselves inside me.

I grew up feeling dead inside, and out. All I wanted to do was follow my mother out…until I met Keats Cameron…

I swear she smiles and it’s the brightest thing I have ever seen on Earth. It took me by complete surprise, and twisted my heart, and struck me to the brittle bone.

She is all there is now, the last thing I remember, every day, every night, she is always the last thing on my mind.

I live for her love…in my box of vibrant white light. She’s made my days beautiful, purple, magenta, violet, crimson, orange, pink, green, and florescent. She’s made my nights, bleeding, and burning…

She is serenity, lovelier than any other entity; she is all there is of me. She is life to me. She makes every day my birthday, and she is the only gift I ever need. She’s a drink I’m addicted to. Mere splashes of her liquid excite me. I can’t live without her…

Everything she does compels me to smile. She is like Christmas morning, before the Santa illusions are crushed by the tragedy of reality. She makes illusion real.

She gives my imagination hope, color, depth, and being. I love her so uncontrollably much. I will do anything to protect it, and her. I would sacrifice my life in a heartbeat, if it meant giving hers one second-chance more.

I caress her with all my love and attention. Yet it’s never enough. She still needs more, and more, and more, to the death. I swear it’s close, so goddamn close. But it’s not enough for her…it’s not everything.

what is will only be

The stains of our pasts hinder our efforts. Which begs the question. Will we ever truly escape our pasts?

I believe we can, I believe we will. This is what I live for, to transcend our histories, to rise above our scars…to make it through…to come out alive…on the other side…to ride the falls and survive.

Did I say it was perfect? No, real love never is. But what’s inside this box of imperfection is something beyond dear, and more than most ever have.

My girl, she’s born with these terribly amazing, and horribly angelic wings. Tragically they carry her down the wrong path, away from me.

Now goddamn aloft, carried in flight, all day every day, and all through every night, I will search. I will follow my father’s instructions. I will never let her go, no matter what.

She has a curse as deep as her love for me. It’s cruel, harmful, and poisonous, and it never recedes. The emerald green seeds of her perpetual need are always lurking in the shadows. It’s the same with me.

So I will do what I must to find my light again, and will again, and again, and again, if I must. I will do whatever it takes.

I will never stop

I do exactly what I have to. I search for her trail. I follow her wherever she may lead. I never judge. I only love! I only love…I will never stop. I will find her…

Chapter 3

Windsor is where Keats was born, and the city is like an addiction for her. No matter how many times it hurts her, she just keeps going back. Chasing her precious bygone ghosts…

The flight is okay, Victoria to Windsor straight through, five hours roughly. I sit next to a young guy in a suit, neither of us interested in conversing.

He plays with his laptop. Mumbling the phrase, This call cannot be completed as dialed, over and over again. Occasionally he says the name Elliott Ashford a few times in succession.

I read the collection of until we meet again poems I have. I’ve always wondered if Keats was meant to write poems, and her parents somehow knew that. Or, if somehow, she developed the talent because it seemed appropriate.

The story goes that she wasn’t named after John Keats, but rather Peter Keating, a character in her father’s favorite novel, The Fountainhead.

Whatever may be true, Keats reserves her beautiful art for one purpose alone: to let me know she’s gone.

when the heart breaks

the mind bends

I always struggle reading through her poems. In one way, they make me feel so loved. I take pleasure in her words, the way she crafts them, the thoughts in her head that lead to the expression. The way she puts things…

But then there’s the crushing realization that she’s gone. A longing that eclipses any other feeling I have.

That longing keeps me going. Anywhere, everywhere, never ending…

*****

I call for a taxi from the airport, and my taxi driver, Rafie Patel, smells like a bouquet of rotten fruits. Not the most alluring scent to be stuffed against, yet somehow I enjoy it. Admittedly, it’s a weird smell to enjoy. But here, in this moment, that’s exactly why I do.

the things I enjoy the most

they remind me of you

I take deep meditative breaths of the rancid fragrance. Fondle the aroma through my nostrils. Taste the sour, sweet stench on the tip of my tongue. It cuts through the old cab with the precision of a Ginsu knife through a pop can. Delicately, severely…

Slowly driving away from the airport, the dark sky luminous ahead, I begin to picture a moment in my past.

Grade six. Our teacher Mr. Hamlin decides we should spend an hour cleaning out our desks. He’s angry with us for something, I can’t recall why; it seems he always is.

Stanislav Foster pulls this soggy black apple from the cavernous reaches of his messy station. Stan is known to annoy teachers. It’s always been that way. Even when he isn’t doing it on purpose, they find a way to make him their target.

I sit far in the back, and notice my classmates’ recognition taking hold like a tidal wave coming towards me. The smell quickly permeates our small bungalow’s confined air. As the typhoon progresses, so does the laughter. Soon shrieks and shrills reverberate through the room.

I watch my classmates, as kid after kid closepins their nostrils together. A wave of annoyance rushes over me; the group is harmonic in their stupidity of thinking that would block the scent.

Stan Foster notices the uproar and totally revels in it. He grabs the apple proudly and holds it up for all to see. His tall lanky body and oversized ears further emphasize the grotesque humor of the scenario to us.

The apple is leaking a black oily substance down his arm, and I remember being disturbed that he didn’t care about it, not at all.

Mr. Hamlin sits at his desk in complete silence and aggravation. Back then, I always thought Mr. Hamlin’s ridiculous anger resulted from his bald head.

To me it made sense. I figured, with that ugly dome, he probably didn’t have a nice wife, and therefore not a nice life.

In a way, I guess, I’ve always looked at life in those simple terms. That all it took was true love. That happiness was only found in real, passionate love.

Mr. Hamlin waits till the commotion dies down, and then he pounces like a Bengal tiger on the unsuspecting Stan Foster.

There was always something so sinister in the way Mr. Hamlin released his frustration on us. He should never have been a teacher.

His boiling point reached, he storms over to Stan Foster’s desk, grabs it with a fury that should never exist inside a grade school, especially not towards the children within it, and tosses it across the room. Books, papers, and forgotten snacks fly everywhere.

The whole class immediately goes silent. Frozen in fear. Instantly you can cut the tension with a dull blade. It’s palpable, and frightening, and none of us know what in the world is going to happen next.

Mr. Hamlin just stands there…lurking. Letting the mood settle upon the whole class, pausing for the crowd like a rock star before he bursts into the chorus.

Hamlin is about five feet eight inches tall, with a round potbelly on an otherwise slight frame. What's intimidating is his severe demeanor, and those sunken eyes, barely visible behind the glasses resting on the tip of his nose. Always tense, always brutal.

Physically he doesn’t look like much, the kind of guy that spends more time reading books than lifting weights. But his harshness, and strict accountability to an unattainable desire, makes him scary as hell to us kids.

His lone enjoyment seems to be his love affair with antique furniture. The only decent memories I have from that year are when he would regale us with his antiquing expeditions. If only he could have translated that inspiration to his teaching, if only…

Stan Foster was always the kid to poke fun at Mr. Hamlin’s stories. Always the kid to get caught sleeping during them. He was either braver, or stupider, than the rest of us.

Mr. Hamlin stands there furious. The jubilance we felt minutes earlier is completely forgotten. In many ways instantly regretted. Maybe that’s how he wants us to feel. It often did seem that in school, enjoyment was practically a malicious crime.

I remember the look on Stan Foster’s rectangular face. He wasn’t afraid, but beaten. Like his life was a constant game of roulette, and his number never, ever, hit. Everything always went wrong, but he remained strong.

Mr. Hamlin gave Stan a look of complete revulsion. As if Stan Foster were the lowest possible worm in the dirt. As if he were worth less than nothing.

less than zero

He said something like, Stan, you make me sick. You’re a waste of my time. You’re a waste of the class’ time. You’ll never amount to anything. You’ll never be worth anything.

Our supposed teacher, the man intended to be our