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True Part 10 ****AUTHOR'S NOTE: In Part 1 of our story, a present-day Sonny was told by a spirit who looked like Luke Spencer that he'd missed his chance at true love. Sonny went back in time and took his second chance - he found love with Alexis. But will he be able to hold onto it? The poems are by the great Turkish poet, Nazim Hikmet. Translation by Blasing and Konuk.**** Sonny and Alexis made love in the cabin by the sea a dozen times, a dozen different ways, in their two days there. They only left to walk on the beach four times, once at midnight, once at sunset, twice at dawn. Sonny cooked for Alexis from the stores he'd brought along, but their only real hunger was for each other. When they left the cabin, their hunger was sated for the moment but they both knew they'd unlocked limitless wells of desire in each other; each would never have enough of the other. Alexis accepted the engagement ring that Sonny offered to her, but she did not wear it. At first, she would only allow the question of marriage to enter their conversations briefly, lightly, like a butterfly passing through the room. For two months, they just spent all the time together that they could find, and time seemed to expand and slow down to meet the demands of their love. Some days seemed never ending. Some moments, even. Once, Sonny woke up in the middle of the night and spent hours stroking Alexis's hair. When the first sunlight fell across Alexis's closed eyelids, she opened them and yawned and Sonny's first words to her were a poem: "…my rose opens her big eyes on the pillow…" Sonny whispered. "The
last of her dreams flashes in the early morning. Alexis smiled. "Am I your rose? Am I your apricot?" she asked, blinking. She yawned again, sleepily. "Do you expect me to get out of bed naked now?" "Don't bother me with talk, my rose," said Sonny, quoting another poem. "I'm busy falling in love with you." As Alexis kissed him, Sonny was filled with gladness that she had taught him to like poetry. Poetry turned out to be the surest way to get Alexis to make love to him in the mornings. **** Finally, as the day drew near that Alexis would be leaving for Cambridge, she brought up the matter of marriage. "It's not that I don't love you." She said this quickly, during a rare instant when he wasn't touching her. They were walking in Central Park on a Saturday afternoon. Sonny could tell she'd been holding her breath for a while before saying it. "Wait," he said, stopping and forcing her to face him. "Wait. Are you turning me down?" "It's not that I don't love you," Alexis said again, "because I love you more than I've ever loved anyone." She wouldn't meet his eyes. Sonny felt his heart shrink in his chest. He would have done anything to not hear her next words. "But Sonny, I can't marry you while you're working for that gangster. I told you, I won't let myself live with someone who has blood on his hands." Sonny threw his hands in the air. "We talked about this. Didn't we talk about this? You said you couldn't be with me if I was a killer. I haven't killed anyone!" He was furious she would even bring this up. It had cost him more than she could guess to forego his vengeance on Deke for his mother's death. He had only done it for Alexis. "Not yet. You haven't killed anyone yet," Alexis said. Sonny began to walk away from her, but she followed. "Sonny, I know how much it hurt you not to have that hit put out on your stepfather, and thank you, thank you for doing that for me. But you're still working for Joe Scully, and it's only a matter of time now before you become a murderer for that man." Sonny leaned up against a tree and looked at her, frowning. "Alexis, you're part of a rich family that, as insane as they are, have paid for you to have the best education in the world. You're going to Harvard in four weeks. You're going to have every opportunity. Every door's gonna open for you. But I won't have those chances. I don't have choices, Alexis! Now, I'm making a name and a living for myself with Scully's crew, and I'm not gonna mess with that." Alexis looked skyward, trying to find a way to explain her point of view. "Sonny, you don't understand what I'm saying…" "Why? Because I'm too uneducated? Because I dropped out of school and I'm not going to Harvard, or Yale, or one of those other rich schools where the millionaires' kids run around learning how to look down on people like me?" Sonny was enraged. Even as he yelled, he knew some of his anger was just the fear that he was losing Alexis, but that didn't stop him from yelling. "If you look down on me now, what'll it be like when you're up there in your ivory tower?" "How dare you. How dare you presume to tell me that I have such a great life, when you *know* that I owe everything I have to a madwoman who despises me, who's made my life a living hell. Every day I spend at that university is another day I'm indebted to that woman. I depend on her charity for every crumb of bread I eat. Do you think I *feel* rich?!" Alexis waited for Sonny to answer her, but it became clear he wasn't going to. "Look," she continued, "college isn't what makes someone intelligent, and it's not the only way to find opportunities. Sonny, you're amazing. You can do whatever you want. You don't have to work for that…" "That man, who you're about to call names and accuse of all kinds of crimes, is the only person who's taken me in and taught me anything in the last three years. You owe Helena, and you say she's a madwoman? Well, I owe Joe Scully, and he's a lot less crazy than your aunt. All I have to do is work for the guy," Sonny said. "Yeah, great. Just work for the guy. Just beat people, and extort money from them, and have them killed if they don't do what he wants, yeah, that's all," Alexis said derisively. "Ssh," Sonny cautioned her, looking around at the people in the park. "Do you want to get him busted? What if there are cops around?" Alexis shook her head. "If you don't understand how that sounds, if you can't see how awful that is, Sonny, that you would walk around your whole life hiding from the cops and defending men like Joe Scully, then I guess you'll never understand." "Oh, you mean, if I don't see why I shouldn't go running to Deke, that trustworthy, upstanding role model of police integrity, instead of Joe Scully, who's kept me alive since I was sixteen? Yeah, okay, I guess I never will understand." Alexis walked back alone to Stefan's townhouse that day. **** Sonny knew it was coming. But he still wasn't prepared for it. They hadn't made love since that day in the park, and when they saw each other, they were both tense and quiet. One week before Alexis was scheduled to leave, she gave Sonny's ring back to him. Sonny said nothing. He was focusing all his energies on not crying. "Stefan's asked me to come with him to London this week, and I said yes," Alexis muttered, her eyes blurry with tears. "We'll be back on Sunday, and then I'm leaving for school on Monday. Will you see me off?" she asked in a small voice. "How the hell do you expect me to do that?" Sonny said in a burst of fury. "How do you expect me to look at you, ever again, knowing that you're not going to be mine, huh? Do you expect me to wish you well, and hope you enjoy falling in love with some rich Ivy League boy, huh? I love you!" Sonny couldn't help it. The tears made their unstoppable way down the sides of his cheeks. "I love you. How am I gonna see you again and know that I love you, and I can't have you?!" Alexis wiped her eyes just enough so she could look at his beloved face, so full of sadness and rage and longing, and when she was sure she'd memorized the sight of him, she turned on her heel and left. **** A week later, despite his hard words, Sonny was waiting for Alexis downstairs, on the sidewalk outside of Stefan's building, as her bags were being loaded into the limousine that would take her away. When Stefan and Alexis exited the building, Alexis gasped, shocked to her core to see Sonny there. Stefan informed Alexis he would wait for her in the car, and Alexis walked up to Sonny. She had thought never to see him again. She had thought their horrible meeting the week before was the last time. But she was wrong. *This* was the last time. And knowing that, made it somehow even more horrible. "Hello," she said, scarcely daring to look in Sonny's eyes. "Hello," he said, although a good-bye resounded loudly in his hello. "I just…didn't want to…let it end like that." His voice cracked a little on the word "end," he looked away from her face. "I want to wish you good luck, in everything. You're brilliant." Sonny cleared his throat, fighting for control. He took a breath and looked directly at her. He forced himself to stare at her beautiful face. "You're the most incredible person I ever met, and I know you'll do incredible things in your life. And I want to wish you the best. That's what I came to tell you." There. He'd said it. It killed him to come, it killed him to see her again, it killed him to say good-bye, but he'd done it. He thought he felt his heart begin to die in his chest. Alexis wondered how he could do that, how he could look at her like that, right in the eye, and not flinch? He was so strong, so much stronger than she was in so many ways. Because he could manage to stand up straight and look at her and wish her the best like a mature adult, and all she wanted to do was cry at his feet and beg him to love her forever. "Thank you, Sonny." They both flinched when she used his name. They knew this was it; whatever she said next would be the last thing ever said between them. "I…" Alexis faltered. She should say some of what he had said to her, about how she believed in him and that sort of thing. But instead, she reached out her hand. Sonny took her hand without thinking. Touching Alexis had always been more instinct than thought, anyway. If she reached for him, he reached back, no matter what, no matter when. He stared at her hand, clasping his, and he watched as she withdrew it. Was that really the last time he would ever touch her? He frowned, and his knees wanted to give out, thinking that was really the case. "I love you. Good-bye," Alexis said, then ran into the car. **** The bar was owned by Scully, so it wasn't too particular about serving drinks to members of Scully's crew who still had a few years to go before being legal consumers of alcohol. Sonny had been taking full advantage of this generous policy for a good week and a half since Alexis left for college. He'd stopped going to the coffee shop in his off-hours, in-fact. Every hour that he wasn't working, or passed out in his own bed, he was here at the bar. "Aren't you a little young?" a tall man on the barstool next to Sonny said one day. Sonny had never seen him before. Willie, the bartender, said, "He works for Joe, Luke. Scully's guys get a pass, you know that." Luke Spencer nodded, and downed his second whiskey. Willie poured him another. Luke counted five empty shot glasses in front of the dark-haired kid next to him. "I'm drinking 'cause I lost a woman. What's your excuse?" Sonny's head tipped back with his sixth shot. He slammed the glass down hard. He didn't answer. "Ah," Luke said. "The same affliction, I see." Luke looked at the kid's face. "What are you, eighteen? Nineteen? And already you're working for Scully *and* drinking over a girl? Jesus, I didn't find the mob *or* true love till I was thirty. You're a quick study." He lifted his glass in a small toast before drinking it. Willie poured them both their next rounds and said, "Don't worry about it, Sonny. You're young! You'll find another girl." "Not like her," Sonny grumbled, and shook his head. "Never find one like that again." "Leave him alone, Willie," said Luke. "I know what he means. He's found the real thing. Once you find the real thing and you lose it, that's it. It's over. Kaput. The world ends." Sonny looked up and bothered to notice someone, really acknowledge someone, for the first time in ten days. "You know!" he said, a little loud because he couldn't really gauge his volume. "You know what I mean!" "I sure do, pal." Luke drank another shot. Willie asked, "What's your story?" "Well," Luke said, "I fell in love with the most wonderful girl I ever knew. She had the whole blue sky in her eyes. So I married her. And she died." Luke shrugged. He pounded the bartop with one of his empty glasses. "Another drink, barkeep!" "She wouldn't marry me," Sonny murmured. "I asked, but she wouldn't." "Why not, kid?" asked Luke. "She doesn't understand. Mister Scully took me in. He's taught me everything. Given me a job, a life. I owe him everything." Sonny knocked over the tiny empty glasses in front of him. Luke said nothing for a moment. Then, he laughed. He laughed long and hard and kept laughing even as Sonny stared fiercely, angrily at him. "Oh - you're not telling me you gave up on true love so you could work for a scumbag like Joe Scully?! Okay, kid, come with me." Luke got him from his stool and walked outside the bar. Sonny wasn't sure what compelled him to follow, but he did. As soon as Sonny got outside the bar, Luke grabbed the front of his shirt and shoved him up against the wall. "Look, kid, you're messing up. Big time." Sonny frowned, hazy and confused. "Wha…?" "If you've lost your girl because of a piece of garbage like Joe Scully, you're the dumbest piece of crap I ever saw. I've spent years running from Frank Smith's guys. That's right, Frank Smith, your boss's boss. I was his number-one guy, and now he's trying to kill me. You know why? Because I wised up and left him. Kid, nobody survives intact in the mob. Either you leave, or you become one of them. You can't live with monsters and not become one. And a good woman can't love a monster. That's why I left. And that's why you're gonna leave." "What? What the hell are you…?" "Look at you, you're not even old enough to drink in a real bar. I bet you don't even get the muscle jobs, yet. Now's your chance to leave!" Luke's eyes were sharp and they flashed with his intensity. "They won't miss you if you go now. They won't come after you. You don't mean enough to them, and you don't know enough. But if you wait, kid, if you wait till you're important, like I did, you can never get out without paying. You know why I'm here, today, in Smith's territory?" Luke let Sonny go and pulled out a thick envelope from his jacket pocket. He let Sonny look at the contents; it was bursting with hundred dollar bills. "I've come to try to make a deal for my life. I'm trying to buy freedom from having to look over my shoulder every goddamn morning. This isn't my full offer to Smith, either, kid. This is just the deposit. You try to leave the mob once you're in it, you have to offer up a fortune to try to buy your way out. And there's no guarantee it'll work, either. Not that I care whether I live or die anymore. Not since my wife…" Luke's gaze became distant for a moment, then he focused back on Sonny's face. "But it's not too late for you! Leave the crew now, while you can! Go find your girl!" Sonny swallowed. "But…she's gone. She might not…what if she won't take me back?" "Is she your true love?" Luke asked, smiling. Sonny nodded. Luke said, "Then she'll take you back. True love always gets a second chance." Sonny gripped Luke's shoulders. "You're right. You're right. I've got to go, I've got to find Alexis. I've got to go to her…" Suddenly, Sonny blacked out. It was only for a few seconds, and he stayed on his feet, but there was great rushing noise in his head, as if he were speeding across thousands of miles, even though his legs felt rooted to the ground. When he could see again, Sonny looked around him and blinked. He wasn't in Brooklyn, outside Willie's bar. He wasn't eighteen years old, either. He was himself - on the docks in Port Charles - in the suit he'd been wearing when - he'd run into… "Hey there, buddy," said the spirit who looked just like Luke Spencer. He was leaning lazily against a wherehouse wall. "Welcome back to your life." "My life?" Memories flooded Sonny, of two lives he'd led. But which one was real? Had he just had a dream? He looked down; he was wearing the same suit as when he'd stumbled onto Ghost Luke earlier. Had nothing changed. "What was that, a warning?" Sonny asked. "A vision, of what it should have been like? Am I supposed to go find Alexis now, tell her I love her? She's not even speaking to me." Sonny's head began to hurt at the life he'd had without Alexis. What a sorry excuse for a man he'd become. "Alexis and I are enemies," he spat out, full of self-hate and regret. "Well, that's one way it could have gone, sure," said Ghost Luke. "But I sent you back to see if you couldn't find another way. Did you choose her, in the end, Sonny? When it came time to make your decision, what did you choose?" Sonny thought back to the conversation he'd just been having with the real Luke. "I chose Alexis," he said. "I chose love." "Then go to your home, and see where that got you," Ghost Luke advised him. Sonny ran all the way back to the penthouse.
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