Chapter 2

            I dozed off right after but when I woke up I tried calling her number several times but she wouldn’t pick up. At last, I went to her school at the time she’d finish school and when I saw her coming out, I ran after her. She kept walking without a word despite the fact that I kept begging her to talk to me. Ultimately, I got in front of her and she looked up in my eyes. Her eyes were swollen and red, possibly because she had spent the whole night crying. I begged her once again, and she replied angrily, “I won’t talk to you. Go away!”. I looked at her, tears flickering in my eyes. She ignored me and walked away. I stood there motionless, watching her slowly walk away from me.

           A month passed but she didn’t talk to me. Even though I went to her school everyday at the time her session ends, she’d ignore me and just walk off. I couldn’t eat or drink, and when I tried to stop using drugs, it made my health worse. My friends, especially Paul advised me to get over her and move on but I couldn’t help myself. I was madly in love with her by now. Paul began to come over to my house often to comfort me but it didn’t work either. Eventually, he grabbed my phone from me one day and noted down Elaine’s number in his phone. When I tried to stop him, he told me to trust him, and called her from his phone. “Hi. Its me Paul, the friend of Brian who lends him drugs. Your darling Brian is sick and he wouldn‘t take drugs either. Seems like he is madly in love with you. You better rush to his house right now.” I haven’t told her that I loved her and I assume it had a positive effect on her. She rushed to me and Paul left us all by ourselves. ‘He’s a good friend’, I thought.

           When Elaine came to me I was overjoyed. She gave me a hug just as she saw me and cried, ”I am sorry Brian.. I am really very sorry..”. I pulled away from her and looked in her eyes and whispered, “I love you Elaine”. Her eyes filled with tears of happiness and she hugged me yet again, telling me that she loved me too. “Please don’t leave me again Elaine. I really love you”, I told her and she replied,” I won’t.”  Our relationship was back on track and my life became beautiful once again. We began meeting as we did before and our love grew stronger every single day we spent together. However, I still kept using small amounts of drugs now and then when I felt weak without it. It was the only secret I was keeping from Elaine and if she knew, I had no idea what she would do this time.

           I called her one night as usual and she seemed very sad. When I asked her what was the matter, she replied, “My class teacher called my mother and asked her whether I was sick, since I don’t attend school now. My mother was outraged when she knew I was skipping school. She asked me where was I going. I was frightened and I lied to her saying that I hang around with some of my new friends. Luckily she believed me.” I was relieved but still she wasn’t. I asked her why was she still so tense when the problem was solved and she replied, “My mother has decided to take me to school and back home herself. It means that now I am out of choices on how to meet you. Brian I’ll miss you so much!”. She started weeping and I tried to calm her down. I thought for a moment, “We can meet if you are gutsy enough to flee from school once your mother has left you there.” She was fascinated by the idea and asked me to pick her up once her school session began.

            I was hiding behind a bush when Elaine came to school with her mother. As Elaine waved her mother goodbye, she gave me a wink and smiled. Once her mother had gone, she ran to me and we rode to my place. Everything was absolutely perfect. As she lay in my arms with her dark blue eyes fixed on mine, I constantly kept playing with the curls in her caramel brown hair. She smiled at me and asked, “You are a liar aren’t you?”. My eyes grew wide open. Did she find out that I still use drugs? Did Paul tell her? My heart pounded in my chest and she started laughing. “You never lived in my neighbourhood did you?”. I was surprised. How’d she know? Why’d she ask about it after so long? She had never talked about it before. I was drowned in my own thoughts when she tickled me. I laughed and agreed at last, but when I asked her how she came to know it, she ignored me and gave me a hug.

           When it was about time for her school session to end, I dropped her in front of her school gate. I hid behind the same bush I hid earlier that day and when her mother came to pick her up, I rode home. It was more like a game for me to take her away every day like that and it was becoming more exciting day by day. However, one day Elaine’s mother dropped her school and kept stalking her behind a tree. Elaine nearly rushed out of school assuming that her mother had gone, when I called her and warned her about her mother stalking her. Her smile faded and she slowly headed to her classroom. Her mother kept waiting behind the tree for over half an hour even then, and headed home when the school bell rang, alerting the beginning of school session.

            I rode home alone, totally disgusted. Elaine’s teacher must’ve complained yet again, I thought. I took my phone and dialled Paul’s number. “Will you lend me a packet of drugs? I really need it right now”. Paul started laughing and ended the call, which obviously meant that he was happy to hear it since I always paid him well. I jumped on to my bed and hugged my pillow. I could smell her scent on my bed sheet and pillow, which made me miss her even more. It seemed like she was right there, with her beautiful eyes open wide, staring at me innocently. Just then, Paul rang the door bell and rushed to open it. He was grinning when he handed me a packet of drugs. I ignored his excitement and gave him his money and asked him to leave. He looked at me suspiciously and shouted out, “Man! you are going totally over the edge. Why can’t you just stop talking to that crazy girl of yours? Ever since you started dating her you buy drugs so rarely that now I can’t make much profit on this business. Not just that, but you barely have time to meet the gang. She’s a pain in the neck”. I felt my blood boiling and I couldn’t stop myself from slapping him on his face.

            Drops of blood trickled down from his lips and he pulled the collar of the shirt I was wearing with anger. I pushed him away from me at once and he pointed his finger towards me. “You’ll regret this, I promise”, he said and left. I was going to open the packet of drugs when my phone began to ring. “I sneaked out of school in the lunch time break. Come pick me up quickly”, it was Elaine on the line. I was overjoyed with her bravery and hastened to pick her up. When I reached Red Wood Junior High, she was in front of the school gate, waiting for me. I picked her up and we headed to my home.

           Our relationship was like a vehicle driven on a road, that got rockier the further we travelled. However, the rockiness of the road never made the vehicle stop. We had to go through so much just to meet each other. However, our love stayed strong and we longed to be with each other whenever possible. If Elaine wasn’t  sacrificing her studies for me, we wouldn’t have been meeting now. I knew and understood everything, but may be I was too selfish. I was taking everything she was giving, regardless of how much harm it might cause her in the future. ‘A heart wants what a heart wants, even which is worst for it’, I understood that quote perfectly now. May be, since I never gave studying a high priority, I thought Elaine never cared about studying either.

            I came to know that she used to have an ambition before she met me, when one day I cut my finger while trying to prove to her that I knew how to cook. She rushed to me with the first aid box and cleaned the blood dripping from my finger with a piece of cotton. Then she put some medicine and bandage on my finger and covered the wound. She did all of it with such ease that I was surprised. It was as though she was a nurse. I teased her about it and asked her how she knew so much. She laughed and replied, “It was my ambition to become a doctor”.  I felt awkward and asked her slowly, ”Was? What about now?”. She just laughed and said, “My grades are too low. I can’t do it now. Anyway its going to be much more exciting to treat the same patient everyday.” I was concerned, “Who’s that?”. “You, silly”, Elaine began laughing.

            I thought about it a lot and knew that I was the barrier between Elaine and her ambition. I was costing her ambition in return of my love. I tried my best to think of a way that she could have my love and study at the same time to reach her ambition. The only way was to let her study without skipping school, which obviously meant we’d rarely meet then, but I didn’t want her to accept failure without even trying. We could meet every weekend if Elaine got the chance to. When I told her about it, she rejected my idea at once. However, one way or the other I persuaded her to study and she decided that she would give it a try.

             It was my first sacrifice for her and I could barely hang on to it. Whenever I missed her, I’d call her if it wasn’t during her school session and advise her to study. She would tell me that she misses me and I would assure her that we‘d meet. Luckily, after she began going to school regularly and studying, her mother stopped taking her to school. I was more than welcome to offer her rides to and from school and we met everyday in that way. However, my days felt like it was longer than before and I tended to use drugs a bit more often than before to ease my pain. After the quarrel I had with Paul, I never heard from him or saw him and so, I had to buy drugs from George. It didn’t matter me though.

            Luckily, my sacrifice did magic on her. Her 2^nd term of school ended and she called to tell me how happy she was with her grades, and thanked me for believing in her. She was a bright student. I congratulated her and she told me that she had got a one month vacation and that she had asked her family to go to a resort as a treat for her. The hopes I had to see her sank when she told me about it, and she sensed it. “Don’t be sad, it is going to be great. I could roam around anywhere in the island, and if you could go there for one month too, we could meet everyday and have fun!”, Elaine started laughing heartily. I was dumbfounded with her idea. She was clever indeed. It was as though I had hit a jackpot by sacrificing my desire to meet her.

            Elaine and her family went to Sapphire Island Resort for vacation and I followed her to that resort. I didn’t believe that I needed anyone’s permission to go to anywhere I wished, but Elaine insisted that I should at least let my parents know that I would be away for sometime. I had no intention to talk to my parents ever, and so I stuck a sticky note on the refrigerator door, stating that I’d be away for sometime, just for the sake of doing what Elaine wanted me to. Going to a resort wasn’t safe for me, since I used drugs and I didn’t have much experience in travelling with it. However, I was ready to risk anything to be with Elaine and I wasn’t stepping back.

            I went to Sapphire Island Resort a day after Elaine had gone there, so that I could easily select a room which was closer to the house in which Elaine was staying with her family. Since it was a resort, it was easier for us to sneak into each others rooms anytime we wished, without being noticed by anyone. That night, I snuck into her room through her bedroom window. Elaine was overjoyed to see me. It was as though we had been separated for decades and at last we finally saw each other. We spent the whole night together and when the sun rose, welcoming a new day, I went back to my room to sleep.

           We barely felt like we were apart. Since I followed her everywhere she went, even if she was with her family, and we spent every single night in each others arms. Life was so beautiful that I started wondering whether I would be able to adjust without her once the vacation was over. It was going to be a huge sacrifice yet again, I thought. One day, Elaine snuck into my room while I was taking a shower. I called out to her that I’d be very quick, since I didn’t want her to leave. “Okay”, Elaine replied and told me that she’d clean my room until I was done. Little did I know that she’d open my suitcase to dust it off. When I came out of shower, she sat on my bed, weeping silently. I rushed to her and asked her what was wrong. She looked at me with anger and stood up. Without a word, she showed me her hand, full of packets of drugs. My eyes grew wide open, afraid of what she’d do next. She threw the packets of drugs on my face and ran out of my room. I felt totally shattered.

           That night I tried to sneak into Elaine’s room from her bedroom window, but she had locked it from inside. I tried calling her number several times but she wouldn’t pick up. I couldn’t sleep the whole night. She had to come out sometime, and when she did, I’d apologize, I decided. When the sun rose, I rushed to her house and stood outside, waiting for her to get out. However, to my surprise, none of her parents, neither her brother came out of the house. When they did, it was already afternoon and they had their suitcases in their hands. Elaine was with her father and as she walked away, she didn’t even give me a look. Her brother stared at me questioningly but didn’t say a word. They left Sapphire Island Resort that day and of course, I followed them.

            Days passed on but there was no sign of her. I spent lonely nights, shedding tears for her and praying she’d come back. I knew she loved me, she had to give me one more chance. I began walking around her house to see her, but she wouldn’t come out. Her brother did notice me roaming around, but luckily he didn’t seem to care much. I was standing near her house one evening when Paul walked by. As soon as he saw me, he gave a wicked smile and approached me. I turned away from him, but he began talking. “Brian, the heart broken lover, what are you doing here? Trying to lure your ex-girlfriend again?”. What he said threw me over the edge. “What? What do you mean?”, I asked him quickly. “Elaine told me everything”, Paul chuckled.

            I felt the whole world spin around me. “We didn’t break up, and how could you have talked to her?”. “Curious, aren’t you?”, Paul started laughing. “Fine, then listen. The first time you both broke up, I called her from my phone to tell her that you were sick. Right? So obviously I got her number that day. Didn’t you wonder how she had known that you weren’t from her neighbourhood when you didn’t even tell her?”, Paul chuckled again. “I told her that, hoping that it would make her angry, but unfortunately she took it lightly. Well, that was exactly why I thought of telling her that you still used drugs, and I did. She didn’t believe me, but good for me that you got caught while she was cleaning your suitcase. She called me herself recently and asked for drugs. Now I have a new customer in your place. Elaine.” I couldn’t control my anger. I punched him in the face and he got outraged. We started fighting and within a matter of seconds, people gathered all around us and called the police.

            My parents bailed me out of jail as soon as police informed them about me and took me home. Due to the fight, they found out everything about Elaine and tried talking to me but I didn’t want to hear a thing they said. I hated them and now it was too late for them to talk to me. I tried calling Elaine yet again when I was back home but she wouldn’t pick up. I locked myself in my room and  cried. ‘Why Elaine? Why such a huge punishment?’

            The next day I went to Elaine’s house, determined to meet her. Her brother stood in front of the house, but I ignored him and ran inside. Her brother was shocked and he followed me into the house. As soon as I entered the house, I called out to Elaine. Shocked, Elaine stepped out of her room and I rushed towards her. Her brother came in time and pulled me towards him, slapping me across the face. I ignored him again and held Elaine’s hand tightly and got into her room as fast as I could, locking it behind us. Elaine stared at me with disbelief. Her eyes were swollen and red. Dark circles had formed under her eyes and she seemed dehydrated. I hugged her and apologized, but she pushed me away.

            I overlooked her reaction and begged her, “Paul told me everything. Please, don’t use drugs”. “Why should I? You didn’t stop when I asked you to. Now what? Leave me alone. You’ve used me. You‘ve ruined my whole life! I hate you”, Elaine replied angrily. I never saw that side of her before. She used to be calm and generous. I’ve took all her innocence away from her, I thought. “I didn’t use you Elaine. I want you forever”, I cried. “You know something? I am pregnant. You did this to me. You did it on purpose to hurt me. I’ll never forgive you”, Elaine started crying. My jaws dropped. I have ruined her future. I kept silent for a while thinking and then I asked her to marry me. Elaine stared at me with anger and replied, “Never! You‘ve ruined my life enough. Now I will ruin it myself. Go away!”. I felt tears gathering in my eyes.

            Elaine’s parents and brother kept knocking the door, and I went ahead and opened it. They rushed to Elaine and her brother confronted me, anger burning in his eyes. “How dare you!”, he shouted out. “Elaine is using drugs. Please stop her”. Elaine’s brother went silent. He glared at me and then looked at Elaine. “I am responsible for Elaine’s pregnancy and I want to marry her. Please, let me”, I asked him without any hesitance. “So you are the one who did this to my sister. I’ll kill you!”, he grabbed the T-Shirt I was wearing, clenching his fist to punch my face. “No! Steven let him go, please”, Elaine stopped her brother. Steven looked at Elaine and took his hands off me. “Get out of this house, right now!”, Steven shouted. I looked at Elaine, tears flowing out of my eyes. She turned away from me and asked me to leave at once. I silently walked out of her house, feeling like the most unlucky person in the whole world.

            I spent the whole night sitting on the ground, in front of her house. People walking on the street kept staring at me, but I didn’t care. The pain in my heart was much more hurtful to even think about what people thought of me. I knew that even if I had gone home, I wouldn’t have been able to take my mind off her. Sitting in front of her house gave me some hope I might see her, even by mistake. I couldn’t bear the thought of her, crying silently in her room, which I was sure she must be doing right now. I knew she loved me still, because she couldn’t let Steven beat me in front of her. Despite everything I had to go through that night, I fell much more deeper in love with her. Not just because she was the only girl whom I truly loved, but also because she was the expecting mother of my baby.

           “Excuse me? Are you Brian?”, a female voice startled me and I woke up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. She repeated her question and I nodded in reply. “I am Elaine’s best friend Raphael. I came to see her today and she told me what happened last night. So I thought you must be Brian”, Raphael replied quickly. “Tell her that I love her”, I told her. “Brian, she is very angry. As you know she is pregnant and so it wouldn’t be good for her health to be stressed up so much. If you are concerned about her and want to know how she is, call me and ask me. Don’t pressure her to talk to you. Here’s my number”, Raphael handed me a card and walked away.