Suddenly

Suddenly Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Bread For Sale

Loneliness was a friend of mine and she continually reminded me that everyone around me had started their lives and I was sitting in last place in this race of life. It scared me terribly to know that I had no direction. What was God doing? Why had He not allowed me to get the grades that I needed for university. I was distraught at a colossal degree.

It was bad enough that I didn't get the girl, was success also going to elude me? I didn't know how to handle not winning. All my life I was accustomed to being a star at everything I did, a champion athlete, an actor at stage concerts, great at academics in class, whatever I did I was successful at. This new stream of losing was uncharted territory and I hated every minute of it.

I knew a little about how God operated in the natural. He was a trainer and He was fond of training people, training them to be fully prepared for the next thing that's going to happen in their lives. I couldn't understand what He was doing but I had to trust Him. I knew God was in the set up business.

I waited patiently and endured everything that was thrown at me. My life felt blessed before this, I had previously felt invincible and unmatched at anything and everything that I did.

BE was my blessing, she was my Lady Luck, whenever she was close to me I'd win. During non lesson times at school I'd love playing cards and I was pretty good at it. When it would seem like I was losing I'd ask her to stand near me and as soon as she did I'd start winning again. Soon enough she had learnt the game and became my card playing partner, as a team we were good together, undefeated in fact. It was a game that required us to look at each other and I reveled in staring into her brownies every chance I got.

We clicked as partners in a card game, I enjoyed playing alongside her, it was one of the first things we did together. When I was dealt a bad hand, she'd bail me out and I'd do the same for her. Life had changed a lot since we had last played cards together. Reality snapped her fingers and I had to deal with the bad hand that I was dealt, in real life it seemed like I was alone to face everything, I had lost my partner.

I spoke to God often then, telling Him that I would not be moved in my faith in Him even though BE wasn't in my life anymore. I did an introspective search within myself for reasons as to why she left me. Maybe it was my bad morning breath, maybe it was my immaturity, maybe it was because I was Christian and she was not. I told God that I'd choose to love Him no matter what. I started to change my outlook on life, no matter what; I was going to spread love even though I was feeling broken.

Dad had given me some cash to keep me afloat. With that cash I had gotten the bread company to deliver freshly baked bread to my home at a cost price. I started my day early. I'd deliver fresh bread door to door in the neighborhood. I'd sing along to my favorite songs, smiling even though the hot baking sun would leave me sunburned. Step after step I walked the streets carrying dozens of loaves of bread in black garbage bags. The sweat dripped down the side of my face and soaked up the collar on my T-shirt. I fought off chasing dogs on a daily basis as I approached the doors of would be customers. I faced adversity on every turn I took but I refused to let it get me down, I knew God was up to something behind the scenes.

I was always on time and a responsible bread delivery boy. I greeted everyone with a huge grin and rubbed off my joy onto them, soon the bread customers started to take a liking to me and tip me an extra few cents on each loaf. On a normal day I'd make a profit of 50c per loaf which left me with enough money for bus fare. The plan was to take a bus to the university campus that BE was at.

I hadn't taken the bus before so I needed a co-pilot for this mission. Rick was the perfect contender for the job. He was street savvy, filled with knowledge on the art of survival on the street. It was a risk just getting onto the bus, there were predators in the real world, waiting and watching, hoping to prey on their latest victims. Pick pockets and petty thieves were looming everywhere camouflaged as model citizens, sharing the bus like everybody else.

I had saved up enough to cover the bus fare for Rick and myself, and we were off. My emotions were stirred and enlivened, I didn't know what to expect when we got there, I couldn't wait to see her. It was a twenty minute journey to the university and as we arrived my heart began to throb faster and louder.

Rick and I walked around clueless as to where to look for her. We searched for her instinctively hoping to bump into her somehow. The campus would explode with bodies being released from lecture halls and we'd be lost in oceans of people. The campus would change every few hours whenever lectures would end. Even the student advisory wasn't willing to help. They had a strict policy on giving out personal details of their students. We soon realized that wasn't going to be as easy as we thought.

We had no idea where she would be at any given moment. I didn't want to give up hope of finding her. I needed to let her know how I felt and that I would wait for her to finish her studies. A part of me knew that she was so goal orientated and career focused. She was always very ambitious and focused on everything she did. The search would leave us drained and low spirited but we had to keep at it.

Days would go by and Rick and I would return with every waking sunrise but sill we hadn't any luck in finding her until one morning when we ran into her with a group of other girls. At the time Libby Tyler had been in contact with me, we'd talk on the phone a bit, it was non romantic conversations. Libby was one of the girls in the group along with BE. Libby made her way towards me thinking that I had come to see her.

I had to be truthful and I told Libby that I was crazy about BE and she was the reason I was here. Libby didn't take the news well and she snubbed me off and walked away from me disgruntled. BE stood at the back of the huddle, her shy attraction was still a major part of her even though she was in the big leagues now at campus. It's her shyness that got me shy and sweaty palmed.

I walked over to her unconfidently, my expedition of love had reached its pinnacle and the moment had arrived. Before I could utter a word she said "What are you doing here?", "Uh, I came to see you" I muttered. "Please don't, please don't come back here again, I thought my mum made it clear to you that you should leave me alone". "I'm sorry I came here but I needed to speak to you" I said in a soft voice.

My moment had passed, BE walked away and I felt quite embarrassed and belittled. I can't believe what I fool I was to even think that she would talk to me. Once again the brokenness overwhelmed me; thankfully I had my co-pilot Rick with me. He would be at the cockpit in charge of all the controls as he ushered me to my crash landing.

Dear passengers it's your captain speaking, we are experiencing some turbulence at the moment, please be seated and keep your seat belts fastened.

We left the university with nothing achieved aside from more evidence that BE was uninterested in me. I had to move on somehow but it was easier said than done.

The days, weeks and months after that left me on a spiral downwards. I would often be reminded of her when a familiar song came on the radio or a movie played on TV. At the mall I'd often see a girl with long flowing hair like hers, I was being haunted by her, and I saw her everywhere I looked. I'd stop in my tracks and stare from a distance until I realized it wasn't her.

My dreams would take me there though, to a place when we were more than just friends. It would feel so real, we'd talk or laugh with each other and for those moments in my dreams I was the happiest I'd had ever been. Some nights I would lay on my bed thinking of her, trying to manipulate my mind, I was sure to dream of her because she was always the last thing on my mind before I fell off to sleep.