UNFAMOUS [BOOK ONE] (A Wattpad 'Featured Story')

PREVIEW - [BOOK TWO] - CH. 4 | MADONNA

The disappointment of not seeing Nathaniel at The Suite the other night looms over my head like my own personal rain cloud. Why wasn't he there? Why isn't he anywhere? As one of Brompton University's 'Kings' he is sort of obliged to at least show his face at major events,  something he normally relished doing. Maybe he didn't hear about it...okay, that's ridiculous; of course he knew about Bad & Beautiful, there wasn't a soul in the realm of the Unfamous that didn't. Nathaniel is Brompton royalty, he probably received several invites; not that I'd know seeing as he has taken the liberty of deleting (and possibly blocking) me from his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so that I have no idea of his whereabouts, what he is doing...or if he even thinks about me at all. Along with cutting off our cyber connections, Nathaniel has blocked me from his Whatsapp and has avoided picking up the phone or replying to any of my desperate text messages. I don't bother trying to get through to him anymore because every unanswered call and text makes it clearer that he meant what he said; it's over. I wonder if the reason he didn't show up to the rave was because he knew I'd be there...surely not; he can't want to keep away from me so badly that he'd avoid being where I am altogether...can he?

My question is answered when I turn up to my English Literature lecture on Monday morning and his seat is empty. I scan the entire room, desperately hoping to see him occupying one of the other chairs; any other chair. I don't intend to bother him; I just need to see him, to know that he is here and that he is okay –to see if our separation is eating away at him as much as it is me.

Nathaniel is nowhere to be found.

Stoically, I take my usual seat at the back of the lecture hall and close my eyes -it is all I can do to keep my tears from falling. I had been counting on him being here to break the torturously elongated thread of distance and time between us -and to feel my heart beat. It's been a while since I felt the inexplicable tremor of love's anxiety. What I would not give for that ache in my chest.

The entire lecture ends up being a waste of my time because I didn't pay an ounce of attention to what Rose was talking about. Instead, I bounced between restraining my tears beneath my eyelids and staring at the door, waiting for the boy that I know would never come. It got to the stage where I wanted to see him so badly that I sat and stared at his chair and imagined that he was there. At one point, I actually reached out to touch my hallucination so that I could hold his waiting hand under the table and revel in the gentle way he would brush his thumb back and forth over my skin. When you lose someone you love, you miss the smallest things that you took for granted when they were there, like the way they held you in their arms so securely, that it felt as if you were pieces of the same puzzle that were meant to fit together. Or, the way that even after kissing for ages, they still had to sneak a few extra pecks on the lips before they were satisfied enough to pull away completely.

God, I miss him.

I had intended to return to my room after the lecture so that I could be alone with my memories, but somehow I find myself strolling absentmindedly along the familiar cobbled pathway that runs alongside the glittering stream. I am heading towards Nathaniel's field that lay just beyond the prickly hedges adjacent to the stream. He is bound to be here; it's where he comes to be alone. My dark eyes scour the spiky leafless hedges for the small inconspicuous gap that will take me to the other side. The moment I spot it, I break into a chaotic sprint and charge through the gap, ignoring the sting of the jagged twigs scraping into my hands and face, breaking the skin in some places. Please Lord, let him be here. I need him to be here. I emerge on the other side of the hedge, scathed and panting, into the vast field surrounded by towering masses of Maple trees with their autumnal sunset leaves blowing arbitrarily in the chilly wind. The breeze whips the weaker leaves from the branches and scatters them haphazardly across the muddy grass. The bleached pale-yellow sun hangs directly above the surrendering scenery, casting opaque shadows under the trees. I peer cautiously into the almost darkness of the canopy of trees that hold up the old rusty swing for some sign of him -there is none.