THIS IS AN UNEDITED AND SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT VERSION OF THE MISFORTUNES OF LOLITA. I AM PUBLISHING IT IN FALL 2021—PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON IG @/ls.akhter and GOODREADS (L AKHTER) TO STAY UPDATED. I am so excited to share TMoL with you again.
"What do you see?" Frank asked.
"I see," Lolita paused, shutting her eyes for a split second, her lips a deep pink from her teeth against it. "I see the street."
Frank glanced down to their fingers, entwined. "Describe it to me."
She tugged the bottom of her dress down, covering down to her knee. Her fingers were still shaking, not as much as before. Her voice was calmer when she spoke again. "Charcoal dragging through white paper."
He laughed, unable to help himself, and she cracked a smile. "Really?"
They'd almost reached the school, where the graduation ceremony was being held. Lolita had insisted that they walked from home, and Frank guessed it was because she wanted to delay seeing that place for as long as she could.
Lolita had grown more and more anxious as they neared the school. Her feet had gotten slower and her hands had begun to sweat and her jaw had been tight, and she looked like she was trying to hold her breath so it wouldn't sound so loud.
"Breathe," he'd said, and he remembered what felt like months ago, her saying the same to him-breathe, Frank. You're angry.
She'd put her fingers to her lips, bunched up so they wouldn't shake. He'd stopped on the pavement. Her eyes were closed, her forehead creased. "It'll be okay," she'd muttered. "It's graduation day. It'll be okay. You're here."
Frank's eyes had burned, it was hard-it was hard to see her in pain. It was hard to see her desperately trying to grasp onto the lighter edges of reality.
He breathed out, brushing his thumb across the hand he was holding. "What do you see?"
Lolita had shaken her head. "Frank."
"What do you see?" he asked. "Describe it to me."
And so she had, hesitantly, begun to answer each time he asked, just as she had a thousand times before in the nights and days they spent in each other's arms, when her anxiety had crawled up her throat and cut through her breathing.
I see trees. I see your suit. I see houses. I see flowers.
Now, she seemed calmer as they stood at the doors of Dale High. They'd put up a little welcome, graduates! sign at the front doors, and the last place Frank wanted to be was here.
"What do you see?" he asked, and she held onto his hand tight.
"I see the sky," she said.
Frank half smiled, his insides still felt twisted up when she looked at him. "The sky?"
Lolita took his hand in both of hers, holding it between them, close to her heart. "I still think you're my sky, Frank."
He wanted to say it then-he wanted to shout it. Don't leave me alone here, Lolita. I don't think I can breathe without you.
He didn't, though. He didn't. He rested his forehead against hers, and he was the one that was weak-he didn't even think he knew how to breathe without knowing she was near anymore. He was hooked on her like she was a drug. The sun felt colder without her. His lungs were bruised from sighing out prayers to Gods he didn't even know he believed in.
Frank and Lolita met and crashed and left each other in ruins. That was their story. Wasn't that the saddest thing?
Inside, they called her name too soon, and when she walked down the auditorium to get her diploma, people clapped. Akima sat beside Frank, tears brimming from her eyes, falling down her face, and Frank felt weirdly happy, in that moment. In the loudness of Talia's and their parents' and his and Akima's and the rest of their graduating class's claps, he imagined a world where Lolita hadn't been held at gunpoint. He imagined a world where their words weren't covered in all the dirt from that night's rain. He imagined a world where they didn't have to carry mountains on their shoulders.
His dad was back, his mom was happy, and Cora was finally smiling and meaning it-and Frank still wanted more. Everything that had been wrong when he'd met Lolita was good now, everything that he hated about himself and his family was better. Lolita had come into his life and he didn't know how, but his life had gotten better. And now she was leaving.
He loved her. And she loved him.
Sometimes love isn't enough, Frank.
It is, he thought, as Lolita walked back with her diploma in her hands, and she looked at it like she couldn't believe it was real. He realized that for Lolita, graduating and leaving this place had always been the light at the end of the tunnel. She looked happy, for the first time in weeks. God honest happy-the kind that makes your heart full with light and bursts through your ribs. She was happy.
Sometimes love meant not our time. Sometimes love meant I'll wait for you. Sometimes love meant one day.
When Lolita laced her fingers through his, he kissed her forehead. Her fingers held onto the rolled up paper, her thumb tracing over the red ribbon tied around. For some reason, Frank kept waiting for his name being called, but it wasn't. It hit him hard, then-Akima and Lolita and even Talia were graduating, and he would be alone, walking down the same halls that he fell in love in.
Lolita's father hugged her after the ceremony, and Evelyn stood by their side, smiling. Lolita drew back and wrapped her arms around her too, and Martha put an arm around Frank.
"Are you okay?" she asked, and Frank felt young and weak and full.
"No," he said, shaking his head. Akima's family joined Lolita's, Tom and Akima's father fell into a lively discussion-they'd apparently been seated side by side during the ceremony. Frank saw Talia walk to Lolita, and watched her shoulders tense up and then ease again as she extended a hand to her, and Talia took it, smiling. She glanced at Frank and waved, and he cracked a smile.
Today-this felt like the big goodbye.
"You will be okay," Martha squeezed his shoulder and kissed his cheek. "Both of you."
Lolita walked to Frank, and before anything, Martha pulled her in for an embrace, kissing her forehead, and then left them.
Lolita held Frank's hand. "Come with me."
Frank followed her out of the hallway around the auditorium, and walked down the almost empty main hall. Lolita stopped in the middle of the hallway. Frank imagined one day-he imagined them visiting town and coming to Dale High, walking around this school and revisiting where they'd met. He imagined feeling only the good parts of the memories. He imagined them together.
"This is where I first noticed you looking at me," she said, and he looked at her. "You probably don't remember-"
"I remember," Frank wanted to laugh. God-he remembered. He would always remember.
She was forgettable. But he would remember her.
"It's hard to believe that I met you here," she turned to him, and the look in her eyes-it killed him. "So many-bad things happened here, and then there was you. Sometimes I felt like you were the only good thing. I always tried to push you away. I was stupid. I should've spent every day of my fucking life with you. I want to."
"Lolita," he said, everything feeling stifled and overwhelming. She was saying goodbye.
"I loved you," Lolita said. In the empty hall, her voice felt so soft and quiet and pure. "I love you."
Frank wanted to shout it again. I love you too, I love you too. Please don't leave.
"Ask me to stay," her eyes pooled with tears, and Frank leaned his forehead against hers, and his eyes filled up too, burning and boiling and tearing him apart. "Frank. Ask me to stay. Once. I'll do anything for you. Ask me to stay, just once."
"I'll do anything for you too," he said. I'll even leave you for you. "We'll make it work. I'll drive up there every weekend and we'll talk every night. We'll be okay. You have to leave this place."
"Frank," She cried, and he knew she had to go. "I'm sorry."
Lolita put her hand over her mouth, leaning into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Frank held her. They'd be okay.
The next few weeks, Frank tried to slow time down.
He tried to memorize her, the way she was now, the way he was now. He tried to etch her smiles into his memory, he tried to remember the way she brushed her lips against his forehead. He had this irrational fear that the way she'd kiss him would change after she went to college-that she would stop looking at him like he was made of magic.
They went around town, spending hours talking and loving and looking at each other. She still had panic attacks, and he played the game with her every time: tell me what you see.
"I'll call you in the middle of the day," she would say, quietly. "I'll listen to your voice until the sun explodes."
"I love you," he would say back.
What they never asked was what itched through Frank's mind the most:
What if you stop loving me?
What if?
What if one day she woke up and decided that she didn't love him anymore?
Or worse, what if it happened gradually-what if everything they felt died out and suffocated? What if it all ebbed away with silence and missed calls and too-long rides?
It wasn't fair. Fucking hell-it could've been fair. It just wasn't.
The day Lolita left, it rained.
Frank helped pack her luggage into the back of the sheriff's jeep, and sat beside Lolita on the backseat as they drove to Michigan State.
Lolita held his hand and couldn't speak, and the rain hit the windows with such force that he thought they would crack. She wore her hair pulled back, and there was smudged ink at the edge of her palm from her journal, and her lips trembled as the sheriff drove out of their town. In the four hour drive, Frank tried to speak, but nothing felt good enough to say. He wanted to stuff every laughter and tear and every little twist in his heart and drop in his stomach into a briefcase and hold it to his chest-he wanted to tell the world this is what I have from the girl who saved my life.
The sheriff drove too fast-time went by faster. He asked if Lolita wanted food from a drive through and Lolita insisted that they eat inside the restaurant instead, holding Frank's hand tight. Frank wanted to stop every clock in the world. Lolita ate slowly, drawing out the time.
They drove and drove and drove. Nothing was enough.
Her fingers tightened around his when she could see Michigan State's gates. She turned to him, almost desperately, her eyes red with tears.
The sheriff got out and told them to wait by the car while he dropped off her luggage, and Lolita watched silently as her dad took out the boxes and the bag.
"Lolita," Frank's voice cracked. "Stay."
She looked at him and her face crumbled as she wrapped his arms around him, her tears wetting his white shirt.
"I love you," he said, unable to stop. His eyes burned and he pulled her closer, burying his face into her neck. "Don't leave me."
She left, just like she'd come. She whispered goodbye the same way she'd said hello.
She was his story. And he was hers. And that would be enough, one day.
-
hey guys! sorry about the long delay in updating. i'll get into that a little bit, but first!!
I'VE POSTED A NEW STORY!! i'm not sure if all of you read my announcement, but basically, this new story started off as something from lolita's pov in an alternate universe if frank had died in that car crash a long while back, but now it's turned into something i'm really excited for and if you enjoyed TMoL, please check that story out! it's called "AIRA AND ABEL" and here's a really short teaser thingy:
["don't you ever want to steal from life what it stole from you?"
two grieving people desperately fill gaps with each other, and occasionally, with petty thefts. ]
the full summary is posted and i really hope you all read it and let me know if you'd read that story. i hope it touches your hearts as much as this story did.
secondly, thank you so much for reading TMoL and for sending me so many kind messages and comments. i'm really really sorry that this update was late, but i was studying and mostly delaying this update because i was batshit nervous about what you all would think of it? i didn't want TMoL to end. this story is my life, honestly. again, thank you to those who sent me nice messages!! i did get a few rude comments and messages, and i know some of you care more about the story than the person who writes it, but please don't forget that i'm an actual person, and have... feelings?? and a temper, lol.
i've also gotten a lot of questions about publishing-i'm still editing the manuscript for TMoL. publishing is hard and since i've chosen the traditional way, i have to be careful about TMoL. i thank you for all the support. i would not be here if it weren't for you, and i hope you all can hold a physical copy of a better version of this book in your hands very soon.
please let me know your opinion on this ending and let me know if it was okay!! tell me how you felt while reading it, tell me if the emotions were portrayed well, etc. everything you guys say helps me in writing the final manuscript (i'll eventually post a note on this book asking your help in deciding which scenes to delete/keep etc).
i'll put up a little note from lolita's journal soon, and then TMoL will be officially complete.