c h a p t e r e i g h t
a s t o r y i s l i k e t h e t i t a n a t l a s
***
Sebastian didn't do anything that day. I smiled to myself. Twenty nine more days to go and my pay would increase. I remember my mother asking what a fat child like me could do. Now I could tell her that my monthly pay is more than her yearly pay. My pay earlier was really good but if I managed to stay here, my pay would be excellent. All the years of hard work would finally pay off.
'Love or career?' Sebastian asked me as we sat on the roof of his house. We were playing 21 questions because we had nothing to do at 3 am.
'Obviously, career.' I said with a duh look and Sebastian looked taken aback for a second. I asked him the same question and he replied without thinking.
'Love.'
It was my turn to be taken aback. I mean, that guy's relationships barely lasted for two weeks and he was talking about love over career?
'So who's your girl?' I asked him. 'If you're choosing love or career, there has to be someone.'
'Now is not the time to experience love, it's a really big word for these fragile flings.' He said putting an arm around me, 'I don't expect the love I find in school to last for a lifetime. And even if I do, I want the love to grow stronger by each passing second.'
'Wow, the playboy's got some interesting views on love.' I said, mildly impressed by his point of view.
'I can tell you one more interesting view if you promise not to tell anyone.' Sebastian said looking in my eyes. For one second, I thought he was going to tell me that he loved me but I realised that thought was stupid.
I gave him a pointed look and he continued, 'I hope to find the love of my life in this school.'
I smiled.
'We will have to wait and watch then.'
'LEAH!' I jumped in my chair, looking at Beth who was frantically waving her hands in front of me, looking at me like I was mad.
I realised I had zoned out again.
'It is time to leave.' Beth said and I nodded. I asked her to leave and she bid me a goodbye. I finished one pending file and decided to leave. When I saw the time, I cursed. Andrea would be waiting at my house and I was here half an hour after the closing time. When I opened my cabin door, nobody was there...everybody had left.
Just then, I saw Matt leaving Sebastian's office. I hadn't talked to him since the party at my lovely boss's house. I called Matt but he decided to ignore me...I didn't know why. I called Matt but he ignored me again. I rolled my eyes and pulled his hand. He let me take him to my cabin.
'Why are you ignoring me, Matt?' I asked him, trying to ignore how handsome he looked in his crisp white shirt and black pants.
'I should have asked you the same thing when you decided to ignore me at the party.' Matt said, huffing. He seemed far away from angry, instead, he was enjoying all of this. I had promised a dance to him, that is why he was ignoring me. Oh boy.
'I left, Matt. Upset stomach.' Wow. What a nice save, Leah. Matt looked at me and then burst out laughing. I chuckled too and when I looked at Matt, he was gazing at my lips. My heartbeat picked up and before I could realise, Matt's lips were brushing mine. His hand caught my waist tightly and our lower bodies were plastered together. I could feel his arousal against my jeans. He caught my lips in an urgent kiss and I allowed him full access. My hands curled some material of his shirt in my fist, spoiling his crisp ironed shirt completely.
'Ms. Hastings, what are...,' Sebastian opened the door and came in saying, but was interrupted when he saw Matt and me making out next to my desk. Matt cursed under his breath and took a file in his hands and lowered it to hide his arousal. No matter how funny it was to watch, I was scared. Sebastian's cold eyes never left us. After a minute, Sebastian turned around and left. He didn't look angry or irritated. He looked devoid of emotion. Like he didn't care.
I left Matt trying to calm down his little soldier and saw Sebastian going in the elevator. Before I reached it, the doors had already closed. I sighed and took the other lift. I don't know but I had to tell Sebastian that the kiss with Matt meant nothing. Matt was just a crush and I wanted nothing more than friendship with him. I felt like explaining this to Sebastian. But he obviously had no relation with me. He wanted me to resign at any cost and this wouldn't matter to him.
-
I would tell Matt that I wanted nothing more than friendship from him, the next thing in the morning. I reached my apartment to find Andrea comfortably sitting on the couch watching Netflix. My stomach rumbled. I noticed Chinese takeout on the table.
Once I changed into my night clothes, I sat next to Andrea with the delicious food.
We watched Netflix until I had my dinner and once, I had washed the dishes, she closed the television. I knew it was time for one of 'The Andrea Talk'.
I frowned when I saw that Andrea had dropped some ice-cream on my batman tee. She grinned sheepishly before saying, 'I will wash it later, I promise.'
'What made you late? I hope Sebastian was not–'
'No, Andrea. He was not troubling me.' I said defensively...wait what?
Andrea smirked and continued, 'I was going to ask whether he was banging you on his desk or something.'
I flushed and I hit her on the arm, hard. She winced and rubbed the portion where I had hit her. After talking about a bit more random things, I thought I had succeeded in getting her mind off Sebastian and I. But the moment I thought of that, she said, 'Coming back to the point why I am here for.'
I sighed exasperatedly.
Andrea ushered me to talk, 'Begin, Le.'
I looked at the table and I decided to tell Andrea my story. I was going to tell her a part of my dark childhood and teenage – the part I had not dared to tell anyone. I didn't trust anyone enough. I didn't trust Andrea no matter how reliable she was. Having trust issues was another bad quality in me – just like numerous other bad qualities in me. I wasn't telling Andrea because she was pestering me to, no. I was telling her because I needed to let go of the built up emotions in my soul.
I was being selfish. But I needed to be, just for once.
'When I was 8 years old, I had moved in next to Sebastian's bungalow with my family. Dad was in Army and never got time to visit me, not that he loved me anyway. They all loved that stupid bitch Ivory, I couldn't see why. I thought it was just me being paranoid and I was happy with the library that was just a stone's throw away from our house, I used to be there all the time. I always used to see Sebastian in the library – yeah, he was a book nerd when he was a kid.'
I drank some water, there was a lot of talking to do. Andrea's eyes were perked up – she was attentively listening to what I was saying. S t o r y – it is such a simple five letter word but holds so much meaning to it. Some stories are short lived and some stories go on till eternity. But what makes a story special is neither the amount of words, 2000 words or 200000000 words, nor the people. It is the fact that a story, whether simple or complex, is like the Titan Atlas – it holds the weight of the whole world. The world that the story holds is that of an individual's. My story holds the whole weight of my world.
'When I was 10, I finally realised why my parents loved Ivory. It was because she was exactly the replica of the daughter they had always wanted – beautiful, slim, poised lady with manners. I was exactly the opposite – ugly, fat and just plain. And Ivory calling me fat everyday didn't help my self esteem either. I was depressed, Andrea. For four years and no one noticed it. I didn't have any friends either – Ivory stole everyone away from me. She was the perfect 'Hastings' and my parents were so proud of her – like she was their own daughter. She is my cousin, her parents died and my parents adopted her. I was on drugs and alcohol but nobody noticed it. I stole money from my mum's cupboard every Saturday night to go to rape parties and do drugs. I had a dealer who would give me the drugs. I was fucking eleven and I was out of control. And then I started suffering from a eating disorder after Ivory made a snide remark of my 40 inch waist.'
All of the bitter memories flashed across my mind and I stopped a tear from falling. Andrea didn't look like she pitied me to which I was thankful for. I remembered sitting in my room for days and nobody would come to check if I was alright. I hadn't eaten for a week but my mom never knew about it. She hardly even thought of me as her own blood.
'One day, my family had gone out to some stupid party and they obviously didn't deem it appropriate to go with them so I stayed home. I was on the rooftop doing drugs when I saw Sebastian looking at me with eyes wide open. I think he got scared and thought of me as a bad girl, which later on turned to be correct. He was so scared of me that he wandered off to another side whenever he saw me coming. I never cared though. That's all happened till I was 14.'
I smiled when I started to tell this phase of my life to Andrea.
'I was alone in my house crying again when the doorbell rang. When I opened it, Sebastian was at the door with a jar of cookies. His mother had made them for my mother and he had come to give it. But I noticed that he didn't look scared of me this time. In fact, he was the one who stayed with me that night to console me. I don't why but I trusted him and told him everything. We turned best friends in a short amount of time. He had only two friends and I had none so we got along really well. He changed me completely; I didn't do drugs anymore. What more could I want from life?'
I smiled. That was the only part of my childhood I wanted to relive again. Being friends with Sebastian was so nice and he made you feel loved – like you mattered.
'Things changed when we turned 16. Sebastian joined the school football team and then started his journey to become the most popular player. We were still very good friends but he restricted his talking to me till our houses. He never talked to me in the school. I took less than nanoseconds to figure out the usual case of the popular child not talking to the unpopular one. I started ignoring him and he never came back to talk to me. I was upset for a long time but I didn't do anything. Now when I sit back, I think maybe I should have slapped some common sense in that stupid guy.'
Andrea shook her head when she heard of the usual high school story.
'Many things happened before we turned 17. I made a lot of friends because people started noticing how smart I was without having to pay attention in classes and not to mention how thin I had gotten from dieting and exercising my soul out for an year. They were in awe of my capabilities. I didn't seem to mind the attention I got. I made best friends with Beth, Jessica and Shay. One day, Beth and Jessica thought of playing a prank on the high school jocks and Sebastian's team mates– Shawn and Nicholas. The prank got so serious that Nicholas was one centimetre away from committing Jessica's murder. Not over exaggerating at all. If Sebastian hadn't come in between, that is. I didn't know about the prank at all so when I came around, all I saw was Nicholas holding Jessica's throat and Sebastian shouting at Jessica. So I got angry; Sebastian and I had a really huge fight in which he brought up my past, I being fat and all, and I was so angry that I slapped him. Sebastian never looked in my direction again. Everyone now knew me as the girl who could stand up to Sebastian. I was the school's new boss ass bitch.'
Andrea clapped when I finished saying that. Andrea always loved strong women and bitches. I got a call from Beth but Andrea declined it. I rolled my eyes and continued talking. I would revert back Beth's call later.
'Sebastian and I had this unresolved cold war because of Nicholas and Jessica. Days later, I got to know that Jessica liked Nicholas and I went haywire when she made that confession. But except a few fights, everything went back to normal. I was actually on the edge of my seat for the rest of the year waiting for Sebastian to retaliate for the slap. But he didn't do anything. I got a big blow when he started dating Ivory and by the looks of it, they looked pretty serious. I was...'
Andrea completed it for me, 'Hurt.' I nodded.
'And then after a month Beth started dating this Ryan guy, who tried to kiss me at a party and Beth saw it the wrong way. She broke off our friendship and two weeks later, she started dating Sebastian. He had broken up with Ivory but I didn't really care at that point. I thought Beth was being a total bitch by dating Sebastian to get back at me, because I 'stole' her boyfriend. All those things are cleared now though. She really loves him, Andrea. That's how my high school ended. It was a roller coaster that only went down and deeper.'
Andrea laughed at the last part.
'You know, I always thought that Sebastian didn't retaliate after I slapped him. But after high school ended, I realised that he did, after all. He got the best revenge for it. He made me fall in love with him. And nothing is more painful than one sided love. He did manage to break my heart. And what better than, your guy dating your sister and then, your best friend? I resorted to drugs when he broke my heart but I just left it all of a sudden. I couldn't do this to myself, I had realised. I couldn't damage my soul because of all this. I decided to be a better person, away from all of this. Grades came easily to me and I went to NYU for getting the degree. My life started coming back on line. And here I am, now.'
I finished my story when I saw Andrea smiling at me. Her eyes glistened with tears as she spoke, 'That is why you're the strongest person I know.'
'Yeah sure, tell that to an ex drug addict.' I chuckle.
'You still love him?'
'No, I got over him.' I say and Andrea looked convinced. I meant every word of it.
-
Andrea and I watched X-Men Apocalypse and she slept on the couch after twenty minutes. I rolled my eyes. I decided to retire for the night. After retelling the story to Andrea, all the buried wounds started to resurface again. I opened a box hidden underneath my underwear. I found some rolled up joints, marijuana and amphetamines. I closed the box and kept it back again. I smiled when I remembered how victoriously I had conquered over the drugs. I slept peacefully that night, like all of the bad memories had never existed in my life.
Unknowingly, tears fell down my eyes. I had this tendency to cry whenever emotions built up inside of me. High school taught me not to trust anyone completely and I really couldn't.
After five minutes, I texted Beth if she had called for an important issue to which she immediately replied with
Yes! What do you think Sebastian would like on me: a navy blue blouse or a green one?
I rolled my eyes. She was awake late at night for this shit?
I think he'd prefer nothing. ;)
I chuckled when I sent my reply. I always turned everything my friends said into some sort of sexual innuendos, Jessica specifically the victim of them.
LEAH.
I chuckled and could imagine her blushing her at my text.
Okay, sorry. Navy blue would suit you. I will see you tomorrow, good night x.
I was going to say it was his favourite but I was guessing she knew. She dated him after all.
Thanks! See you soon xoxoxo
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Also, I don't know how the rankings of Wattpad stories work but I was really glad when I saw that my story was ranked #36 in ChickLit on 9th July'16.
<4 (I can't tell you guys how much I love Four from the Divergent Trilogy lol.)
Epi.
(Also, if someone can make a story cover for me, I would be really thankful to you.)