~~ Diego's POV ~~
I had finally got that library membership that I had been desperately waiting for ever since I got out of jail. The library is the only real place I can really connect to. The book, that girl, her father calls Delilah, gave me, was just amazing. I always appreciate a young reader which is so rare to find. The fact that I could borrow books anytime I wanted to gives me a chance to see her again after that little fiasco we had in the elevator. I don't think she liked it, even though I found it simply hilarious.
I went back to the library and handed in the book as well as the little card. "Hi." I said but she just ignored me and stamped the card without noticing which left me disappointed. This went on, borrowing books and then returning them a week later.
"Delilah, listen to me..." I tried to tell her to throw away those magazines because I really didn't want to see that Rosy, my ex, anywhere or anymore.
"Save it." She raised her hand and continued typing on her computer. Was she interested or not? God, girls are so confusing.
I had to leave it at that then. So after that I realized to let it go so I decided not to attend the library and just work my daily exercise till I met her again that fateful morning.
It was fate.
I knew it in my heart. Call it intuition but I was right.
***
~~ Delilah's POV~~
"A three-month waiting list?!" I repeated as I held the phone tightly to my ear. "Thank you." And I banged the phone to the receiver and sighed.
Ma and Dad had already left for Vienna for their annual getaway, leaving me and Adeline here to deal with the meeting with Nick's suggestion. No matter how hard I tried, he kept on repeating, "If it goes your way, it's good and if it doesn't, it's even better because it's God's will and decision."
Arranged marriage was apparently God's will?
I put on my white linen shawl while Adeline helped to do my hair. I had to make myself look presentable for them because otherwise she would be upset, and I love my sister. Plus, she knew the tricks of the trade.
Suddenly, the bell rang telling us to get ready faster.
"I'll get it!" Adeline squealed. The next thing I know is the shuffling of feet and common laughter between my sister, her boyfriend and his 'suggestion.' I felt so excluded from this family because I have to marry someone I barely know and Adeline gets to be with the literal man of her dreams.
I dreaded the moment when she said, "I'll go get her, she's been very excited to meet you!"
Just five minutes later, we were all talking like old friends.
Correction : THEY were all talking like old friends.
I just didn't know what to make of this. They were talking about wedding scenes and they wanted to pick white flowers against yellow. What happened to talks of Shakespeare and whether Macbeth was dominated by his wife. I opened my mouth but no words seemed to form so I just shut it and looked down at my feet. Socializing was never my thing.
Nor were marriages for that matter.
Finally, they had got up, shook hands and left the building.
Or so I thought...
Kaveri fell with an "Oof" down on the settee that they once sat on and sighed, partly in relief and partly in happiness. "He's a great guy Delilah! So funny and smart, don't forget that he's the IIT IIM graduate that dad expects you to marry, so why don't you?"
"Adeline, please, none of these guys are for me!" I scoffed and rubbed my eyes in exhaustion before sitting down next to her, crossing my legs in a dress. Not that I cared anyway.
"Nonsense! He's so your type."
I just smiled at her confidence and optimism, until an unfamiliar ringtone made me jump from my seat.
Adeline jumped too and she found a brand new iPhone 6S buzzing underneath our chair. "Oh, it's Ajith's." The moment I saw that evil face she made, I shook my head violently. "No Kaveri! I know what you're thinking! No way!"
She nodded her evil-smirk-plastered-head at me giving the phone to my hand. "Yes! This is the perfect time to see him again, this is fate Delilah! Please do it for me!"
"But they're probably gone by now!" I couldn't see those people again.
Her puppy dog eyes were too hard to resist so I sighed. "Ok, for you then." Her face glowed as she pushed me out the door and locked it behind me, leaving me no choice but to give that wretched phone back.
I held the phone tightly in my hand as I took the elevator to the ground floor, slowly, so I could give the excuse that he left. As I opened the metal gates, I walked over to the car park and overheard their voices. So I halted and eavesdropped from the corner of the wall.
"Look now! Adeline is calling, what should I tell her?" Nick said over the ringtone.
"Tell her what? Hey man, you've hitched up a beauty like Kaveri and set me up with a frump old fashioned weirdo like Saraswathi! Are you my friend or enemy, dude?"
I felt a tear drop down my cheek. Of course, I wiped it away...
Why was I surprised?
"Shit, man! I had high hopes for you! Do you know that you are the 10th guy rejecting her?"
Why, Nick, why?
"What? There were 9 before me?"
I stepped back and wiped my involuntary tears that dripped one after the other but then the sobbing started and I couldn't control my tears falling. I turned my heel and walked to the lift. And even though I was surprised to see Diego there again, I didn't even glance at him. I continued sobbing and ran up the stairs to my room, avoiding the definite awkwardness that awaited me in the elevator.
I shut the room door behind me with anger boiling in me. "Adeline, you told Nick the number of boys that rejected me?"
Adeline was already in tears for me. Nick would have answered her call, of course. "Even Ajith said no, he doesn't want a frump aunt like you!"
"I know." I said quietly.
"And you know something else?" She got up and walked up to me before sniffing. "Nick has given me an ultimatum. He won't wait until you get married. He says either I get married to him next month and move to the US, or forget him!" She buried her face in her hands.
I guess she didn't cry for me, then.
This always happen to me, I'm always the one. I held Kaveri in my arm.
I ruin everything.
"Oh no! I'm so sorry, Adeline! I really am."
She pushed me away. "Don't say sorry! Smarten up! Find a man!" She looked at me. "Who am I telling you to smarten up? You're a fossil! A bloody fossil! You are just some nerd who can't do something for me? Are you that selfish?"
"I'm sorry'
There wasn't anything else I could say.
I couldn't take such embarrassment anymore, so I stormed off to my bedroom. There had to be someway I could get married before next month!
At 3.00 am, I got up and changed into a simple pair of jeans and a shirt. I threw a crushed trench on top of it before slipping on a pair of Oxfords. I noticed that Adeline was fast asleep and tucked her into the sheets I had grabbed from her bedroom. "Good night, Adeline." I whispered and made my way downstairs with the magazine tucked into my arms.
I'm making a huge mistake. I thought.
***
I went over to his door downstairs and praying that he wasn't asleep and knocked on the door. There was no reply. So I stood there awkwardly waiting for him, biting my lip nervously.
I heard the clanging of lift doors from downstairs. I knocked on his door impatiently. "Diego!" He opened the door slightly so I pushed him in, letting myself in and locked the door.
I took 3 minutes to take in the atmosphere in the room. Random egg shells and pizza boxes that smelt as if they have lived in the apartment themselves. Right in front of me was a sweaty Inder, his body covered in attractive black ink, doing his pull ups.
"I didn't expect anyone doing exercise at this hour." I said meekly. Shut up Delilah!
He jumped to the floor and stared at me. "And I didn't expect someone asking for help at this hour." He said before moving on to bench press.
I stood there without saying a word hugging the magazine, watching his muscular, bare body handle that vigorous exercise.
"You are here for help, aren't you?" He chuckled.
"Yes." I started. "You didn't come to the library anymore so I figured..."
"Ok."
"That I could come to your apartment."
"So why at three in the morning?" He questioned.
"So I wouldn't be caught seeking help from a person like you." Oh my god, Delilah, what do you mean a person like 'him'?
I could see he was hurt. "A person like me?"
"People say you're a criminal, and I'm also a lawyer's daughter."
He nodded in reply, but he didn't seem to have an agreeing tone in his voice. "Ok then, whaddya need?"
I took the magazine out and pointed to the woman on the cover. "Your Monday-girlfriend is the top makeup artist and stylist in India."
He mocked. "Monday girlfriend."
I managed to force a smile myself.
"If you could make up with her and get some help because I need a special recommendation so I can get a new look in time because otherwise no IIT IIM guy would be attracted to me and my sister's boyfriend will leave her and everything will be a mess!" I blurted out without thinking.
He glared at me. "No can do, sweetheart. It's over with her."
And I'm sure I blushed at that new nickname. "Please don't call me that."
"Why not? You don't--"
The door burst open and Diego grabbed me and hid ourselves behind the big brown screen. Then I heard a familiar voice. " Diego darling? I'm very very sorry, pleeaaaaseee take me back. I love you!"
Then she staggered in her miniskirt with a champagne bottle in one hand and her purse in the other. Her makeup was smeared and she looked like a demented beaver.
Speaking of the drunk devil.
"What are you doing here, Rosy?" Diego said, slightly annoyed.
Then she caught her eye on me. "Huh?" What is this virgin doing here?" She tripped on her heels backwards but regained her position again.
I kept my mouth shut.
"She wanted an appointment."
"I can see that at three in the morning!"
"It's not what you think!"
"Yeah? Look at her! I meet up with these kind of girls everyday!" She looked back at Diego and pointed her bottle at me. "The least amount of skin, the longer their sex drive is!"
She pointed her finger and whispered, "Don't get caught."
"Rosy, stop it!" Then he grabbed my magazine and stuffed it into her face. "See? She wanted to get a recommendation from me to meet you."
She snorted and headed towards the door. I walked to Diego. "And don't think I'll be coming to see any of you again!" She pointed at me and threw the green champagne bottle. He grabbed me just in time. I heard the bottle crash on the wall so I figured we were both safe.
Diego groaned in pain before staggering backwards.
He let go of me and took a piece of green glass from his back covered in blood. I gasped. "Diego, turn around!" I went over to his back and saw a life-sized wound on his back with bits of glass on his back covered in his bright red blood, that seeped out of his skin.
I gasped. "We have to get some medication! There's a pharmacy next--"
"You should leave." He grumbled.
"No! I feel responsible, I need to help you! Please!" I wrung my hands together and begged me. Without a reply, he grabbed my hand and went downstairs to get the first aid kit from the pharmacy.
***
He sighed as he applied the large ice pack on his back. I gave a small smile when he looked at me. "Thanks." He said, and I nodded almost immediately.
"I think we should go to the hospital," I suggested. "the bleeding is not stopping."
Then I noticed a policeman walk casually up to us and rest his arms on the pharmacy counter, "yes, why don't you head over to the hospital?"
He turned to me. "Go."
"Must be having a criminal record, come on, we can all figure this out at the station. Bill, take them to the back of that truck!" He continued as he drummed his fingers on the counter.
I gulped. "Go, Delilah!" He repeated but I shook my head as I ran to the policeman who was heading back to his jeep. I wrung my hands together.
"Please, please let us go! We weren't doing anything illegal, his drunk girlfriend had hit him with a bottle, that's why we are here!"
"Then bring her along as well!" He didn't even blink.
He got into the car and I pleaded again. "Please, I was just trying to help him!"
He looked at me and gave a long hard stare at the wound, and he sighed, "Fine."
He shouted at the other constable. "Bill, take these two to the hospital and send them back to wherever they were."
I thanked him and we sped along to the hospital.
Diego ignored me the whole trip, to and back. I didn't try and talk to him either.
***
"Here you are, remember the doctor said the suture is fresh and don't lie on your back." I said as I opened his apartment door and helped myself inside with an ice pack in one hand and a bag of pain killers in the other. Inder just groaned in reply and fell onto the bed face down.
I smiled and went towards the door. "Ugh, his meds!" I went back to leave it onto the counter and saw Inder lying on his back and pool of blood creeped up from his shoulder soaking the white bedsheets.
"Diego! Turn around?" I knelt on his bed and struggled to turn him and then realized that two of the threads were loose. I gasped and fumbled in his wooden drawers.
And as I opened the third drawer, a large gun just sit there with silver bullets scattered all over it. At first I was surprised but then I ignored it and found some cotton wool.
I wiped the blood around his wound and held the ice pack against his wound. As I did that for five minutes, Inder got up and smiled at me. "Thank you." Till I saw him looking at someone behind me, in shock.
Hoping that it wasn't his Monday-girlfriend, I turned around slowly and saw and gulped.
It was my dad, with a security guard and the Secretary.
"See, your daughter was with him since 3 am. And now it's 7am." The security guard had said looking at his watch but dad just stood there speechless.
"Dad-" I stepped closer.
He raised his hand. "You, you are not my daughter."
"Some mistakes can be pardoned, she's so young, it's very common nowadays." The secretary commented, with a slight stammer
"You can't do that! She was just trying to-" Diego jumped in.
"You don't know who you messed with! That's Delilah, daughter of the head of this area, not some prostitute!"
I felt cold tears drip down my cheeks that were still warm in embarrassment, even though nothing really happened. I just couldn't believe that my own father would disown me the way he did.
My dad lifted his hand at me for a severe beating but then Diego pushed me away and Dad pulled back his hand. "You were the one!"
He calmed himself down before he threw himself into a fit and turned to face his two friends.
"Delilah... Is no more." He said with no emotion in is voice. "Please come to the last rites tomorrow." He paid his respects to his friends and left.
I stood there trying to hold back my tears and choked. How could he be so cruel?
The others whispered for a while and left too.
I stood my ground and sniffed. "S-Sorry."
"What are you saying sorry for?"
"Ju-us-st S-Sorry." I stuttered. Saying that, I gathered up my stuff and headed towards the door.
"Wait! Where are you going?"
"The library."
"Why? Even after all that's happened?"
I looked at him through the cracks of the screen. "Now there's no occasion to take a leave!"
And I left him dumbfounded.
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Hey readers!
Sorry for the long wait!
A shout out to ProjectBadBoys for putting up my story on their reading list and making this part of the project! I'm sure you guys have seen the sticker on my cover. Go follow them!
You know the drill: Read/Cry/Vote/Comment !!
~ Imperfect Perfectionist ~
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