I registered the fact that my leather boots that were formerly clogged in mud had now dried up to leave stubborn marks on them that flaked off as I stepped forward, each step taking me towards the end of this chapter of so-called life. I also registered that graveyards weren't much different from swamps and walking through was intractable.
Gravestones were erected from ground, each labelling a particular grave. Some were exceptionally small and I bet I would've freaked out if I didn't come here every once in a while to visit my father's grave. But this time, it was my father that I had come to visit. It was Lysandre.
After a little walk here and there, my eyes finally landed on a particular stone that said his name, I reached down and I left a lily on the grave, as snowflakes dwindled down from the sky. I stared at it for a while, still unable to grasp the fact that he was dead. It was a big part of my life. Perhaps because the most treacherous chapter of my life was over.
I was free from all the fears I had bore in my heart. It was beginning of a new adventure that awaited me, a new life that I'd live as soon as I'd exit the boundaries of this graveyard. A part of me wasn't ready while another part was born ready. I was heading for my new journey. A life of a normal girl.
All my bounds had vanished, my mother was back, Lysandre was gone, everything was back to normal. After so many years. Finally.
How would it be? A life without fears, bullets and blood.
My past was terrifying, most hopefully it was the worst stage of my entire life. There were so many things that happened - mostly to tear me apart. Storms, hurricanes, cyclones and what-not's. It was a rollercoaster with mostly downs. Every step was so full of heartbreaks and devastations, breaking me down to such a point that I'd lost my control and fallen on my knees, eventually standing back up to be knocked down again.
But it was worth it. Because I found love, and love? It could take as long as a decade and fade away in as little as a moment and still be worth it. I found Ash.
I do not recall my life being perfect even before Lysandre stepped into it. I wasn't social much. I was always the apologetic type. Maybe because my dad kept on apologizing - sorry for coming late, sorry for not giving you time, sorry for dying. Or perhaps because my mother never said it - Well you should be sorry, well you should be, well you should be.
Whatever it was, I just was. And maybe that's why people found it easy to destroy me. I mean, literally, you could just walk in and shatter my heart into million pieces and I'd be the one to apologize.
Trust me, it wasn't the best quality. It only made me weak.
Barely did I ever talk.
And people even considered me to be mute, and when I would bother to talk, "Wait, you can talk?" Was all I met in return. Well, not exactly did I talk fluently, it was mainly stuttering. Like, totally stuttering, And it took so much courage to do that even.
Heck, I was a creep.
I cried at everything. Every. Thing. Ever. Commonly, I would be found curled in a corner, sobbing myself to death because that girl Lisa chewed the pen I had lent her. Trust me, I'd be secretly planning to murder her without having the courage to even roll my eyes at her on confrontation.
But the most noted, I couldn't read.
Being dyslexic was a nightmare, especially when you're forcefully sent to a school that is unaware of your condition and just considers you a 'slow-learner', My ears would hurt to hear my teacher always saying, "She just needs to take her time." And your parents are too busy to notice that their darned child isn't dumb, she's dyslexic. She needs special attention. She needs treatment.
Don't freak out, I survived that. And after countless nights of praying for my 'guardian Angel', Ash came. I thought I'd never see him again after that forest scene but there he was, on the first day of my new elementary school, sitting right behind me.
Surprisingly, I hadn't noticed his existence until he poked me, sitting right behind me. A reason for that would be the fact that I was used to of keeping my head very low, eyes glued at ground. I was always a case of social anxiety.
But why he poked me was even more interesting. Everyone was done with their part of reading. Yes, the same loud reading to the entire class of that certain paragraph of textbook for which you used to count the kids in the row to know which one was on your turn. Yes, that.
The thing was, I couldn't even read the first line.
Cold sweat broke on my face as I took shaky breaths, shifting from one foot to another, anxiously trying to figure out if it was 'P' or 'D'. Soon, the other kids began to giggle, leaving me in tears that glued my blonde strands to my face. Ms.Garner, my teacher, told me to sit down after an awful while and asked another kid to read the paragraph I was unable to read, he readily began to read it out.
That's when Ash poked me, sitting right behind me. I noticed he was the only one not laughing, but rather angered by the kids who were laughing at me. I was surprised to see him again, and I bet he wasn't surprised to see me crying again. He'd seen it already and we had met only twice.
"I have peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch." He blankly said, earning a confused look from me in return.
What I did not know was that he was saying out the sentence I was supposed to read but couldn't.
I normally did not talk back to anyone at school but with Ash, I naturally felt comfortable. Forcing a smile which was very infrequent - coming from me, I managed to stutter, "R - Really?"
I believe his reaction to my cluelessness was hilarious and heart-melting at the same time. He smoothly handled the situation by returning the smile, "Yeah, wanna share with me?"
Fortunately, he did have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And that day, he befriended a creep.
The thing was that from that day - someone paid attention to me. Something that not even my parents did for me. I mean, come on, he brought extra sandwiches for me when my parents handed me a granola bar. He understood my condition. When I warned him that I was a creep who couldn't even read, all he said was, "Don't worry, I'll teach you. I always wanted to be a teacher."
He taught me different words through different activities, like sometimes he'd write an alphabet on the sand while building sandcastles and ask me what it was, the alphabets turned into words and eventually a sentence until I became the one writing it.
He would read me stories of princesses when most guys would puke even at its mention. Most notable of all he taught me the difference between 'b' and 'd'. He helped me slowly until I caught up with the rest of the class. He always told me it was nothing. To me, it was everything.
And today, I was a bookworm. Always seen curled up reading a book. Library had become my second home. How could I forget someone who taught me how to read and write when even my career goal was linked to writing? I wanted to be a darned author and Ash taught me how to write.
Everything I had grown up to be had its roots in him. Falling in love with him was not an option for me. It was meant to be.
He wasn't just my first friend, but my only friend too. As we grew older, People began to question our friendship. They wanted to steal him. But I trusted him. I knew that he would never leave me. Never.
That is until it came like a gush of wind, like most heartbreaks did.
Summer vacations had just ended and everyone was returning with impacts of puberty. Ash had grown popular in those days. He had made so many new friends. While I? I just made a PB&J sandwich for him. It was my first try at the kitchen. The first eatable I had prepared was meant for him. And now I was pro at it. Again, everything I am now, was initially linked to him.
My eyes were dying to catch a glimpse of him again after three long months. It had been three full months since I had last seen him. Class had started and he was late again. My eyes were still waiting as I anxiously tapped my pen on the desk.
Waiting for him to barge in from the door right ahead the front desk I was settled on. And then, it happened, he came, the same way, with a gush of wind and his hair swaying with it. His warm brown eyes flitted across the room to find a place and then they met mine. My eyes lit up as adrenaline surged through my body.
I raised my arm a bit, to show him where I was sitting, a vacant seat beside me awaited his presence. But what happened next left me with confusion and slight sense betrayal as he casually walked past my desk, ignoring my gesture. Without even caring to look at me for once.
I swear I heard a cracking sound coming from my chest that day.
We obviously stopped communicating even the least ever since, mainly because he was too busy and careless to talk to me and I was to afraid and egoistic to make the first move.
I returned to the antisocial self and he became popular, being the football team captain with pretty cheerleaders throwing themselves at him. I got bullied, he got praised. We did catch eyes while passing through hallways but I'd most look down at my feet and kept on walking. And when I chopped my hair into a bob, we became complete strangers - to him. To him, that is.
And then Lysandre came. I was younger and clueless then. His grunts would barge inside our house and locked me inside a room. The next thing I would hear was my father's screams depicted the pain and injuries they inflicted on him.
I was horrified by the voices, my fathers pain, my mother begging for his life. I would just curl up in a secluded cold corner with my pounding heart as I pulled out Ash's handkerchief and hugged it, with my eyes knitted close until the sound stopped.
And afterwards, I came out to the horrible sight of seeing bruises on my fathers body as he winced in pain and my mother crying and trying to comfort him.
Those days were horrible. And now it's finally over. A beginning of a new life as soon as I exit the territory of this graveyard. A new adventure.
A sensation of touch on my shoulder pulled me out of my reveries. I rotated to face my blue-headed best friend standing there with a gloomy expression on her face,
"You shouldn't have kept it a secret. I could've helped you." Her perfectly plucked eyebrows knitted together.
I just nodded in return.
"Grace is waiting for you outside in her car." She spoke.
"You go on, I'll be there." I inhaled.
"Okay - and it'll be alright, just don't worry." She nodded as I meekly smiled.
As she left, I walked over to a rusty dilapidated wooden bench in the corner as I settled there and rubbed my hands together, moisture turning into fog as I exhaled.
I noticed someone taking the vacant space beside me on the bench as I found it to be the same raven-haired boy. I looked at him curiously as I noticed his bruises getting better with the treatment and time, stitches and bandages all over his face and plaster on his right arm. Yet, it was unable to dull even the slightest of his warm sympathetic smile that made my stomach do flips.
"I'm still sorry." I looked down impatiently, "For everything that happened that night."
It was hard to explain him and all my friends who Lysandre was. But after all, they accepted me. I guess that's why they're my friends.
"Don't worry, sensei. It was nothing. Definitely not your fault." He politely stroked through my honey colored hair, sprinkled by snowflakes.
He looked into my eyes, his warm chestnut eyes glimmering as snowflakes poured down between us. The only thing that parted me from his lips that tasted like white lies and vodka was the air and our differences.
I was in love, he was not.
Everything he did made me fall more and more in love with him, and they injuries and wounds he took for me, they made it hard for me to resist the urge of taking a fistful of his jacket and crash my lips onto his.
I tilted my head as I slowly rested it on his shoulder and inhaled his burgundy cashmere sweater's cologne again. He, in turn rested his head above mine, inhaling the scent of my strawberry scented hair.
I averted my gaze as I peered at the infinite periwinkle blue sky and smiled. My new life was beginning. And I was more than ready. Ready to love and get heartbroken again, because he was a heartbreaker and I was a heartbreakee.
Longest chapter of this book lel :'3 I love this one.