Hi,
Thank you for picking Rational Love amongst the millions of books on Wattpad. I appreciate it. Please comment and vote as you enjoy each chapter.
This book was initially a mixture of poetry and prose but I've removed the poetry and added an extra storyline to the plot. You can reread it if you're an old reader (especially from chapter 2) for a more suspense-filled read.
The poetry showcases the intense emotions of the characters and can be found in my book Open Emotions. To read it, check my profile or copy and paste the following link to your browser:
https://www.wattpad.com/story/101717081-open-emotions-poetry
Thanks. :)
*******
January.
A year and some months ago, Mum said I was raped at the age of six and I shut down again. My photographic memory didn't help either. I could see them, smell them, feel the cold newly painted cream walls, hear the ruffles of my yellow gown... No wonder I hate yellow.
Chuckles.
My emotions that were trying to resurrect dug deeper into the ground the moment I remembered, and I was content to be a walking corpse.
Silent. Emotionless. No feeling.
But my mind had a different action plan. Maybe it's because I'm in Secondary School. Maybe it's because boys are no longer boys but 'boyfriends' that send shivers down the spine and girls are no longer girls but 'that hot babe'. Maybe that's why my mind decided not to miss the party and began to boot.
Unlike before, it booted and pushed all the painful memories into a hidden folder that threatens to resurface. And now, I alone have to face my mind and the one thousand and one questions swimming in it. Amongst them all, only three keep hammering:
What is love?
Is there love?
Can I be loved?
This is my story. Happy new year.
Riley Visions.
*******
Present Day
The words written with red ink in the large, thick, brown diary seemed to bleed through the paper to my heart and I shut the diary with a loud thud. It toppled off the bed and landed on the tiled floor, opening to the entry I had made today. Only 'September' was written on the page.
I closed my eyes; pen still between my fingers. I tried to imagine love but no image came to my mind. Only deep wave-like sounds of questions kept filling it.
What is love? Is there love?
The same questions.
I have been asking these questions. I even wrote them in my diary in January and nine months into the year, I still had no clue.
Oh yeah, I knew the various definitions of love from Webster's Dictionary and Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. My mind could explain the love I read in novels and watched in movies. I could dissect that love bit by bit and feed it to voracious listeners as dinner but that's not what my heart wanted.
I wanted to feel the rush of love. I wanted tingling feelings in my stomach.
I sighed and put the pen on the bed.
My heart? Why should my heart want anything? 'Silent. Emotionless. No feeling' was my motto and I wasn't ready to change it. Emotions meant pain, pain meant remembering the rape incident and I couldn't afford to remember. I refused to let myself dig that bottomless pit of grief.
The smiling face of Tavy - my classmate and friend of six months flashed across my mind and I knew I had already lost the battle.
That only meant one thing. I couldn't wait for love to happen to me by chance. I had to do something to make it happen. A plan formed in my mind and I smiled.
"Riiileey," Mum's voice boomed from the other end of the house. "Are you ready for school yet?"
My eyes widened with worry. My feet propelled my body into a standing position and I turned to my box where a haphazardly folded purple and white school uniform lay. It was as if the uniform was mockingly calling out to me, "You know you can't avoid me."
I slapped my forehead and moaned. Today was my day back into the dungeon.
The memories came back and the droning voice of the principal filled my ear.
"Madeline Secondary School is all about rules. Rules for excellence. Rules for physical health. Rules for spiritual growth. Rules for academic achievement. Rules for a wonderful career."
The voice changed to a low rumbling laughter - one I heard years ago when I was six. The laughter started increasing in volume.
I slapped my forehead again.
"Stop!" I said.
The voice stopped and I put on the white long sleeved shirt, purple a-line skirt and purple waistcoat. I wore my three-inch wedge shoe, bringing my height to five feet, six inches and turned to the mirror to assess myself.
I frowned. Something was wrong.
Dark greyish black hair with highlights of silver touched my pale untannable face and fell limply on my shoulders. I preferred my chin length bob but my hair didn't agree. It had grown into an unruly shoulder length hair. Oh well, at least it complemented my light grey eyes which at the moment was staring back at me bleakly.
The school uniform, on the other hand, did not complement my body in any way. The waistcoat was tight on the chest and hung loosely on the stomach. The skirt was too tight on the hips and the hem scattered in all directions.
When I decided to lose weight during the Easter break, I meant to lose fat everywhere. I didn't mean for fat to remain hanging on my chest and butt.
I removed the waistcoat and stuffed it into my box. I untucked the shirt and let it hang loose on my body.
"Riiiiiiileeey!" Mum called.
I picked up my school box and turned to my room to say goodbye - if you could call a bed and my box in the midst of Mum's abandoned machines from hastily thought out business projects, my room.
"Bye room. See you in three months time when I'm released from prison. And in two years, you'll be completely mine."
I smiled. As a year five student, I had two more years to graduate from Secondary School and its confinement.
"Very soon," I thought.
"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiileeeeeeeeeey!!!"
I rolled the box out of our tiny bungalow and carried it into the boot of the old Honda Civic.
Mum stood by the car, hands on her hips. Her legs were wide apart as she looked down at me with a frown.
I ignored her and ran out of the gate. I needed a companion to go to the dungeon with me.
"Where are you going?" she said.
I ran to the end of the street where Tavy lived. A massive five storey building stretched across a land mass that could comfortably contain four houses. Tavy's family owned it and lived on the ground floor and first floor. The other floors were comprised of apartments - two on each floor - for rich tenants.
I still couldn't understand why my parents decided to struggle every year to keep up with paying half of my fees in a school where the daughters of owners of this kind of mansion were among the poorest. It was one thing to commit a crime and be sent to jail. It was another thing to willingly pay exorbitant fees for your daughter to be sent to one.
I stepped up to the gate of the mansion and heard a camera click. A few seconds later, the gate automatically rolled away.
A guard that smelt of cheap cologne sat by the gate house. He yawned and looked at a large screen on the wall. Three pictures were there - a picture of me presently and pictures of the only other two times I had come here.
I ran across the lawn. The huge door at the entrance of the house swung open.
A maid stood there in her crisp uniform. Her face was unfamiliar; she was probably new. She crossed her arms on her chest, sniffed the air and looked around before her eyes settled on me with a scowl.
"Can I help you?" she said.
"I'm looking for Tavy. I'm her classmate."
The maid puffed her chest. "The driver picked her up from the airport and drove her to school."
A feeling welled up in my chest. I turned to go and turned back to her. "But she promised to go to school with me."
"With you?" The maid's eyes took in my shirt that had somehow become rumpled. "Miss Tavy wanted to go to school with you?"
I turned slowly and walked down the front porch stairs dazed. The lawn now seemed to stretch for miles and I started my journey across it.
Madeline Boarding Secondary School was all I could think of. If Tavy couldn't accompany me there, it was no longer a dungeon but a combination of a dungeon and a torture chamber.
*******
So, here it is - the first chapter of RATIONAL LOVE. If you enjoyed it or think it was worth your time, please vote it by clicking on or pressing that little star.
By the way:
Why does Riley think her school is a dungeon?
And what's up with the maid?
Read on to find out...
Oh yeah, one more thing. Here's the present book cover for Open Emotions.