"I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THESE THINGS!!" Winnie angrily threw the expensive shopping bags on the floor. "Take those back with you, and get out of my room."
"Winnie will you please at least hear me out first," he pleaded.
"What is there to hear!! You think you will win me over with these, with your money!! Don't be delusional!! That might have worked with my parents but it'll never work with me!!" She said angrily.
"What have I done so wrong for you to hate me like this!!" He shouted, "Shouldn't you atleast give me one chance to know if I'm worth it or not," he took a big breath to calm himself, "Winnie please...I promise you'll not regret if you give me a chance."
"You already lost the right to get that chance, from the very beginning you didn't have a chance. So will you please get out!!" she went ahead and opened the door for him.
"What is wrong with you!? Until when are you planning to do this? Michael is dead!!" He shouted.
"Even if he is really dead there's no way I would be with you," she retorted back. Calvin was hurt by her answer but he tried to not let it show.
"I'll just come back tomorrow," He sighed.
"Don't," she calmly told him.
Calvin picked the shopping bags and walked out of the room with a throbbing pain on his chest. Outside he was met by Winnie's mom apologetic gaze.
"I'm so sorry Calvin, Winnie is not someone to act like this!! I don't know what's wrong with her nowadays," she told him.
"It's ok mother, she was close with Michael. She must still be grieving," He politely answered her with a sad smile.
"That Michael!! Always him!! What was so great about him for her to act like this, It has been five years for god's sake!! Somebody would think she lost a husband or something," she muttered angrily. "Even people who lose their husbands get remarried in a few years!!"
"Give those to me, I'll give them to her," she suggested, pointing to the bags he was holding. Calvin handed her the shopping bags.
"Where is father? Is he not back yet?" he asked, looking around.
"Oh yeah, he is running late. He will be here soon, should I make a cup of coffee while you're waiting for him?"
"No no no, I'll just come back tomorrow. I have to leave now, I had a long day," he told her with an apologetic gaze.
"Oh Okay, I understand," she smiled. "Drive safely future son-in-law."
She watched with the biggest smile as Calvin exited the living room. As soon as he left she released a big sigh and glared at Winnie's room. If only I could tie her up and got her married that way!!
She angrily marched into her room and there she was, the ungrateful daughter in her new favorite spot; on a chair beside the bed looking outside the window with the look as if she lost the world when in reality she has it all on her palm. She sighed angrily.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" she yelled.
"Good evening to you too mother," Winnie answered, not even bothering to look at her. She was expecting her anyway.
"Don't give me that attitude!" She reprimanded.
Winnie turned and looked at her, 'here we go' She thought.
"You-you ungrateful child!! How can you do this?? After all the things Calvin did for us!! Who helped us to expand your father's business? Who sent your brother abroad to study? Who opened a boutique for me?? We're living a good life now thanks to him, how can you treat him like that??" she fumed.
"I never asked him to do those things for us, and I'm not the one who accepted those things. It was you, you and father. We were living just fine before him, we managed all those years, we were happy!!" Winnie argued back.
"Speak for yourself!! Do you know how sad I was when I met with other wives and they started bragging about their expensive jewelry their husbands got for them on their birthdays or the trip across the world they took with their husbands on their anniversary or when they started bragging about their sons who are abroad!! Do you know how many times your Dad's business almost went bankrupt? And what about your brother Lucas, don't you know that it was his dream to study abroad??" she reasoned. How can her own child not understand how she felt!!
"So, are you happy now that you can brag about your son who is studying abroad? The son who never even calls you!! Or about your husband who is never home since his business started blooming, does he even remember your anniversaries nowadays??" she cockily replied.
"Y-you!! What was I thinking!?" she muttered angrily, clearly hurt from the words Winnie said but she was not someone to easily give in, "From tomorrow you're not allowed to go out!! The only way you can go out of this house is if you're going to the altar."
"What!!?? You can't do that!!", Winnie's mouth dropped. There's no way she is serious.
"Watch me!!" she smirked evilly.
"Are you even my real mother?? What kind of a mother does this!!" Winnie argued.
"The mother who wants what's best for her children," she argued back.
"I'm a grown up woman, I know what's best for me!!" Winnie scoffed.
"No, You cleary don't. We wouldn't have been having this conversation if you did!!" she retorted.
"I have to go to work!!" she reasoned, knowing that's her ticket out.
"Then get married as soon as possible!" she told her.
Winnie clenched her teeth angrily, "You're impossible!"
"Where did you think you inherited that from!?" she smirked before angrily march out of the room, slamming the door behind her. How could she do that to me!! How could she say those words to me?? Those hurtful words? She needed a drink to cool her off.
Winnie flinched as her mother angrily slammed the door, she turned back to look at the window as she released a big sigh, when did they reach that point!!?
Winnie and her mother used to be very close, they were everyone's mother-daughter relationship goals. They used to tell each other's everything, do everything together. And her father used to be there for them. But nothing had been the same ever since Michael's death, ever since Calvin forcefully walked in her life!! That was the time she needed her mother's most, she needed someone to tell her it is alright, everything will be alright and not someone to force her into marrying someone else!
* * *
Calvin was still sad when he approached the gate of his mansion. He sighed and honked the horns as he reached the gate.
Calvin noticed a man standing outside the gate at the dark looking down at his shoes, his clothes were old and worn out.
Calvin stretched his neck to see who it was when the man looked up after hearing the sound of the car horns, he slowly started approaching the car and Calvin immediately knew who it was even in a dim light he was at. He has lost a lot of weight was the first thing he noticed as he locked eyes with him.
Haroon, it is his best friend Haroon. Or should he say was. There his childhood and teenage-hood best friend was standing looking small and tired. He remembered the million times he kept telling him to stop looking weak and small, and that people only pick on people who looks weaker than them. He remembered over the a hundred times him and Mike had to defend him.
Haroon was the youngest among them three, Calvin and Mike were just few months apart, with Calvin being the oldest. Haroon was a year younger than them but they treated him as if he was five or ten years younger than them, they always looked out for him. And Haroon being thin and 5'8 tall while they were at 6' didn't help his case. Maybe it is their fault he is used to being so weak, he never had time to toughen up with them beside him.
Calvin looked at the gate and noticed that it was already long opened, he looked at Haroon one last time before he started the car and drove past him to his mansion. The door was locked right after. He sighed and got out of his car and walked into his house. What a long day!
* * * * *
Haroon stood there for like 30 minutes, staring at the gate that was long closed. He then turned back and started walking away. He didn't know what to do. He knew he had to do something but courage was what he didn't have. The guilt was eating him away day by day. He wished Michael was still there. If only he could turn back time!!
*******************************************
~20 years ago~
Michael and Calvin ran to their school playground and started searching for Haroon. They looked behind the slide and found him sitting there alone. His eyes puffy from crying.
"Hey Haroon what are you doing here alone?" Michael asked in a quiet voice as he sat beside him.
"Because nobody wants to play with me," Haroon said, his lips trembling.
"What do you mean nobody!! We want to play with you!" Calvin shouted at him.
"Yes, Cal is right. We want to play with you, you're our friend."
"The other kids said you're only hanging with me because you pity me, that I'm not cool like you and nobody really wants to be my friend."
"Stop being stupid, why would we hang with you out of pity!" Calvin said angrily. Haroon flinched.
"Yes Haroon. Why would we pity you anyway. You're cool! You even have that spider-man shirt! Only cool kids have those." Michael told him.
"Really?" Haroon asked Michael, his eyes widening, a big smile on his chubby face.
"Yes really. If anyone tell you you're not cool, tell them that." Michael assured him.
"Okay," Haroon grinned. "Yay, I'm cool!"
"And we are not just your friend, we are your best friend. Even the other kids don't have two best friends. So next time they tell you you don't have friends tell them you even have two best friends." Michael told him.
Calvin added, "And tell them next time they try to bully you we are going to beat them up."
Haroon nodded, the grin on his face getting bigger.
Michael reached out and wiped the remaining tears out of his face. "There! now you look even more cool."
"And next time don't you dare cry! That is why they continue to bully you, look them in the eyes and tell them....actually no, you stay with us all the time. Okay?" Calvin told him.
"Yes," Haroon answered in a cheerful voice before he woke up and sprinted to the playground singing "I have two best friends! I have two best friends!"
Calvin and Michael laughed at his silliness before they started chasing him, both laughing loudly.