Song for the chapter: Carried Away (Gossamer) by Passion Pit
Nikita's POV
I sang my heart out on the karaoke. It was the first time I sang in public - I don't have a nightingale's voice after all. I was too sad to actually mind any embarrassment that might come from it. But I suppose my fake smiles and the highs and lows of the song compensated for my bad acting.
I smiled widely singing it, shaking my body just how I knew people found it attractive. I made sure to turn my head around so everyone saw my accentuated dimples and high cheekbones. As always, I used my goods to their best. I almost felt like a rock star, leading the crowd despite my mediocre voice.
As I finished people clapped and smiled good naturely. Some people complimented me, shaking hands and the night ended in laughter. But to me the laughter was bitter.
At around half past eleven we left the restaurant, I in slightly good spirit than I entered. But what was the result? My spirits and good mood were crushed within an instant. Raul and the boys were talking under a tree at the path where our wings diverged.
"Did you girls have a good night?" Ray asked stifling a yawn.
"It was perfect!" Hilary squealed.
"You didn't miss me Hil?" Tyson asked feigning hurt.
"Why would I?" Hilary raised a brow.
"Ouch! My heart won't be able to take this blow!" Hilary scrunched her nose and hit him playfully on his chest. We were about to go to our respective paths and hopefully have a good night's sleep.
"Good night guys!" Julia waved at us all. I was standing beside Kai. I expected that almost like a regular night he would walk by me. Instead Julia walked towards him. He stepped closer like it was normal. She raised her mouth towards him and he captured her lips in a lingering, goodnight kiss.
And then she was gone. No one paid attention - like it was nothing out of normal... Kai too turned around and walked beside Ray as they resumed talking what they must have been conversing about before.
"Nick!" Max shook me by my wrist. "Let's go! It's getting late."
I was lost beyond words as we walked back to the suite. I went to my room and stripped out of the tight fucking dress. I slipped on a comfortable Pajama shirt and pant and went out in the shared balcony between mine and Kai's room. My last hope was crushed when he didn't come out even after twenty minutes of wait.
I tiptoed to his door and pressed my ear against the ebony door. I could hear soft snoring and breathing sound. This time-- This time my eyes didn't sting with tears. I was fuming with rage. I had been with different boys but I had never shut him out like this. I had never stopped being his friend.
I went back in my room and pulled open my closet. I pulled out a photo album. Each page had space for two pictures. Yet only two torn photographs were glued inside. I stared at each picture long and hard. The first one was a boy. Nine or ten perhaps. The first boy I had liked. His refusal had made me bitter and afraid of connections. But it was still a plain refusal. I had marked it a 3 out of 10 in my pain diary.
The second page had no picture but a folded note. The first time I had a seizure. Epileptic seizures aren't generally painful in themselves. Only in few rare cases were they painful. The first one had been tough but I had still marked it a four. Not bad.
The third was another note, I had put it in after the doctor's appointment that I hated talking about. The day I had the most painful seizure yet and they had put me on an experimental medication. The doctor told my mum the medication could, most probably would, make me infertile - incapable of ever becoming a mother biologically. That was a tough emotional as well as physical blow yet it was only a six in my eyes.
I bit my lip as I turned to the next page - my eight and a half. It was my first boyfriend. The second boy I had ever liked. The one who turned me into a slut. I closed my eyes and tried to block the night everything went downhill. But it came altogether, like a train. Like the inevitable marching closer.
2 Years Earlier
I downed a pill and sat up a bit straighter in my bed. The small injection that doctors leave in your veins of upper palm was still taped to my hand. The experimental medication hadn't shown any side effect yet except for what the doctor had told us. And we couldn't test for that - obviously. My movements were still slow as my bones still ached.
I kept my Mac on my table and opened my wardrobe to pick out clothes appropriate for Diwali. I loved both parts of my heritage but since I looked more Indian, lived here and were surrounded by Indians I am especially attached to it. I searched through a few lehangas as my cousins from UK chattered through a shared video call.
"Catherine, this or that?" I picked out two outfits and showed them to an older sister.
"Oh the silvery and pink one! It looks so nice!" Catherine, the oldest of us, said. Johnny groaned through the entire process since we couldn't involve him. "I wish I could be there! Plus that dude in your neighborhood is hot!"
"Yeah well they moved out Cathy!" I went out to change and continued the makeup while chatting with them. "Now you both I'll send you loads of pictures! Got to go now!" I put the Mac on my window ceiling so they could see the decoration outside and went downstairs with my family.
I feasted upon sweets and applied some henna along with my aunts on my palms. As the evening progressed we sat in the pooja and then I went out to watch the others burn crackers and fireworks. At around ten I went on my terrace away from everybody's prying eyes. That was the custom here. All romantic meetings happened on the terraces.
I waited for him - my boyfriend. Fifteen minutes later he came up. He looked dashing, no lies. But there was something off. But what do thirteen year olds know about communication? I trusted him. He was fifteen, tall, athletic, and a rebel. He hung out with older boys and he rode a motorbike. What more did I care about then?
"I am breaking off things Nikita." He said bluntly, after he had kissed me. My lip-gloss was shining on his lower lip and I expected him to laugh off any moment. But he didn't. Admittedly I hadn't met him in the past 15 days for I was in the hospital... but breaking off?
"Why?" I asked stifling tears. The second time I had handed someone my heart and it had broken in another million pieces.
"Come on Nikita! You know why. You suffer from this... you know? Freak disease? And like you aren't even that beautiful. You aren't even fair like your mum or your cousins from abroad, you're short and you've changed. I can't do this anymore." He shrugged. I was dumbfounded. None of this was my fault.
"Aadi... I-I... None of this is my fault."
"It isn't. When did I say it is your fault? All I'm saying is I am not obliged to be with you. It's done."
"How have I changed?" I asked grasping his wrist.
He turned away at first but when he saw my insistence he sighed. "You have. You aren't the old Nikita."
"I am Aadi!" I implored begging so he would stay.
"You aren't! You don't come to the pool nowadays. Unless you are there who'll believe me I have a curvy girlfriend? You don't come out to play. You aren't cheerful anymore."
"I was just ill!" I urged again. "And my doctor told me against swimming."
"Not. My. Fault." He jerked his hand free and turned away. He didn't spare me a second glance as he pulled out his phone and started talking to someone and disappeared.
Merely five days later, I was back in the pool, back as a Blader and I kissed each of his five friends he was showing me off to. I never stopped from there.
He shattered my heart and I shattered his.
Present
Even that pain, even that didn't reach a ten for me. I was waiting for the ten in my life. I don't know why... but as I glued Kai's picture and wrote a nine under his name I felt this man would also be my ten, twenty and infinity.
I closed the album and tossed it in the wardrobe. I pulled the sheets over my face and closed my eyes.
hello! updating quicker than before, ain't i? well, if you like the chapter than post loads of comments, share it, tag your friends and maybe drop in votes :)
xoxo
~nicole <3