A/N: Umm, I had posted this short story on livejournal. When I first wrote this, I was like wtf what’s this. But I changed some things.Read with precaution of incoming chu chu.
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“That bastard, always trying to kill himself,” I muttered aloud as I trudged alone in a deserted road. There were garbage everywhere I look, complete with floating plastic bags and black grime. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was just bidding everyone goodbye as it took the red sky down to the horizon.
I felt like kicking the trash bin overflowing with assortments of stinking stuff and I did, its contents spilled out on the dirt road. I continued to march on as if I just didn’t contribute to Mother Nature’s destruction. No one cares about what I do, even Iain will never know I am here. He never cared about me or anything but himself. Worthless, fat — no,
he’s far from fat — selfish, bloody git.
”I loathe you, Iain. I really loathe you!” I shouted to no one in this road in particular.
All of a sudden, I hear a shuffle of feet.
I froze as the blood welled into the veins of my cheeks. So someone had heard me pathetically shouting my griefs away. Well, who cares. I can just give them the Finger then walk on like nothing happened.
”I love you, Cass.” I wheeled around, albeit too fast than what I expected and faced a guy with eyes of mauve, infamously known as ‘Iain the Pig’.
Any threat of impending blush faded and the blood on my cheeks resumed to circulating normally around my body. “Wrong words,” I say, my glare trying to carve a hole through his damned mischievous eyes. “You should left on an escapade with that pseudo human slash female dog.”
”Cassandra.” His voice was tired and that was when I saw the black under his eyes like he stayed up last night.
”Iain.”
”You’re blind, you know that? I hate you because of what you’ve become and how you judge me so quickly without knowing of what I feel.” He took my hands and his voice sounded with a tremor as he whispered, “But I love you, with all my heart, my head to my toe, my soul and my life. I even love you to the ends of the strands of my hair, even though it’s short.” He chuckled. How can he find humor in this situation? He never failed to make me wonder.
I look at him with surprise etched clearly on my face then back to the place where our fingers interlock with each other. I didn’t know why the thought of pulling away from him never came to my mind until now. Anger flared up inside me once again and the urge to scream his ears off was very tempting. But there was something in his purple eyes that made me want to hear what he has to say as it glinted faintly at the sinking sky.
He rolled his eyes and smiled, all the while holding my hands firmly and more tightly as if they slipped, I will disappear and he would be alone. The smile he had smiled almost smote the soul from within my body because of its sadness. Just almost.
”It was never Rebecca, the ‘pseudo human’ you had mentioned,” he slowly said, his eyes on the pavement below us. I think his hands may have quivered but I am not too sure. “I skipped class not to be with ‘her’ but to convince your parents that you are doing well both in school and out. I felt that I need to do that, Cass. I wanted to. All these times you’ve seen me with her, I’m watching you. I wanted to observe how you smile so little like it was never there and the way you fidget when everyone’s hearing you out. But she clung to me like a seaweed, you should have known.” He repeated the last four words in his sentence in a ghost of a whisper.
I was fiery mad like the boiling molten rocks inside the Krakatoa just before it erupted. “Why are you trying to save me when you can’t even save yourself?” I screamed at him. “How could you do something as pathetic, as weak–”
”It hurts me to see your defenses breaking away like glass. I wanted to be your protector and at the same time, your destroyer! I wanted to fortify you by breaking all your fragile bones and turn you to someone stronger who can face the reality as it is. I thought you would understand but you didn’t even bothered to try! No one tries to understand me, NO ONE!”
He stiffly released my fingers and my arms fell to my sides limp and lifelessly like it had no bones in it at all. He avoided my eyes and took a slow deep breath of the smoke-filled air surrounding us.
The sun was barely visible in the sky that was the color of vermilion. The sunset is casting shadows in his face that was more melancholic than usual as he turned to go. “You lie to yourself that you don’t even know what to feel anymore,” he continued after some time. “But I’m glad you don’t cut yourself or something. I really care about you, you know.”
He walked away just as the first burst of of tears sprang into my eyes and my weak knees buckled. The stars were high up now, blinking down as if they themselves are curious on what happened to the miserable crying girl directly below them and what had caused her to bawl like that. The cold air was much crisper and much more agreeable than the dusty one earlier.
Sure there are worse ways of ending a story of love. They are things written by bitter, miserly authors who don’t have anything to do with their lives. But those things will always include romance, whatever what will happen at the end. They still hold the essence of a love story in them, just more tragic.
There was a quote said by an anonymous writer: ‘Love is like quicksand; the deeper you fall in it, the harder it is to get out.’ I had sunk in an impossible depth that nothing of mine was showing in the surface. And I was still happy the way I am now.
Now I’m a firefly, waiting for the right time for the night to be deeper before I put on my little lamp. So I walk home, hoping, remembering and tearing my soul of its frailness as he’d always wanted to do himself. I’m thinking he’s given up on me though he had given up everything for me.
I look above and see the moon watch over me with a sleepy eye. I put my hands in the pockets of my jacket and sighed, trying not to think of the cold that is tormenting me both inside and out.
