FALLING HARD: THE BAD BOY AND ME

CULTURE

THIRD PERSON

Alice could not understand as to why Mr. Fezong had acted on an impulse. She was shocked when he took an unknown premature baby and made her undertake kangaroo mother care. But she, herself, willingly hugged that little girl after knowing what had happened to her mother. The newborn baby required motherly affection and majorly the nutrition that it lacked.

Being born at 7 months had its hardships and, on top of that, her mother was dead. She had no other family members. Her mother had come all along to India in search of her father, who was heartless to leave behind a pregnant girlfriend on her own.

But while breastfeeding the infant, they came to realise that she had galactosemia. She vomited everything that she had taken just a while ago.

The doctor made sure that the new parents knew about such a fatal disease and that their foster daughter was affected. That sudden vomiting was caused because her system couldn't break a certain form of galactose and, as such, they were suggested to opt for an infant formula. They had to co-operate at that time because they were warned that her condition could worsen from jaundice to as bad as brain damage.

The wrinkled face and the soft cries of their daughter took time to change into a real baby face and voice. She was weak when she was born. That was worth noting. But their son was just the opposite of their daughter.

Three days after their birth, they were taken back to the Fezong Mansion for their naming ceremony. Their close relatives and friends were called for the celebration. Mr. Fezong Senior, that is, their grandfather had recently died of a long-term heart ailment. In their family, there were only four of them remaining. But since their children were born, their family has increased to six members.

The new parents urged everyone to accept their daughter in the same way as they would do to their son. And fortunately they did. However, as they say, even walls have ears. The same thing happened in this case as well. News gradually spread that their daughter wasn't in fact their own. And when people look at the newborn, everybody's claim will be proved true. She had distinct blue eyes and fair skin which separated her from their brown-eyed, healthy son with chocolaty dark skin.

Their son and daughter were certainly the opposites of each other, seemingly like a day and a night, a shadow and a light. But still they were united as one by one thing called fate. They were brought together by fate and it was a matter of time to see and to realise what their fate had in store for them.

....

"I choose to name him Darren." Alice Fezong said with certainty. And since then, the heir to the Shree tea industry has been named Darren Fezong.

And when the matter came to their daughter, she was named Culture Fezong.

Both Culture and Darren grew up together. They played together. They would fall asleep in their mother's warm embrace listening to the stories that she would read for them.

Culture was obsessed with the story of Carolina, who used to be a princess of Mogochislenia but somehow happened to enter the twenty-first century world, and fell in love with a monk. Her obsession with that story was so great that that somehow made Darren angry. And since he was the elder brother, all he had to do was listen to his mother repeat the same old story. He would fall asleep even before Alice, their mother, would know. But Culture would keep on asking as to what would happen to the child of Carolina and that monk.

'Mommy, where will Xavier live? In this world or in Mogochislenia?' she would ask her mother. And she would have to come up with all the lies, the realistic ones, to make her believe.

Not only regarding those stories, Culture would ask several questions about life and hardships. She was too intelligent for a baby of her age.

"This girl is really intelligent. I don't understand how to answer her questions sometimes, Mr. Fezong." Alice would sometimes complain about her husband. The fact was that Culture would ask such difficult questions which even a Ph.D Degree holder and a university lecturer would find it difficult to answer. Such was the depth of her knowledge.

"Do you expect anything less from my daughter Alice? She is my daughter after all." The proud father would reply in pride.

And when they started going to school too, her brilliance would shine in her certificates. She would bring home golden trophies and medals that she was accustomed to winning in school activities. She was good at drawing, singing, public speaking and studies. However, she could not stand a chance when the matter came to games. She was weak, physically.

Once Culture had joined a zumba class and a 2 hour session of exercising and dancing left her bed-ridden for 3 whole days. Her muscles got stretched and she felt the weakness last even after her fever was cured.

Darren was good too. But he was very playful and childish. He paid little attention to other activities, except games. And studies, mainly came under that other activity list for him.

In every teacher- parent meeting, the class teachers would praise his little sister and they would always complain about Darren. Not that he used to fail miserably. They just deemed that he was not good enough in comparison to his sister.

The parents never compared the two. But as days passed by and the siblings started to become of age, this particular comparison had set them apart. They used to be close to each other. Darren used to love his sister so much. Even when his friends made fun of him for being dark in contrast to his sister, he never flinched. Even when his friends joked about him being an adopted son of his beautiful mother, he said nothing. But when they started growing up and hitting adolescence, something happened that made him angry and frustrated. He began rebelling about Culture's existence in their lives and the best way to show his disdain was to bully her when their mother and father were not there to be her shield anymore.

He became her bully, the bad boy of her life and the nightmare of her dreams.