Colliding heart 2

2

It was 10 in the morning , Austin is back holding the breakfast in both hands . while he was unpacking the food I found myself staring at him and smiling foolishly , he was so considerate about me , he made sure I was comfortable , maybe he came back for me .”Carol , breakfast “ he said , bringing myself back to reality , I tried getting up but was too weak and was about to fall back when Austin caught hold of my hand “let me help you “ he said , he pulled me up and helped me to adjust myself in a comfortable position. He knew about my physical condition at this moment quite well and offered to feed me. There was some soup in a big bowl , for every sip I took , he blew on it to make sure that it wasn’t too hot for me , his caring gestures were making me more confused ; he was paying for my treatment , for all my medicines and taking care of me night and day and now it was getting too much for me to bear and decided to confront him. After both of us had finished eating , he helped me take my medicines , he was about to hand over the glass of water to me but suddenly paused “ this water is too cold  , wait let me get a glass of warm water for you “ he put the glass on the table and was about to leave when I held his hand tightly and looked up with tears in my eyes , this was it ,I couldn’t hold it any longer.

“Carol , what happened ? does it hurt somewhere ? should I call the doctors ?” he looked at me with panic and concern , “ where the hell have you been ?” I said in a loud voice with all the energy I had . He didn’t say anything and sat beside me “ calm down , anger is not good for your health “ he said taking my hands , but now it was not possible for me to calm down , I have already been holding this for too long . I I shook my hand with a jerk angrily “ why are you so nice to me now ? do you have any idea what I have been through all this time alone ?“I was panting a little although Austin seemed to be quite calm he again held my hand and looking in my eyes said “no I don’t know any of these but I am willing to hear to you as long as you calm yourself down, ok ?”, I nodded and calmed myself a little.

“The day you left , everything started getting out of it’s place “ I sighed .

“Not long after you left , I started having problems with Baseem  . Things were not so bad from starting  we had a mutual understanding and trust among us but I didn’t last for long and slowly things started changing , he started criticizing me over little things , he would doubt me every time I went out with my friends . There were times when he wouldn’t even look at me when he was with his friends . But things got worse after that one incident , it was a Monday and I was coming out of the last lecture I had that day Baseem and I had agreed to meet and have some snacks , together with some of his friends . When I entered , Baseem waved his hand to let me know where they were sitting , I went there and grabbed a seat beside him . Everyone was having a good time we were all laughing and eating together when Baseem suddenly grabbed my right hand tightly and was looking at my wrist his hold was so strong that my hand started paining and I could sense the stopping of blood flow in my palm I tried hard to get rid of his hold but couldn’t and asked me where was the bracelet that he had gifted , the bracelet’s design was quite sharp so it usually pierced through my clothes and also it was quite rough from inside because of which I had some scratches on my wrist so I didn’t wore it today , I was trying to explain this to him and calm him down but he wouldn’t listen to anything I say . He stood up from his chair and threw my hand with such a force that it collided with the table and started bleeding a little but still he wouldn’t stop and started shouting that if I can’t do such a small thing for him , I don’t deserve him . By now every person there had stopped eating and every eyes was on us I tried to stop him from making a scene in front of everyone but he just wouldn’t stop and kept yelling and then left angrily , all of his friends also went after him without even asking if I was fine or not . I have never felt so embarrassed in my life before I was standing there all alone with my injured hand and everyone staring at me , with my head down I started picking up my bag in a haste and went out running . Although we made up after some days but nothing remained the same as before , it was no longer a relationship between 2 people now it was more about just me , it was me who was putting in most of the efforts and all he did was ignoring me or looking down upon me . Now there were more frequent fights and each ended with him proving me wrong , this was too much for me to handle there wasn’t a single day when we didn’t fight some times privately and sometimes even in public . This was now converted into a toxic relationship and we eventually had a breakup and was again alone . It wasn’t long after that you left , we broke up “ I turned to Austin , he has looking at me and listening patiently to whatever I was saying without showing much emotions on his face , looking at him listening to me so tentatively I had a sudden feeling of guilt what I did to him was indeed very wrong with this , I was lost in my own thoughts and started recalling past . “Carol ? anything wrong ?” Austin shook me back to reality “no , just thinking about something “ saying this I continued .

“I have already broken up with Baseem and was now living peacefully like a normal person . Waking up in the morning , getting ready for college , coming back from college , completing assignments and projects and chilling out with my roommates , life was going on smoothly until that day . It was a day like every other , I was getting ready for college but as soon as I bent down to tie my shoelaces , my head suddenly started spinning around , I tried to stand up but couldn’t maintain the balance and tripped over something and fell on ground both of my roommates immediately came to me , slowly slowly the darkness in my eyes started increasing and sounds of my friends also started fading and then there was complete silence and darkness . The next thing I remembered was that I was lying on a bed in a hospital and my parents sitting beside me and all I could hear was honey you alright ? do you feel any better and they smiled after I finally nodded , I asked then about had exactly happened to me but none of them answered and were staring at each other can anyone tell me what on earth happened to me ? I asked them again then  a doctor entered the room and said that my childhood heart disease was showing up again . I was not at all ready for this , this illness has already made my life difficult in my childhood and didn’t want to happen that again . For the next few months , my parents were always beside through night and day they barely slept and were looking after all my needs . They were always trying to make me laugh and always assured me that they will always be with me and never leave me alone . The tiredness and fatigue could be clearly seen on their faces , they both have started looking weak and old there was no shine on their face , it was breaking my heart just to see them like this because of me , it was me because of whom they were in such a pitiful condition right now and I couldn’t do anything . After few months , doctor said that I was in a better shape now and could be discharged from hospital but should still take my medicines on time , the moment I stepped into my house I had a feeling of satisfaction finally I was back to my home after spending months at hospital “.

“The following days went amazing , mom cooked my favourite dishes everyday , the three of us would watch television together , dad always reminded me of taking my medicines on time they both looked quite weak but were happy. Everything was going fine until one day , mom and dad went out to buy some vegetables and I was watching television when my phone started ringing , it was from an unknown number but still I picked it up there was a man on the other side and he told me that my parents suddenly fainted  and are now being taken to the hospital I was too stunned to reply to him , he told me the name of the hospital and hung up . Without thinking about anything , I left the house in a hurry . Upon reaching the hospital , I hurriedly started searching for my parents , my brain had stopped working all I was doing was running everywhere to find the . Finally someone told me the way to the emergency room , there I couldn’t see my parents but a man I went to him and asked if he knew where were the 2 people who were brought here after being unconscious . The man said yes he was the one who brought them here and called me , he told me that mom died on the way here and dad was still in the operation room saying this he left. My whole world came shattering down in front of my eyes , they were my only world , my only happiness and now one of them was gone . I was all alone sitting outside the operation room waiting for dad to come out and scold me for being careless that I came here in my sleepers and then I will say of course I am careless after all whose daughter I am and we both would laugh . I have been sitting there for 3 hours thinking that mom will come to me , hug me and say that everything is alright honey I am here , but I didn’t happen , no one came and then the doors of the operation room opened , I ran there and asked how was my father the doctor gave me a look of disappointment and said sorry he is no more . I fell down on the floor , I couldn’t see a reason to live , the only people that mattered in my life were gone now . The hospital staff tried to get me up and tried to motivate me . I got myself together and asked to the doctor about what suddenly happened to my parents he told me that they both were suffering from a serious illness and they have been taking medicines from a long time but probably for some reason they have not been taking them for around 5 months which caused there illness to get worse and they eventually succumbed to it saying this he left , they were ill ? why didn’t they ever tell me about it and if they knew about the disease then why did they stopped their medicines suddenly ? wait ! something striked me 5 months ? it was around the time was hospitalized , so the whole cause of their death is me ! they were saving up money for my treatment , they both have been going through so much just for me , I am their murderer they didn’t deserve to die I was all because of me , they both lied to me , they had promised me that they will always be with me and never leave me alone but they didn’t. “ I  couldn’t utter a single word after that I was looking down trying to hold back my tears .

Austin held my hands and looking at me said “ I am sorry for your loss but you know that they always wanted you to be happy therefore you have to stay strong I am with you and I can understand how you are feeling right now “ , I turned to him “ No you don’t ! “ I said looking into his eyes “ You cannot understand that because you were not there , you were not there when I needed you the most “ saying this I looked down again , he smiled at me and said “ I think you should rest now “ and was about to get up when I held his hand and pulled him back “ No I don’t want to rest , this is something I want you to know “ he again sat back on the chair and I continued “ The day you left everything seemed incomplete , even when I was with Baseem , there were times I just couldn’t stop thinking about you every time I played basketball , it reminded me about you , about us . You have no idea about how much I have been wanting to talk to you these years . I made every possible effort to contact you but of course I couldn’t , after several failed attempts to contact you I finally decide that I will find you on my own no matter what it takes . So I started with your home , I went there and found out that you have already moved I also asked the neighbors if they knew anything about your new address but they were also clueless . Then I went to your old school to know about your previous address and contact information in the hope that you still might be using them , but when I tried the phone number couldn’t be reached and when I went to the house , someone has started living there I asked if he knew anything about the previous owner of the house , to this he offered me a drink and said that he didn’t knew anything about that he could tell me about himself inside the house . I understood that his intentions were not very goog and therefore I said no thanks and ran out , the man started chasing me I started running faster and looked backward to see how close he was to me , then I remember that I collided with something very fast and became unconscious the next thing I knew was that I was in the hospital “ saying this I looked towards Austin , he didn’t showed any signs of surprise or happiness upon knowing that I was finding him neither he looked curious , he was sitting there calmly and said with a smile “ It’s fine now you are safe “ but I can’t be as calm as him I wanted to know how and where has he been all these years .

“ Well that was all about me now what about you where have you been all these years ? how has your life been going ?” I asked with curiosity .

“ My life , it’s been pretty amazing , I learned some new things and discovered more about myself , I left myself to nature I travelled around the world and lived peacefully so overall it has been quite a nice journey “

“ So have you been in contact with any of our school friends “ I was eager to know everything.

“ Yes definitely , I have been in contact with Heston and Spenser “ he just smiled.

He seemed to be having a nice time all these years but still I wanted to know one last thing “ Didn’t you ever thought about me ? or missed me ? “ I looked into his eyes .

To this he stared into my eyes for a moment and then started laughing “ There is no such word for me , anymore “

This was something that filled me with guilt and regret , how can I be so selfish to treat anyone like that and specifically him who is helping me in my hardest times , although he was laughing I knew that there was a part of him that was broken by me . Thinking about all these made me gloomy which was probably sensed by him , he held my face with both of his hands and turned it towards him and looking directly into my eyes said “ alright ! that’s it for today , this is the last time we are talking about this there won’t be a next time , okay ? “ before I could say anything , the nurse entered .

“Excuse me can you please wait outside , it’s time for her checkup “ , he at once stood up and went out .

“ How do you feel now ? “ she asked

“ Quite better “

“That’s good , yesterday your condition suddenly got critical and was getting worse as the time passed , the only medicine that could make you better wasn’t available in our hospital or at any other place near us but your boyfriend was so worried he ran out and somehow managed to get the medicine . It was because of him that you could be saved “ after completing the checkup she left.

Again it was him .