It Has Always Been You

Chapter – 16

Chapter – 16

There are some things that we can’t control, and is very hard to bear, but what we can control is how we take all those things in those scares us the most and can stand unaffected by the blow.

**

‘What in the earth is wrong with my luck?’ I slapped myself on my head. I can literally imagine myself doing that if I was alone right now. Okay, I decided not to run away because of him, but I never thought I will sit right in front of him alone and still not run away either.

Why did I have to be left alone at the table with the person I was hoping to ignore the most? I have a very prominent feeling that my luck has all turned to be just bad now. I never knew he was this cruel and publicly humiliate me as he did. For god’s sake, we were friends once. He didn’t have that much respect for me. It wasn’t like I hoped he will accept my confession and we will date. I knew he was way above my league. I just wanted the weight off my chest so I can finally move on, but then he has to humiliate me and make it even harder for me to throw away my feelings. I can’t believe there was a time when I thought we could be friends, at least like we were when we were younger. How wrong I was?

“Hi.” I didn’t realize I was staring in black space until his voice shrugs me off the stance.

Why does he even bother? I have no intentions to ever talk to him. I looked at him, sulking from the inside but still maintaining the I-don’t-give-a-damn facade.

Over the years, I guess I have become a natural actor. I can easily construct the contrast between my facial expressions and my actual thoughts.

“Do I know you?” I said like he was actually a stranger. I can swear by the face he made that for a minute he had some doubt too.

I decide to run away again. I made him a stranger. It’s better than the humiliation I will have to face if anyone knows about my past. That I surely don’t want. My mind was in a whirlpool, flooded with thoughts of him, of us. I thought about the day I saw him for the first time. He was a cute kid.

Gosh! What am I thinking again? Come on Elena, wake up. He is not the same person, and you can’t be the same anymore.

“Do I know you? Is this that you will say?”

I don’t know what I saw in his eyes. Disappointment or shock. But I shouldn’t care, right? He started this, and I am just putting an end to all this.

“What do you expect, I will say when some stranger will ask such a thing?” at least it was half true. He was a stranger to me. I never knew him. The true him. He was just a dream, a fantasy.

“You really don’t know?” he seemed angry, his voice changed, it got heavier. The unusual tone I was familiar with vanished.

“I don’t believe so.” No matter how trembly I was from the inside, my exterior is always at the point. I can be as cold as a polar region.

I don’t know if it was a good thing or bad, but at least it protected me.

“Then you surely wouldn’t have remembered this.” He fished out a folded pink paper from his wallet, showing it to me. The edges were wrinkled and worn. I didn’t touch it.

“Do you care to tell me what this is?” I said coldly.

“I'm dying to.” He said, still enraged. “This is something a girl named just the same as yours, Elena, gave to me on the day of our high school graduation.” He continued.

What? Why does he still have it?

He hated me so much, then why did he keep it on him. He should have burnt it. Or ripped it in a million tiny confetti paper or toss it in the trash. Why does a heartless guy like him would carry something like this in his wallet? This is unbelievable to carry a souvenir of your cruelness. Is he out of his mind or what?

I felt like his behavior lit a fire inside my heart and it will burn this time.

“Sorry, but I'm leaving. Tell Emmi that I left.” I abruptly stood up from the chair and jolted away as far as possible from him before I say something I will regret later. Better be far from this psycho.