SPOILER ALERT: PLEASE READ THE FIRST BOOK BEFORE YOU READ THIS CHAPTER SINCE THIS CHAPTER CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS FROM BOOK 1

Edited: 7th May, 2017

Backstory Alert!

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Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs, What is it else?

A madness most discreet.

-William Shakespeare

He had heard people say talent cannot be taught, that it's natural and inborn. But then she had taught him to live.

He was like a raging ball of fire, reckless, unstoppable and destructive and she herself was a tempest and yet somehow she was able to tame him, could make him realize he was living and unknowingly got him to fall hard for her.

Then came the winds of change. He betrayed her. She kept a secret too. They lied to guard what they were hiding. And their passion was marked by deceit. They fell apart and he came to have a dark cold heart. Again.

The night was like any other night in Crawford Lane, except that it was more still and quiet. He made a splash into the big swimming pool under the silent moon but the calm waters could do nothing to relax the wild furore inside his bare body.

His strong muscles flexed as he glided dangerously to the rich depths of the pool. Every detail of her caused a blaze in his head. He couldn't forget the simplicity of her being, her angelic smile, her breath-taking voice, her beautiful and innocent eyes, her enchanting black hair, her heavenly lips, the sinful softness of her bare skin...

And then he even vividly remembered every bit of what had happened on that fateful day...

"Fine!! Then listen!! I'll tell you everything," he had said. "That woman there who is living with your father and you at present is not any Katherine! She is Alice, your biological mother. The mother who gave birth to you and the mother you thought was long dead!!"

He had finally spilled the secret that he had been holding back for long from her.

He had broken her completely. He had paralyzed her with pain. He could see it on her pale face and lifeless eyes how much his deception had damaged her.

And seeing her in shambles shook his own existence.

"You knew it...." she croaked, looking him square in the eye and grabbing his collar with her shivering hands, "You knew it!! You knew about her-her real identity since the time you first saw her with my father at my birthday party, didn't you??!!"

He didn't say anything. He couldn't even meet her eyes. That was what led her to know what he couldn't confess.

"H-How?" she questioned letting go of his collar, her voice cracking. "How is this possible you know that woman is my mother?"

"I'll show you," he said quietly, then turned to proceed towards his laptop that was on the coffee table. He bent down to his laptop and inserted a CD in the CD drive. He selected a video to play before getting back to his feet and moving away from the laptop

The video was in his possession for as long as he could remember. As the camera rolled, a woman wearing a light pink maxi dress coming into focus. She had auburn hair and a gentle soft smile. There was a little boy stood alongside her holding her hand.

"That's my mom, Nicole, and me when I was around two," he told her.

As the video progressed further, Nicole was seen waving on the screen. She seemed very much surprised and delighted to meet somebody there. And next, a much younger looking Katherine appeared on the screen and she was holding a little girl in her arms who bore resemblance to Eleanor....

He glanced sideways to see her completely shattered. He knew she would hardly hear anything of what he had to say but he went on to narrate the past to her nonetheless

"Our mothers were very good school friends who had lost touch after graduating and they accidentally happened to meet again after many years in this party," he said, starting to reveal that truth which was, all this while, suppressed with lies.

"Many years later when my mum saw me randomly watching this video, she told me that Alice and she had exchanged numbers at that party and promised to meet each other again with their husbands. But that never happened due to something or the other. And one day when my mum tried to contact yours, she couldn't because the number didn't exist anymore. We didn't know then that Alice had deserted her family and changed her number too."

"After my mom committed suicide, I began to watch this video almost everyday."

"I was brought to live in Crawford Lane against my wishes but that was until my gazes met yours on the Lane. I was attracted to you that very instant. And then I came to realize that you more or less looked like the little girl in the video. I started to pursue you and now you know why I had a reason to believe that your parents were together and that you had a happy family.'

"So I was completely shaken when I overheard you telling Stef that your mother died while giving birth to you. I knew at once what you were saying couldn't possibly be true. I didn't know what to do. Either you weren't the Eleanor Sanchez I thought you were or your father must have lied to you about your mother. I desperately hoped it was the former case."

He paused for a while, trying to curb the pain that was mounting onto his chest, then he spoke further, "But my worst fears came true in your birthday party when you introduced me to your father and "Katherine" who was actually Alice. She wasn't your father's girlfriend like you thought but she was the wife who had left him and his daughter and had returned after so many years..."

People easily believe what they see and what they hear. But one must never forget that the actual truth is known only to the few, those were the words he had told her parents at the party....

"Your parents took the cue from my words and understood that I was aware of their truth. The truth that they were apparently planning to never tell you about. Remember your father had wanted to speak to me in private? Fearing I would spill the beans to you, your parents struck a deal with me that very evening while you were playing with Jackson ...."

"They wanted me to hide their truth from you and in return, Alice would tell me everything about my mother from her school days. I refused instantly because I didn't have it in me to do that to you. But after a point of time...I agreed to betray you because I was desperate to know about my mother and talk to someone who knew her quite well."

With a heavy heart, he continued, "So Alice met me every afternoon and fulfilled her side of the deal. She told me the details I didn't know about my mum which made me love my mum even more."

He gulped hard before he told her one last detail of her life. "You get those nightmares perhaps because you might have cried uncontrollably to stop your mother from abandoning you but unfortunately you didn't succeed in it."

He hadn't the dare to look at her even once while narrating out the entire truth to her. But when he looked at her after he'd finished, she was stood like a statue numb with shock. He could tell she hardly heard anything of what he told her. The next moment he caught tears gushing down her cheeks and she accused him of having taken her for granted and for lying that he had true feelings for her. That ripped his heart apart.

"You should be happy that your mother has come back to you. That your parents are in love and back together. That you've a family now, " he countered, having lost his mind to pain. "If my mom came back like yours, I would've been happy and wouldn't have any grudge against anyone."

The look in her eyes told him loud and clear that he had lost her.

He saw a painful lump forming in her throat as she spoke, "Didn't you say to me that our lives have in no ways been similar? So how can you look at things from only your point of view and not even try understanding mine. We are done, Devon....I cannot be with a guy who thinks it's okay for people to walk in and walk out of my life at their convenience."

With those words, she turned her back to him and walked out of the house and his life as well. It wrecked his heart. At that very moment, a realization hit him hard. That he was so wrong for her. That he just wasn't meant to be with her, he never was.

Devon swam to the edge of the pool, caught hold of the handrails and emerged out of the pool wearing just his black boxers. Water dripped from every inch of his well toned bare body. He grabbed the towel that lay nearby and started wiping himself dry, starting with his lush black hair, the faultless features of his face, his broad manly shoulders, his well defined biceps, his chiseled chest and then the flawless structure of his abs.

He had tried so hard to forget her because he knew he didn't deserve her. But when things weren't working out for him without her, he had made up his mind to win her back come what may. But he soon realized it was too late for him to do anything.

Eleanor Sanchez had left Crawford Lane. He didn't know where she had gone. Her phone number no longer existed. He didn't know where to find her. He had lost her. Maybe forever...

He had been so wrapped up in his past which caused him to ruin his present with Eleanor.

It's all because of that man who is my father, he thought in extreme contempt, I will never forgive him for fucking my life up!!

Devon Parker was Perfection marked by a broken heart.

***

Eleanor Sanchez was sat forlornly on a bench maintaining a stony exterior. All she knew that Devon, the boy she had been so crazy for, had betrayed her. She'd been a complete dumbass to have run to him to share her pain and agony of being unable to understand as to why she couldn't bring herself to accept Katherine. He had all the answers she was struggling with herself to find and yet he didn't step forward with the truth but watched her tear apart in pain everytime.

She'd been a fool for not having known that deception came easy to him and without any guilt. He had told her everything about his life but he never felt it necessary to tell her about hers....

Her parents had done the same with her. Eleanor, refusing to let herself break down, clenched her fists harshly on her lap.

When she had got back home from Devon's, she happened to overhear what her Gran and her parents were talking about....

"I honestly thought you would tell her everything," Gran was saying. "That kid has lived all her life in pain and guilt thinking of a nasty lie to be the truth. How can you continue to let her suffer for the rest of her life rather than owning up your mistakes to her?"

"I-I can't tell Eleanor that I'm her mother who had abandoned her when she was not even two..."

"Because you have decided to take this woman back into your life after all these years forgiving her betrayal, Eleanor must know the truth," Gran told her father who stood silent and grim, "She deserves to know that her mother had left her crying alone on the bed in the middle of the night to elope with an another man."

Gran swallowed hard as she spoke further, "You, Eron, loved Alice deeply even though she left you to marry someone else. Soon the day came when Eleanor asked you why she didn't have a mother like the rest of the kids in her playschool did. Since you didn't want her to have any ill feeling for her mother, you were about to tell her that her mother died in a car crash but before you could say that to her, I..." Gran broke off, "I-I blurted out to her in panic that-that her mother died while giving birth to her..."

Gran spoke further in a broken voice, "We couldn't change those words in fear that it would make Eleanor suspicious and she might not believe us again. So we stuck to that story and got rid of every photograph of Alice, Eleanor and you we had with us....except some which you kept with yourself and never told your daughter about it, Eron,"

"And I've seen those photographs today," she spoke in a feeble voice that was loud enough for the elders to know of her presence.

"I-I'm sorry, Eleanor," said Katherine remorsefully, "Please forgive me. It's true I-I was unhappy when you were born because I was reluctant to have a baby but now I love you, Eleanor..."

She clenched her fists tight to her sides as she spoke, "The thing is, all my life I've believed that my mother died because of me and suddenly, one fine day I get to know by myself that all this time I've been believing lies. Please don't expect me to shower you with the love and affection of a daughter and pretend like nothing happened. It's not possible for me."

"By being extremely good and caring to me for a couple of days, you cannot make up for what I've been through because of this deception. You will never know how I was bullied in Grade 1. You will never understand how it was like to be sitting alone in one corner and watching all kids and their mothers bond in mother-daughter activities in school. You will never know what it felt like to see both the parents cheer their kids during school events. I had none. You were not there to share my happiness nor stand by me when I needed you the most. My father wasn't either,"

With one last look at her Papa, who she had adored a lot all these years despite all odds, she left from there.

Eleanor rose from the bench, keeping herself steady inspite of her trembling feet.

She would never go back to Crawford Lane. And she promised herself to be strong, fearless and never to trust anybody again.

***

I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW HAPPY I AM THAT I POSTED THE FIRST CHAPTER OF AGAIN 2. <3 :D

The fact that this story is in the third person makes it even bigger and better. I can't express how excited I am for this! Extremely sorry to make you guys wait for so long. Hope you have loved the chapter. What do you think will happen next? ;)

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Also, don't forget to check out my other book, 'Short Term Girlfriend'. Nine chapters of it are up alread