Part III
Chapter - 3

“What did I tell you?” she yelled. “Why? Why do you not listen to me?”

I did not answer. She had all rights to do it.

“Do you even know how worried I was when they called me? When I realized why you fainted?”

Her voice echoed in my hollow chest. I realized it. How stupid I have been, to think that all I did impact me only. It did not. It affected everyone who cared for me.

She gulped. “I… I am not letting you do it anymore. I won’t let you…”

“Mom—”

She yelled, her voice more scared than agitated. “No…no,” she cried, “you do not talk back. Do not talk back to me…”

I sighed. “Mom… I know you’re worried, but you need to understand. It was a…”

“No, Alex, ”—and she pressed me closer—“That is not the thing. That is not… you did it. You made it.”

My heart skipped a beat. I felt an unrequited rush of adrenaline surge through my body.

“You made it,” she repeated, “you made it.”

I could hear her heartbeat. Amidst it, somewhere, I forgot that I was not breathing as well. Even if I sorted through my oldest of memories, I could not remember anything more than those dirty aisles, a cardboard panel hung right on the wall in from of our door, painted someday by some skateboarders. The same old walks, the dull boring life. But it was not anymore. We made it change. Our darkest times were over. We could move on and be happy for once.

A few tears fell from my eyes. They were the burdens in my heart, now rising to my eyes lids. I guess, I had to bid them farewell too someday. She was there for me, for a long time, before she made sure that I was okay.

I stopped crying then. And I laughed, and I laughed a lot with her. We talked, and talked about our future. How intensely the days in front of us seemed to shine. I’d be there to see it.

She left me there, and told me that she had paid for my food. I was to see her at home, where we were to decide about how we wanted to build a new one. I thanked her. Then, I was alone.

I picked my phone up from the side table. I wanted to know the time. I wanted to know the day, the time; even to the preciseness of the seconds. I wanted to memories the day when everything changed. Though, I knew, that I was fooling myself. I knew exactly the time when my life was rewritten. It had been rewritten a long time back, and perhaps, this punctuated it for finality.

My hand tautened from the vibration of my cell. It hurt a little. I read the contact. It was an unidentified number. I picked it up, and barely put it to my ear, when I heard shrieks pierce my ear.

Someone yelled through it.

“What have you done? What have you done to him?” The voice was so vicious, like if it could, it would pour all the venom it held inside into my heart, and I would die from it. But it was also, equally desperate, broken, and lost.

“Who do you… think you are? You… how dare you think that you can take him away from me?”

It was frightened too.

And because of something, I knew who it was.

“Is that why I let you into my house, you bitch? So that you could destroy his mind, huh? Is that it? I… I… I will take you to the court. I’ll sew you. I don’t know who I am… and—”

Perhaps, the voice trailed off. Perhaps, I just did not listen. I was hearing it, yet I did not listen. In fact, I could not listen to anything anymore. I could not see anything anymore. The air grew colder. It was as if I was being sucked into a ceaseless void of remembrances, a tunnel of images; my heart running along to understand it.

Then, I saw it.

The day… I met him.

Don’t be too persistent.

How… he could not look at me. He couldn’t even smile.

Give them their time and space.

His tired eyes; his broken soul.

Don’t leave this boy alone.

And a question.

What if… I had not ignored that voice that day…

When he was going to walk home alone…

 Tired. Hungry.

Would he…

Have reached his doorstep?

Would she have been able to see him that day?

Or would he have agonizingly died on some sideline… drifting away from everything?

It hurt my soul.

I had believed in myself. I knew my answers. And today, I knew my answers too.

The realization… it returned me to reality. “—If you do not open your mouth up, then I swear to God, I am throwing you to a juvenile—”

“Ma’am,” I stopped her, being the most respectful I could. “Do you know when his birthday is?”

She did not answer. “What?”

“His… birthday.”

She did not speak again. I breathed.

He deserved to be happy.

“It is in a month. He turns eighteen this year. And once he does, you will not be obligated to his responsibilities anymore. You will be able to live your life the way you want, and he will live his. He will become his own person, who will know what he wants. He will be gone.” I paused, “He is going to move out… and will never come back…”

She did not speak for moments. I had stunned her.

I put the phone down from my ear, just as she was about to speak. I disconnected the line. Later, I blocked the number. I looked out the window, and it was surprising, how in a long while, I did not think anything at all. Not of my stupidity, or courage… or absolutely anything. Things needed to be put to peace.

The door slid open. I turned to watch who it was. It was Nova. He adjusted the clamp at the bottom with his shoe, and when he looked up, our eyes met. He became flustered.

His mouth opened. “May I come in?”

My heart eased to the sound of his voice. I smiled. “Yes.”

He sat on the gurney, by my side. He faced the door. His hesitancy told me that was finding words to speak, something, or anything he could say to me; talk to me about. And only the thought was well enough for me. I did not need his words.

He shuffled when he remembered something. “Um… Alex,” he waited, “I… I and Aliya broke up.”

He did not say anything else. I did not feel anything else, unlike the first time. Maybe I had realized, that it truly had nothing to do with me.

We sat in silence. This silence between him and I was my greatest abode, but for him, it was a thorn in his soft throat. It wounded him up. I bet his mind ran in all directions.

You could only hear my breath in the room. And the soft tick of the clock. My chest felt easy, and my mind as light as a feather. I thought that if I tried, I could maybe, even fly out the window. And into the world. My wings would be free.

But something stopped me. It was a soft, fragile sensation; so sublime, it could perish in the air. As delicate as the freshly blossomed bud. It was a palm pressing into my hand, and fingers, entangling into mine. My head lifted, and Nova was already looking at me. His eyes were hopeful, and nervous, and his mouth hung open. His throat had gone so dry, I could hear him gulp.

In the seconds that passed, his body grew nearer to mine, and his ribs pressed against me. It was a swift moment, it did not even take him a second—and I was left behind by it, startled. I went from feeling nothing at all, to all at once.

His breath came out fast near my ear. His hands shook on my back. It was so bad, I thought that he was scared.

“Nova—” I called him.

“Please,” he said, his voice trembling and impatient, “Please let me hold you like this for a while.”

And his entire body shook. “You just… you just feel so unreal… I can’t… I feel that I might be just waking up from this dream.” 

I gasped.

“Please let me hold you a little longer. I just wanna know that you were real.”

And he held me, for a long time.

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