I know The Devil

Chapter 017| A Time when everything was perfect

~ There’s a time that I remember, when I did not know no pain

~ When I believed in forever, and everything would stay the same

Maroon 5 – Memories

You Know how you wake up one morning and it feels like you have been living with a complete stranger when you come face to face with the reality of the idea you have of a person.

Christiania Angelique Bennett.

I feel it is unfair if we all had changed and for some reason, we didn’t expect mom to but… I didn’t know if it was because I saw my brother who was at the state jail more than her even though we lived together, but one morning I woke up and couldn’t see a glimpse of the woman that raised me.

She would always tell me to hit back harder when life hits at me but it felt like Life dealt with her way too hard. Loving a man who didn’t feel the same way and was horrified at the thought of being a father, he had left the job to her all alone, just walking away so easily. Like she was nothing. Like what they shared was nothing.

She’d practised her constant teaching and had hit harder. Being a superb mother and although we went hungry some nights that wasn’t a result of a lack of trying from her. She had been resilient in trying to make sensible adults out of her two children and I think that was what had broken her more.

She hadn’t, couldn’t come to terms with Rob being in prison and regardless of how many times I told her she couldn’t be faulted, it was almost like she couldn’t hear me. It all had been about the men in her life. My father and Rob.

One day I woke up and guess who looked so tired, old and burnt by life? Mom

I watched her bony hands grip the edges of a folded material, trembling slightly and I could tell she knew she had an audience even though her back was against me. She loved looking out of the window when she worked. No, it wasn’t a beautiful view. I think she needed a reminder of our stagnation and poverty every second of the day, and regardless of how sad that sounded, I could understand her.

She worked in silence for a while, while I closed my eyes, leaning against the threshold of the door liking the way the sound of the machine transported me to a time when everything was perfect.

“I heard the sound of a car.” Her voice was blank. It has been so long since she stopped asking me excitedly if I made new friends and how was school, so long since I’ll sigh and look out of the window, noticing from my peripheral vision how the smile would fall off her face.

I licked my lips. Of course, she must have heard the car and seen it too. She was facing the window.

“Yes. A friend insisted on dropping me home.” I braced myself for the chastisement knowing I deserved it.

“Glad you are making friends. Was beginning to get worried for you.” She resumed matching her machine but I knew she wasn’t done. She was trying to phrase her next words in her head before uttering them. Mom was always so careful before saying words, overthinking and processing them so it was safe to say that neither Rob nor I took after her.

Maybe I could be soft-spoken while Rob was loud but we both either quickly expressed ourselves or didn’t.

“But you should be careful of who you allow to drop you home, here. Everything about this friend of yours could attract attention and do.” She set her lips in a straight line and continued matching her machine.

She’d forgotten I was even in the room with her. That was it. My eyes widened in surprise even as I forced my legs to leave her room, heading for mine.

I was towelling my hair dry when my phone pinged and came on. Nonchalantly while still lip singing to the Disney “Let it go” music playing from Mom’s room, I read the message like I was a normal high school student and getting texts on my phone was a routine but unlike an average student, I didn’t have trouble realizing who the sender of the message with an unknown number was.

Unknown

“Guess who lost to me and owes me two dates?”

I wondered how many numbers he had since I have saved the last one he had used in texting me even as I sighed in relief.

6 hours and Law Tyler has been all that has consistently been on my mind. I could barely eat and had managed to stop pacing around not wanting mom to see that I was freaking out and although I had tried to stay positive and told myself he was fine, it was another thing having it confirmed.

He said I lost to him? I grinned, this guy was crazy if he thought this was a challenge. I’ve never felt so good at losing because the relief that spread through me was noticeable and the warmness at the side of my chest at how he had remembered that in my worried rants, I’d promised him two dates worried me.

God, this guy sure does know the way to screw with hormones and mess with the body. Brain is disappointed and shaking her head in disdain. But it was just two dates, and he had truly gone through unimaginable height to get them. Not like it had been a competition but I’d be the devil’s assistant to have a guy walk into fire, aware it was fire and still deny him the one thing he wanted from it. It was just two dates. What could possibly happen?

“Just so you know, I’d have agreed to go on a date with you without the James bond stunt you pulled today.”

Insufferable (2)

“It is no James Bond stunt if there was hardly any action and yeah if taking you back home from school got me an extra date I can’t complain.”

“You just don’t know when to give up. You threatened me, pestered me, and then almost gave me a heart attack.”

Insufferable (2)

“Your heart beating loud and fast is not a heart attack. It might mean it is beginning to beat for a purpose, it is now aligned with a like beat and now your pulse is connected to another.”

I stared at the message for a while, before hanging my towel to dry.

“Ever thought of becoming a poet. You know the ones that say deep soulful words that don’t really make sense?”

Insufferable (2)

“Ouch…”

“What? You could make a fortune out of it while at it.”

Insufferable (2)

“Fortunes? I think I have enough to last an eternity.”

I rolled my eyes, as I read his message, barely buttoning my pyjamas flannel shirt before I was typing back.

“Modest much? I’m touched.”

Insufferable (2)

“Modesty is not the art of avoiding talking about one’s strengths but being able to say it with a straight face, acknowledge it and be indifferent about it. You are brainy, Il mio fiore di loto and there have been rumours going on around of you having a great chance of being valedictorian. Now that is a strength.”

I snorted. The chickens have wings but why don’t they soar like the eagle? Just like they possessed wings but can’t use them, although I might be intellectually okay, I have a committee of parents who would see me holding that title as a big insult. He knew this already so I didn’t tell him.

“And once again you swerve the conversation back to me. I don’t know why whenever we talk, I suspect you just want to hear about me.”

Insufferable (2)

“You interest me. Everything about you does that to me from your long soft black hair, the stormy expression on your face when you say a thousand words in your head to the barely visible crescent-shaped scar on your knee. I see you. All of you.”

My mouth fell open even as I folded my pyjamas trousers a little, peeking at the almost not there scar I’d gotten on my knee when Rob had been teaching me how to ride a bike.

“Wow..”

Insufferable (2)

“I get that a lot when people look at me but we are texting and you are in awe. I must be doing something right.”

I didn’t call him out for being arrogant because he rightfully deserved to be. He wasn’t just doing something right, he was making my mouth slack which was hard to achieve recently since even though I hated to admit it loud to avoid people thinking I’m depressed or needed help, Life bored me. There was no longer any thrill and the only reason I woke up was the feeling of wanting better. A decent job, house, life… Most times I wonder what would happen when I achieve all that, what next then? But Law Tyler effortlessly on text was making me feel a hundred myriads of emotions. He wasn’t doing something right. This was all wrong.

Law Tyler didn’t go about noting hardly seen scars on the body of every other person, did he? I know he was damn perceptive but noting such subtle details on just everybody could be damn creepy so this should mean something right?

I pressed my hand on my chest. It was beating fast. Rhythmically and pounding knowing someone else’s pulse was now connected to it. I shook my head, I was being crazy.

“I’ve forgotten I even had that.”

It was simple and almost nonchalant. He could even imagine me shrugging when saying it and won’t know I was a mess because of that mere observation by him. I was proud of the message. I slept off with the phone in my hand while waiting for a message from him.

The phone chimed at past 3 and as pathetic as it sounded. I would never ever confess this even to my diary, I was wide awake.

“I won’t.”

I didn’t reply to him. That would be a shameless admission that he surely left me bothered and disturbed especially since his last message with just two words made me feel like we still weren’t talking about the damn scar on my knee.