Stranger in hometown

[Rogue]

Yes, I've decided to resume writing, because writing is my life. This novel is my first independent novel outside the "goddess" series, based upon the real-life story of myself and a friend of mine whom I knew from primary school. It was just total coincidence maybe, or maybe not, that the highschool bitch whom I once had a long-time crush on happened to be the girlfriend of someone that I've known since my primary school time. I only recently knew it tbh, from a classmate in the graduate school who happened to be my primary-school nigga's best friend during his undergraduate years. I've been out of contact with that nigga since before I went to college and I learned from that graduate school classmate that my primary-school nigga is currently working in Venezuela, and he still has yet to get off from that bitch despite that they had broken up like 3 years something ago... Dude needs a cure obviously and I hope this novel will prove to be the exact right cure for him. I've gotten out of that bitch, of course, I've never been really in tbh, and it appears that I know more about that tart than what's known by my primary school nigga who had been in relationship with that bitch for 3-4 years. I was kinda surprised when that graduate school classmate told me about the relationship between my nigga and that bitch, but I was not at all surprised when he later said the bitch jilted him, leaving him for a rich redneck... Bitch's a pure slutty sybarite, which's a fact I've known since before I had the crush on her, because another friend of mine whom I knew in our junior middle school, he and the bitch were classmates in primary school, and he told me everything about that bitch, about what a tart she had always been since as early as her childhood... This may sound a bit complicated and sure there's a long story to tell, that's why I'm going to write this novel, to which I've given the working name as "stranger in hometown".

[Rogue]

I’m gonna write a short novel derived from the real-life story of Mark Celibate, myself, in honor of my best friend from primary school named Jenkins as well as other guys who’ve learned lessons the hard way from the same scarlet woman named Leigh. The story is told first-person, based on Mark’s memory from high school up to the very present day. Names in this story may have been changed and modified from their real-life prototypes, and the plot also includes considerable assumption and imagination of the author himself, other than his real experience.

Stranger in hometown

-by Mark Celibate

“Life is full of up and downs, and everyone makes decisions that will later prove to be wrong, but your parents are waiting for your return year in and year out, and you’ll always have a family to fall back upon.”

Part One – Crush

Chapter One

A shabby tiny house was slightly quivering in the chilly wind of late autumn in a big northeastern city. The city hadn’t received the first snow of the year yet, but the trees had already shed all their leaves, prepared to welcome the winter and the turn of next year. Inside the house lived the Smith family, a lower-middle class family where the husband Mr. Smith was the only bread earner. Mrs. Smith had retired and only received minimum pension each month, which had been left far behind by the inflation rate.

My name was Rogue Smith, the only child to the Smith couple, and like most other young people of my age, I didn’t get a decent job after I graduate from college so I decided to go back to school for a graduate degree, and I did it. I enrolled at a local university about two years ago, pursuing a Master’s degree in translation. The degree itself didn’t sound too impressive, a professional degree which looked devalued compared to the academic ones, but it was still a Master’s anyway and it had already helped me procure a decent contract. I was about to graduate in just a few months, and about to make money myself. I was about to start a new life, starting to live a normal life like my elder cousins did… only except that I was a lifelong celibate.

My family was rather traditional. Although my parents were open minded about most things ranging from my profession, my habits and what clothes to wear, there was one thing that they would never approve, despite that I was adamant… I wanted to be a celibate. I craved such a lifestyle where I would have complete freedom, where I would never need to conform to a woman’s interest and habit. But my parents never seemed to show any intention of giving me the green light on this issue. They wanted to get promoted to grandparenthood, just like their siblings. I had been a brokeass student the vast majority of my life in the past, so I could always use schoolwork as an excuse for living that way, for living frugally and staying clear of any potential relationship. But I no longer have that excuse… I was about to lose my “brokeass” student status soon, and my parents were convinced that it was time for me to start dating the opposite sex, like most young people did.

It shouldn’t be that hard, obviously, there is nothing more natural than this. Just put your arms around her body, gazing at her face and appreciating the way she looks at you. And you know something wondrous is going to take place between the young lives of yours and hers, and some more lives going to be created in consequence.

But that wasn’t the style of life I wanted, because I didn’t wanna grow up. I was approaching the 30 mark but still felt like a teenager, just like the proverb got it, “A man is as old as he feels”. It wasn’t just about age though. I had vowed to be a lifelong celibate and that was my religion, but no one was born with that religion…

[Rogue]

Chapter Two

The wind was blowing hard outside, but the air seemed even chillier inside the house despite the air-conditioner working at full power. I felt a bit uneasy sitting in the sofa, waiting for the arrival of my fourth, maybe fifth blind date in two months or something. I felt pretty annoyed the previous times, because I was never really interested in such craps like that. I had no idea from what sources they had got those proposals, and I didn’t even care how good or average the female were because I had no interest at all, but I didn’t want to upset them so I attended the meetings each and every time at their request, either at a restaurant or a tranquil café. But this time was a bit different, and it wasn’t just the place that was different…

Some people doubted the quality of relationships from introduction, but I guessed that one could never say “never”. For example, my goddess’s (Scarlett’s) relationship with Romain Dauriac evolved gracefully since they were first introduced to each other in November last year via a tattooist who was a friend of them both, and they were engaged earlier this year. It was mostly up to the introducer, I thought.

And the introducer this time was not either of my parents, but a high school teacher of mine, which made me feel just as uneasy as I always used to feel in her classes while I was in high school. I had a good friendship with this teacher though. I just disliked the class she taught- chemistry, which repulsed me just by its name. This teacher, Ms. Watson, was a really kind-hearted person, even though her mouth would often make you think differently or even oppositely sometimes.

Ms. Watson had given me a phone call beforehand, telling me that she would come over along with my date, who she said would be a huge surprise to me. I asked her if that girl was a former classmate of mine, but Ms. Watson refused to reveal any details. Inferring from her tone though, I thought the answer was “yes”, and that was the exact reason why I felt uneasy.

I had a heart of iron and I thought I was already immune to all females, with only two exceptions… One was my goddess, of course, who was just so incredibly beautiful it was too hard for any person, even females to resist her magnificence, and the other… the girl whom I had a long-time crush on while I was in high school, the girl who metamorphosed me into a celibate… No one was born a celibate, and I didn’t know if I should thank or hate her for making me what I was- a celibate. I escaped from a variety of worries that most people my age had to face, living costs, the cost of raising a child, and of course the financial burden of house purchase… I really felt great living more easily, but at the same time, I also seemed to be missing something in my life, something that my instinct craved, some natural desire that had been quelled for too long by my religion, or self-discipline, or simply the fear of being made a clown again by another woman.

[Rogue]

Chapter Three

I didn’t even know that word “celibate” when I was in high school but I pretty much lived that way, a simple life that involved basically nothing but school and home, and the road between home and school. The high school I attended was the best in our city, with no close runner-ups, and I was really proud of being a student of that school. There were no such rules that prohibited “dating” among students, but it was obviously not the right thing to do in a high school, especially when the 6m citizens of this city all thought so highly of you guys.

The happiest period of school time I had experienced was the three-year stage of junior middle school, which was also spent there. Several friends and I really had a great time playing together from seventh to ninth grade, playing jokes right inside the classroom and usually making the whole class laugh out loud for a minute long. Apparently enough, we were not the type of students that the teachers liked, but they could hardly hate us either because we were all smart enough to do damn good in schoolwork. And supposedly most of us were granted the chance to continue studying here for senior high school stage. Unfortunately, however, our little gang was divided up and the former gangsters were sorted into different classes, and it was especially unlucky of me to be sorted in a class where I was the only member from our gang. I made some new friends, yeah, but nothing close to the brotherhood with those old mates, all of whom seemed to share the same badass genes and interests.

I felt isolated and desolated in the new environment. The during-class laughter was gone, as well as the joy and the sense of achievement when the whole class was made to roll onto the floor laughing at a joke I or some other “gangsta” came up with. There was nothing left inside me, except the memory of the past and the pride of being a “homegrown” student here. And yes, we referred to each other as “homegrown”, and those who came from other junior middle schools as “mercenaries”.

There were still a plentitude of homegrown students in our high school class, but they all looked too mainstream, too different from those niggas that I was familiar with, that I had a great time playing with. It was like, those gangstas and I belonged in a class of our own. We had the common dreams and the common goals of life, and we were convinced that we would be able to do something great together in the future, until this summer, the summer where everything changed.

I knew there were also smart asses among the new comers, like this dude who could play chess with 4-5 opponents at once and end up beating them all, and the same dude who also earned the nickname “Brother King” because he was a king of erotic jokes.

Leigh was a new comer too, from a middle school which I still had no idea what name it was up to this day, and she didn’t look that impressive either, long shaggy hair in such an antique way like a maid from Han Dynasty, narrow slanted eyes in which you could barely see any light. My first impression of Leigh was that she was someone you could’ve hardly recognized from a big crowd. She was above average in terms of schoolwork but nothing significant, and the only thing I remembered about her in the first high school year was that she missed nearly a month of class due to chickenpox.

Up to this day I was still thinking about how my life would’ve been if I had never known her, if I had been sorted in a different class. My life would’ve gone in an entirely different way probably, I would’ve got a job no matter decent or not and would’ve got married with a kid just like my cousins did, though it would’ve still made zero difference to her life.

[Rogue]

Chapter Four

She began to appear on my radar in the second year of high school, as she gradually established herself as one of the best, to be more accurate, a top three student of our class in the subject of… um… physics. It was rare for a girl to be good at physics, of course, and that was why I began to notice her, though that was still far from being attracted to her or anything. I just started to notice the existence of her in the class. And surely enough, I was also a top three guy in physics in our class, leaving the rest one free spot for random guys to compete for. We were both damn good at physics and that was why we both choose physics as our major for college, but no way at that time could I prophetically know how things would evolve even the next year, let along the college years.

I was slightly better than Leigh in physics thanks to the extra physics classes I took every Saturday morning, but in terms of overall study with other subjects also taken into account, I had to give Leigh the edge, though the gap was also rather small. We both belonged in the top 15 range of our class, marginally top 10. It was like a car race where I was trailing her all the time, never getting the chance to overtake her, never being left far behind either… and I never expected that such trailing imagination would eventually come true, as soon as the right next semester.

Yet it did come true. It started during an exam, a physics competition that took place at the beginning of our third high school year, where my seat was arranged right behind hers. When I entered the classroom, I found that she was already there. As I walked close to her seat, she looked up at me and gave me a light smile. She looked more beautiful that day than I’d ever known she looked, especially with the exquisite smile on her face… but I walked past her straightly to my seat and sat in, without giving her any response. My heart began to pound fast and hard, though I had no idea whether it was because the fear of bungling this exam which would’ve become a real embarrassment to me since I was generally considered our class’s top performer in physics at the time, or because of what I had just seen.

I didn’t bring nothing with me but a pen, or maybe two pens, because I never had such a habit of reading or reviewing anything right before an exam. I just looked at Leigh instead, waiting for the exam to begin. Her hair was shorter and tidier than when I first saw it. She hadn’t allowed her hair to grow that long since the second year of high school, but it was only at this point of time that I started to notice something about her outside of how well she did in schoolwork, to actually notice her beauty and even appreciate it.

Her hair wasn’t too short either, just long enough to reach the clasp of her bra, which could barely be seen through the white cotton T-shirt she wore that day, and she was only going to surprise even more…

I didn’t know what book she was reading, whatever it was. It was about time to begin the exam so the teacher ordered us to put away our books and all paper stuffs and put our bags in the front of the classroom. Then, Leigh stood up from her seat and… It was already September so the weather wasn’t that not, it was a breezy day when the sun delivered our city nothing but some pleasant warmth. There was really no need to wear a pair of trousers made of cloth such thin and fine, at least for the weather’s sake there wasn’t. It was nothing rare to see the figure of a girl’s panties through her trousers, or skirt, or whatsoever, unless she wore a thong whose back strap could be totally absorbed in her butt… or no underwear at all. But you knew you were lucky enough when even the color could be seen, the natural white color of cotton, let alone the black-spots pattern, especially when the girl was so fine like the one that I was mesmerized by at this very moment.

[Rogue]

Chapter Five

She put her bag in the right place, walked back to her seat then sat down. Her butt wasn’t plump, but still fleshy enough to complete a perfect curve along the full length of her body. ‘A perfect match for her slender body’ I sighed in my heart.

The exam began almost as soon as she sat down, but I still had a hard time drawing my attention back where it should be. My eyes still seemed glued at the girl sitting right in front of me, her hair, her neck, her shoulders and the bra straps… I couldn’t bungle this exam, however, otherwise I wouldn’t mind leaving the paper intact and blank, just sitting there watching her for three hours. So I tried my best to calm myself down, but little effect was made until my nose caught a thread of very pleasant smell, a smell that I would never forget. It tranquilized my heart which had been thumping so hard, bringing my mind back in peace so I could finally begin to work on those questions.

It was the scent from Leigh, I knew and I was sure about it because there wasn’t any other girl sitting nearby. The scent grew stronger and stronger as the exam proceeded. It flowed relentlessly into my nostrils and invigorated my body as a whole. I was very grateful to Leigh at the moment for giving me such a fine present and I didn’t know what I should give her back to thank her. I really had nothing to give back though, not at this time and place at least.

She finished the exam about twenty minutes ahead of the buzzer, so she handed in the paper then left. I had also finished it at the moment, but I was in no hurry to leave… I just sat there looking at the empty seat. I longed to move and sit on her seat, to feel the body temperature she left on the chair, but I knew the teacher wouldn’t allow so. So I remained still, except that I laid my head onto the desk and extended my nose as farthest forward as it could possibly reach, sniffing carefully at the last remnant of her scent.

There would be a week or so before the result was released, and I still remembered that day when our teacher, Ms. Watson handed Leigh the ticket to the next round, during a break in the morning. But where was mine? I was convinced that I was superior to her in this subject, but there was only one ticket in Ms. Watson’s hand and she gave it to Leigh… I was direly depressed for the rest of the morning and the noon, and I couldn’t eat nothing for lunch, for me that was the first time of lunch-skipping which would later become a habit of mine during college years. I just didn’t feel like eating anything when I was not in the right mood.

I encountered Ms. Watson in the corridor when I was on my way back to the classroom. I still said hello or something trying to pretend I didn’t care at all, but Ms. Watson seemed to have more to say. She stopped me and asked me if I had received my ticket to the next round of exam. I instantly remembered the tiny card in orange color, the one that she handed to Leigh in the morning that day… She didn’t want to apologize but I could feel the unsounded sorry in her voice. She was just a person with a hard mouth but a soft heart. She left my card somewhere in her office so she forgot to give it to me in the morning, then she found it earlier this noon and she immediately came to the classroom, but I was absent so she handed it to a friend of mine asking him to give it to me later. And it turned out that Leigh and I were the only two students from our class that qualified for the next round.

[Rogue]

Chapter Six

So the crush began and would last all the way up to my second year out of college, when the crush on Leigh was thoroughly replaced by the obsession with Scarlett, my forever goddess…

There are theories claiming that our noses are sharper tools than our eyes in recognizing the opposite sex, but it depends on whether it is a regular relationship, or a platonic one. I have no idea how my goddess smells but I still love her anyway and she’s kinda like a role model to me. But it is a completely different story when it comes to the regular forms of relationships that are commonly seen in the real life. The scent of a female is like nothing else in your life, and it couldn’t be replaced by even the finest perfume. It’s like you can see the pictures and videos of a movie star who’s phenomenally gorgeous (like my goddess Scarlett), and you can also hear her voice, but the visual/audio pleasure would never take the place of what you get from your nose, at least for most people it wouldn’t. Only the scent can make you feel the realism of your relationship, when even her body can be simulated with a stack of cotton or a soft pillow, or most times, your hands…

Luckily enough, the position of my seat was rather close to hers in the classroom and she had to pass by my seat to leave the classroom or come back to her seat, so every time she passed by I would take a deep breath to capture as much of her scent as my lungs could possibly afford to hold, but oddly enough it never ever smelled the same as it did on that day.

Even during classes I usually had a hard time not looking at her, and it was fair to say that I spent more time looking at her than the books and the blackboard combined. I was damn good at physics at the time, and also very good at math and English classes because I was interested in those subjects more than others. Interest was the best teacher, but Leigh had become my primary subject to study for the next several months. I even regretted that I didn’t learn to appreciate her in our first high school year or the second, and I wouldn’t even care how much it would’ve impaired my school work.

And as my study of Leigh progressed, I began to find more and more affinities and similarities with her, our walking manners, our voices etc… And there was no imitation or pretense going on there, just like, everything came the way it was so naturally and intrinsically. And we even began to look similar, in some way. Or maybe we had always looked similar but I didn’t notice it before, nor did anyone. Our eyes and brows, our noses and mouths, and even the outlines of our faces… it looked as if the hair was the only thing that could differentiate our heads. If we stood together and someone said we were brother and sister without revealing our different family names, then no one would have any doubt about it. Could she really be my sister? There were too many evidences supporting and postulating this bold assumption, yet I didn’t think that way strongly, nor did I want to.

[Rogue]

Chapter Seven

This assimilation approach that was taking place between Leigh and me also started to draw attention from teachers, maybe Ms. Watson most of all. She began to endorse me generously, more than I would’ve ever expected, especially when there were only Leigh and me and few other people standing by, like when we were on duty cleaning the classroom. I was flushed every time she gave me a eulogy that I knew I didn’t deserve, right in front of my dream girl, and I felt grateful… Ms. Watson didn’t really mean to adore me, of course. She did so to polish my image in Leigh’s mind, and to increase Leigh’s interest in me.

But Leigh was quite indifferent… did she already have a boyfriend or something? Neither Ms. Watson nor I had an answer to that question, but we assumed that she didn’t, based on nothing but pure intuition. Either way, it was apparent that she didn’t have no interest in me and I knew that the best possible option for me was to forget about her, to wean myself off the crush which had even gone to an obsessive level. But I just couldn’t, my eyesight still followed her wherever she went, in the corridor or the classroom, or anywhere on the campus. She might already have a boyfriend, a 6’5 hunky guy who would blow all my teeth out my fucking mouth for stalking his girlfriend, but there was no fear that could match the imminent departure from her, the possibility of never seeing her again. I was making use of every single second to look at her, to enhance her image in my mind over and over again.

I was also aware that I might be acting a bit too excessively, and so obviously that even students from other classes began to notice it, like that guy named Chuck, a former classmate of mine from junior middle school, and he was also one of my best friends back then.

He approached me one day to have a talk with me, and he looked serious. We were used to joking with each other while we were in junior middle school but we were all honest persons who would never lie to any friends.

“Rogue, I gotta have a talk with you, bro.” Chuck said to me, his voice couldn’t have sounded more serious.

“Hey bud, what’s up?”

“OK bro, I know what I’m gonna say may upset you but I’m being brutally honest… I heard that you had a crush on that bitch, Leigh, and I’m seriously suggesting you quit it before bitch ruins your life.”

“Why?” I felt a bit annoyed by the way he referred to Leigh. ‘How dare you call her a bitch?’ I thought, but I didn’t say so. I quelled the sudden rage and managed to stay calm, “I mean, why did you call her bitch?” I said with a wan smile.

“You don’t know her probably, but I know. Bitch attended the same primary school as me, and we were classmates there so I probably know her better than you do, I think.” Chuck paused a moment, cleared his throat and continued, “She was such a saucy tart even as a little child, bro, a sybaritic slut just like her shag mom…”

“C’mon bro, you know her mom?” I asked him. I just wanted to know more about Leigh but I didn’t want to hear any more insults from his mouth against the girl I loved, mono-laterally loved.

“Well, there were rumors that she wasn’t biologically her dad’s daughter. Her mom and another man jointly made her dad a cuckold…”

I didn’t want to believe anything he said, not a single thing, but I knew he didn’t lie to me. He never lied to me or any friend of ours. The point Chuck didn’t seem to know was that I also wanted to rid myself of it, but just couldn’t. She might be a bad girl but I still loved her regardless.

[Leetonidas]

:cry beautiful man just beautiful

[m>s]

you need to let go of stuff that's like 10 years old dude

[Rogue]

i got over it a long time ago bro. I don't like or hate that bitch, I just don't give a shit about her anymore. instead, I've been obsessed with random celebrities (mostly Halle Berry before, and my goddess Johansson nowadays) since my sophomore year of college or something.

I just happened to talk with a classmate of mine in the graduate school last week, dude's name is Fernando (:lol) and we talked about our college years, and guess what? A college classmate of his (Jenkins), who was also his best friend through college years, was a classmate of mine in primary school. I'd only met Jenkins once or twice since our graduation from primary school though, he was barely a friend of mine, but he's been in contact with Fernando up to this day (via chinks' version of facebook or something).

Fernando told me about a previous relationship that Jenkins had from his 3rd year of highschool until his junior year in college. Jenkins studied at a local college while his girlfriend (Leigh) went to a city (in south China) 500+ miles away from our hometown, to study in a college that was a top5 in China, better than any college in our city. So Jenkins could only maintain his relationship with Leigh by cellphone talking/texting and internet chatting, from the start of college up until his junior year when the relationship ended. Jenkins has yet to get off from it though. He was badly hurt by that girl, who left him for a rich dude who was a native in that South China city, yet Jenkins is still missing that girl obviously...

And guess what? That bitch Leigh, Jenkins's girlfriend for more than 1000+ days (dude counted everyday he was in relationship with that bitch, but I can't remember the exact figure, I've only learned some vague updates about Jenkins from my current classmate Fernando), was just that same highschool girl whom I mentioned many times, that I had a long-time crush on during high school time :lmao a fact that I never knew until last week, when Fernando told me about it. Is it called coincidence?

life itself is a story, in someway. Irony is I probably know even more about Leigh than her former boyfriend Jenkins does, tbh. I know she's dishonest, sybaritic, evil-minded... she even cheated a teacher once, if I remember correct, but the teacher was kind enough and Leigh was good enough at school work so the teacher let her get away with it. I was obsessed with her at one time but it didn't mean I was seriously willing to have a relationship with her or anything. Just like how I feel about my goddess these days, though I know it's a horrible comparison because my goddess is a lightyear ahead of that bitch named Leigh. I liked her but I knew she was a "bad girl" (just like my goddess who smokes weed and has shitty tattoos), whom neither my parents nor my own consciousness would ever allow myself to get married to.

Leigh was a bad girl, I should've told it to Jenkins when I met Jenkins upon graduation from highschool (which was like the 2nd time I met him since graduation from primary school, and the last time I met him), but the was no way I could know that Leigh was his girlfriend at that time. He mentioned Leigh while we were talking, but I didn't think about it strongly, I thought it was just some random name he knew about...

And another fact that I've yet to figure out how to tell him is that... while Jenkins was tele-dating his girlfriend Leigh, that bitch Leigh was dating someone else, another graduate from our highschool (that Leigh and I attended). I knew that from a social networking website, a fact that I didn't totally believe until I verified it myself in my sophomore year, in May, when I saw Leigh and another dude riding bikes together (my home and Leigh's were located close, both near our highschool, and probably that dude's home too, so it was no surprise that I met with them). I recognized Leigh at first sight, and also that dude who referred to Leigh as his girlfriend on his facebook (china's version, of course) page, and Leigh saw me too... but none of us talked, of course, pretending as if we never knew each other. I had no idea if that dude knew me, but it didn't matter, because he would also learn a harsh lesson himself from that scarlet woman, that inglorious fucking tart named Leigh.

I'm just hoping that my novel will help my friend Jenkins get completely out of the haunt of that bitch, and get his life back on track.

-Rogue (Mark Celibate)

[symple19]

I like you Rogue, but your writing is awful

[Rogue]

I like you Rogue, but your writing is awful
I know I still have a lot of work to do to hone my writing skills, still a long way to go before I could become an established writer like my friend Culburn. Bro, thanks for your honesty and I'd really appreciate it if you could give me some actual advice about how/where I can improve, thanks :toast.

[Rogue]

Chapter Eight

Chuck’s words echoed around my years for quite a while. I knew what he said was genuine and true, and it reminded me of another thing that happened in the first semester of our third high school year, the last year in high school… Leigh cheated our math teacher. “Cheat” might be too strong a word to use here since it was nothing serious, and even the teacher didn’t issue no further punishment except a short lecture. The teacher was a real fan-favorite for our class, because she was very affable and easy-going, but she could be very serious when it came to the education of morality. She was a math teacher yet she taught us more than just calculation and geometry.

It was a brief in-class test, very informal, and the questions were extraordinarily hard that day. So several students didn’t hand in their papers, and surely the teacher noticed the discrepancy in the number of papers compared to other days, given how smart she was. The teacher was slightly annoyed, supposedly, yet she was still kind enough to give those students a second chance, to admit their mistakes. Eleven students stood up and admitted their mistakes, when the actual difference was twelve. The teacher asked the remaining one to stand up as the other eleven did, she called three or four times but there was still no response. And she was then really enraged, which was the only time I had seen her getting so infuriated in all three years of high school.

But the teacher had her own way to find out the little criminal, she was determined to find it out even at the expense of class time… She started checking the papers one by one, ordering each of us to also stand up as we heard our name, so when she was done reading these names, the one remaining seated would be the cheater and would be busted. It was such a wonderful plan, and the cheater knew that there would be no chance to escape from it, so the cheater also stood up before the teacher started counting those papers.

And surely enough, the cheater was Leigh, and I thought I would’ve probably never remembered that event at all had it been someone else. She was a dishonest person, that was what I learned from that case, yet I still loved her somehow. Girls loved bad guys and it probably also made sense the other way around. ‘But Rogue, would you marry her?’ I kept asking myself, ‘would you mind being made a cuckold someday if she became your wife?’

There were always some questions that I never wanted to think about, like ‘how would it feel after I die?’, because there was no point in thinking about such questions when it was still so far away from coming true, and the questions concerning Leigh were pretty much the same. I feared being cheated on by Leigh, or someone else who would became my wife in the future, I fear being cuckolded just as much as I feared death, if not more. Meanwhile such things were also too far away from me. I didn’t need to think about the end of life at the moment when my life hadn’t really started yet, or to worry about the possibility of being made a cuckold by Leigh when she was not yet even a friend of mine, to begin with.

When my obsession with Scarlett first began, I felt I had wasted the past ten years of my life. I could’ve started watching her films from Lost in Translation on, or even the 1999 film The Horse Whisperer, or even earlier like when Manny & Lo was released in the year 1996. She was always such a beautiful girl, even as a child she was so lovely and cute, but I didn’t even know about her until last year or something when she was already approach 30. And it was a similar feeling that hovered around my head during that time, when our high school time had no more than half a year left. What if I had recognized her beauty the first time I saw her? There would probably still be no chance for me to make friend with her, let along making her my girlfriend, but I would’ve had some sort of eye-candy to please myself through the three years, at the very least. The truth is that we all have beautiful things, people and things surrounding us in our lives, but we would never recognize them until they’re gone, or nearly gone.

[Rogue]

Part Two – Graduation

Chapter Nine

Beautiful things always end quickly. The classes were mostly boring, especially in the third year of high school when there was nothing new to be learned, just the same old, same old stuffs being reiterated over and over again. And it was very hard to stay focused all the time under the mental intensity about the upcoming exams, the so-called college entrance exams, especially when I was constantly distracted by something else...

Leigh was the person I thought of most during that period of time. Schoolwork was more important than anything for a student who was about to undertake the college entrance exams, I knew it, but I still found it hard to keep myself from thinking of her, just as hard as moving my eyes away from her during classes. While other students were studying what the teachers taught them, preparing themselves for the upcoming exams as good as they could, Leigh was the only thing I could be studying… her hair, her pinkish camisole under the white T-shirt, her butt and legs all the way down to the navy blue New Balance shoes. I wanted to remember everything that there was to be seen, every detail about this girl.

Although I knew it was a bit childish and even delusional, I still couldn’t help but imagine my future, our future… Leigh and I were married and had some kids together, and we were both very successful in our careers and we came back here to see our high school teachers one day, the whole family of ours… the familiar campus and classrooms, our teachers still working here, still enthusiastic about their sacred jobs as they always were, despite more wrinkles on their faces and more paleness in the hair. Leigh and I would tell our kids about the glorious history and prestigious status of this school, our alma-mater, and how proud we felt while we were studying here. We ambled around the school yard leisurely and aimlessly, her hand held in mine, her head tilting towards my side, like two young lovers. We would feel young again, rejuvenated. We would sit in our old classroom, dressed in our school suits which had been well kept and still looked good as new, only difference was that we were sitting together now, rather than a few seats apart. Teacher was standing there on the stage teaching the class, all the students listening carefully. And Leigh was also taking notes, deftly running the pen between her fingers which were so nice and slender.

“We’re guests today, honey. Teacher invited us to listen to her class. Just listen, honey, don’t need to take any notes.” I whispered to her.

Yet she was still looking straight forward, as though she didn’t hear me at all, or was she just deliberately ignoring me? “Leigh, honey… Hey...” I called her again.

“Rogue…” Here was a response, the voice sounded different from Leigh’s and it sounded much older. Was it how she would sound like in ten or twenty years? But just a few seconds later I realized it wasn’t from Leigh because I didn’t see no movement of her mouth. “Rogue…” that voice again. “You wanna try answering this question, Rogue?”

It was the teacher’s voice, I suddenly realized, and it instantly wakened me up from the reverie. I had no idea what “question” it was, but I still “tried” answering it. I was such an established student that I always had something to say even when I didn’t know shit about what the teacher asked.

The classes were boring and schoolwork was tedious and tiring, but thankfully I studied hard enough the previous two years so my fundamentals were good enough for me to remain at a similar level as Leigh even without being focused on schoolwork for the last a few months. All I needed to do was stay at that level, instead of working hard like a dog just to challenge the top tier, or to make a run for the very best schools of this country that neither Leigh nor I had any realistic chance to get admitted into. I just wanted to go wherever she went, because I believed going to the same college as her would sort of keep my hope alive at least.

Meanwhile, I was also prepared for the worst… Leigh turned out to be just a passer by in my life, an ephemeral crush in my memory. She would went to a different college than where I went, maybe even a different city, and we would probably never meet again in our lifetime after we graduated from high school. Maybe I would meet someone else whom I would fall in love with, and Leigh too, maybe she already had fallen in love with someone… I wished I had noticed that girl earlier, had recognized her beauty when I first saw her so that I would have enough time to thoroughly study her, to appreciate her, and I would’ve possibly become her sweetheart by our second year in high school before anyone else could. But what already happened could never be reversed, and I had to live through last several months of high school life, with nothing accompanying me but oblivion and regret.

[Rogue]

Chapter Ten

So here came the exams, the college entrance exams. The exams would last for two days, which would probably be the most important two days for every high school graduate in their students’ eras, if not their entire lifetimes, June sixth and seventh that year. Summer hadn’t come in full power yet so the weather was still adorably pleasant compared to the hot humid days in July and August.

I still remembered that day, the day before the exams. We were asked to come to school to meet the teachers for the last time before the exams, which in my opinion was more like the last motivation before a match. The classroom was like a locker room, and the teachers were like our coaches. Students were poised to dominate the exams just as graduates of our school always did the many years before, to carry on our school’s glory and to win themselves admissions to the best schools in this country. But I couldn’t care less about the exams. I just wanted to score as much as Leigh did, no more and no less. That was the only thing I still cared about concerning the exams and the only reason, or the only motive for me to even participate in it, even if I couldn’t have such luck to end up attending the same college she went to. I would just fight for glory, in some way, for my own glory, maybe also a chance to impress her and to create a possibility of making her my girlfriend, even the slimmest possibility.

The school where I was to take the exams was not too far away from my home, just 20-25 minutes of walk at most, so I did go there on foot. Maybe it was common for all participants of the exams or maybe it was just me, I didn’t sleep very well the night before. But when I woke up in the morning I didn’t feel sleepy or tired, not at all. I was slightly nervous and agitated, but not as much as the excitement I felt. I had total confidence in my abilities, confidence from the simulation exams that we had in the one or two months prior, the exams where I always ended up ranking top ten in our class, mostly eighth or ninth, always within one or two spots of Leigh’s. I was convinced that my scored would be very close to Leigh’s, give or take no more than 10 points if not the exact same figure. I just wanted to assimilate myself to her, even imitate her in some way. I saw her dressed in white trousers the day before the exams, the trousers that were long enough to almost cover up the N’s on her shoes. So I also wore a pair of white trousers on the exam days, both days, though I had never worn any white trousers or pants since my fourth grade. And it was fair to say I would’ve also bought a pair of NB shoes to wear on the exam days, if I knew where to buy them.

Two days were a short time really, and it ended before I knew where and when it started. ‘So we paid three years of efforts just for these two days, for a pale admission to a college?’ I kept asking myself that question, question that no one could give a clear answer to, not even our teachers. Just do what you were told to do, that was probably the most common ideology of education in our time, in our country, and even the most prestigious high school of our city was no exception.

We were required to come back to school after the exams were done. The teachers would give us the questions and their answers of the exams we had just taken so that we would have a general idea how we had done, and give us guidance about how to apply for the colleges. It was nearly 6pm or something when I got home from the last exam and we were asked to arrive at school before 7. I was lucky enough that my home was rather close to school so I had the luxury to have dinner, and to even get my clothes changed, unlike the majority of my school mates who had to go to school straight away even without dinner. It was already past 6:30 when I was done eating dinner so I also had to set off on my way to school, dressed in my old school suit that looked clean as new.

[Rogue]

Chapter Eleven

The classroom was crowded, full of laughter and loud conversations, and students who were so excited, except me, Rogue Smith who was sitting in my seat silently looking down at the surface of the desk mindlessly. I knew why the other students were so excited though, excited and jubilant… the exams were done and they were about to start a new era of life - college life. They were going to experience things they had craved for so long. I didn’t feel no excitement, but depression instead, because the time I could see Leigh had really begun to count down, maybe four days, five days, or six days at most. I felt my life was also trickling away just as time did.

“Rogue… what’s wrong?” T-Mac asked me. T-Mac was my best friend through high school years and “T-Mac” was his nickname, obviously, and this nickname was so strong and popular I couldn’t even remember his real name. I didn’t have no nickname, however, because the name “Rogue” itself sounded similar enough to a nickname.

“Nothing, bud, I’m fine.” I responded. I had no idea how much had T-Mac known about my crush on Leigh. He must have known something just like most of our classmates did, but not too much. He was always like ‘Hey Rogue, you appear so strange today.’ He might have noticed that I was in love in someone, or obsessed with someone, but he just had little idea whom my crush was. And I would always pretend cool, trying to deny the connection between my peculiar behavior and my crush on any girl.

The exams’ answers were supposed to arrive around eight pm but there was a delay due to traffic jam, so we had to wait until 9:30 or something. Students couldn’t wait to check the answers… some looked delighted and even more excited, while others depressed and desolated. But I didn’t even look like those pieces of paper, not at all… because my eyes were too busy studying Leigh, her blue deep-necked T-shirt, her short jeans that barely reached her knees, leaving her white supple shanks out, and the same old pair of navy blue NB shoes that I would never forget.

I longed to kneel down right there behind her, kissing her shanks, taking off her shoes then sniffing voraciously at the inside of them. I wanted to know the smell of all parts of her body, her hairy armpits, her vagee-gee, and even her shit. Yet I could never know those smells, not even in my dreams.

Students left school quickly yet orderly, and when I arrived home the clock was already past 10pm. I still had no intention to check the answers, because I just didn’t give a shit, just sitting there in the sofa gap, staring at the TV set which was not even on… staring at the black dead screen of the TV, thinking about the same person and questions that I had always thought about.

Not too long after I got home, there suddenly arrived a phone call… ‘Who could it be?’ I asked myself though I could 85%-90% assure who it was… ‘At such a time, it must be from a classmate’ I thought, and I had only given the number of our home phone to just a few classmates of mine, but I never asked for their phone numbers. Most students didn’t have cell phones at that time, and as such an old-school student as I was, I didn’t have one surely, so I only gave them the number of our home phone.

My heart was thumping fast, sweat wetting my palms… I half wanted to pick the phone to hear that soft voice, and half feared it because I was afraid to hear someone else’s voice, some voice that was different from Leigh’s. I was numbed like frozen, I couldn’t even move a muscle at the moment, couldn’t even move my eyeballs.

So my dad picked up the phone, but there was no response from the other end of the phone. “Hello… hey, who’s that? Hello…” Dad called quite a few times but still no response, so he hanged up the phone.

“Who’s that?” I asked, seemed like my mouth was instantly thawed as soon as the call was ended.

“Who knows?” Dad answered my question with yet another question, coldly and impatiently.

“What kind of voice was it like?” I hesitated for a moment and continued to ask, “Was it a guy, or a girl, and how old?”

“A female voice that just said one ‘hello’ but nothing else, tentative and frail…”

Dad sounded slightly irritated, even enraged. He must have suspected that this was my “girlfriend”, and that I had been in relationship with her for quite a while in high school. Obviously dad didn’t quite fancy the idea of me dating a girl at such an early age, and he probably thought me as someone similar to what he was in his youth, but I was different than what he thought of me as. Yet I didn’t want to explain… It could be Leigh or someone else, but it didn’t really matter to me now, not at all.

The girl, whoever she was, might feel a bit afraid and upset that the voice wasn’t mine, and she must’ve felt being lied to… She must be thinking that I intentionally gave her a false number, that I was maliciously fooling her around. I didn’t lie, I never lied, yet I didn’t want to explain it either. It didn’t matter how many people began to hate me or dislike me after this day, because even myself began to hate myself, for being such a wimp, such a coward… I could’ve acted swiftly and picked up the phone before dad could, and I would probably have begun a romantic relationship with Leigh from there on. I would’ve never become a celibate if I hadn’t been such a wimp just now. Maybe the girl, whether it was Leigh or not, should’ve made another call, she should’ve factored in the possible network glitch, even though in this case it wasn’t, but she refused to give me a second chance. I didn’t hate anyone though, not my dad nor Leigh… I was all my fault and I had no one to hate but my wimpy self.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twelve

I didn’t sleep well that night, if not staying up all night, thinking about the phone call as well as everything, my past, my future and… of course, Leigh. How was she feeling now? Did she also have a hard time falling asleep? What would she have said if I picked up the phone? The night was like the longest one I’d ever known by that time, but certainly not the longest of those I was going to experience in the one or two years to come…

I woke up early next morning, or I just finally decided to stop pretending to be sleeping. I felt sleepy though, tired and exhausted. There was no activity on our high school schedule that day, because there was a counsel meeting taking place in a local university that day. It was like, every student was supposed to go there, asking for advice concerning their choices of college, and I guessed that was the exact reason why our high school didn’t arrange no activity that day.

I didn’t want to go though. I felt tired and I just wanna rest at home, even if not sleeping, sitting there in my place pondering the future proposal of Leigh and me, which seemed to be more and more futile. I didn’t want to go there for the counsel meeting because I didn’t give a shit which college to attend. Shit wouldn’t make no difference to me if without Leigh. But my mom insisted and I didn’t have no solid reason to rebuff her so I finally relented.

We went to the college and the campus was crowded like a market, students and parents, people everywhere asking questions to the counselors, talking to each other or not talking. It was more like an exposition… along the shadowy narrow road near the square pond you could see the logos and brands of various colleges on both sides, and most of those colleges were well famed in our country. But I couldn’t pay less attention to the schools. In fact, the only motive that drove me to come here was the possibility of meeting Leigh. ‘She’s probably coming here too.’ I thought.

I looked around tirelessly hoping to see that familiar beautiful face, but couldn’t find any face I was familiar with, not even any other classmate, or any former school mate from junior middle or primary school, until that moment when I heard my mom calling my name, “Rogue… Hey look, isn’t that your primary school mate?” She pointed towards one side of the road, near the entrance of the school’s library. I saw that primary school classmate, with his parents standing by, and he saw me almost simultaneously as I saw him.

His name was Jenkins, teacher’s fair haired boy throughout our primary school years. It was like when there was an award or something it always went to him, or was shared by him and someone else, and it inevitably made other classmates envy him. There was no evil mind among kids so it was nothing serious, but it still made us uncomfortable. Although we generally acted kind towards him, none of us regarded him as a real friend or anything, and I didn’t quite like that guy, to be honest. He was only about 5’6 tall, in contrast to his big ego, wearing a high-collared white shirt that day, his hair glossy in the sunshine.

We rarely talked to each other even when we were classmates in primary school. We both graduated atop our class and he also went to a top-tier middle school in our city, and I had never met him again ever since, until this day. It might be a bit strange but I did feel like talking to him at the moment, and it was hard to not have a casual talk when two primary school classmates, albeit not friends, happened to meet for the first time in six years.

I walked to his side, my mom following me. “Hi Jenkins, bro, what’s up?” I said to him, trying to sound as delighted as I could pretend to be, putting up as much smile on my face as I could afford.

“Rogue, bro, so glad to see you again, I really miss you.” Jenkins responded, so calmly and evenly it was hard to believe that he was really glad to meet me there. But that was still more than I expected, he was already being more amicable than I’d never known he was.

“Bro, you look so um… depressed, what’s going on?” I said. I asked him why he was so depressed, despite that I was probably even more depressed inside my heart. He might have done poorly in the exams, I thought, but the exams were the least I wanted to be concerned about at the moment.

“I bungled the exams…” Jenkins responded, his voice remorseful and sad, “And I’m prepared to go to a second-tier college here, in our hometown… I ain’t going outside our city.”

“Nor am I… Your parents love you, no matter what, and there ain’t no university that delivers such benefit as living with your parents through college years…” I tried to console him but in the end it sounded more like a self-consolation. ‘At least my parents still love me, they always love me’ I thought.

I also decided to “stay around here in my old hometown” at the moment, regardless of where Leigh would go. And I kind of had found an affinity with Jenkins all of sudden. We were both spoiled kids in some way, and we both seemed to have been hurt by something, him by the exams he did bad in, and me… by Leigh’s coldness and inactivity, dad’s misunderstanding or something else? And at that moment there was no way in hell I could know that there would turn out to be further intersections between my life and Jenkins’s…

“Hey bro,” Jenkins said again, “forgot to ask you…” He paused for a moment then continued, “Do you know Leigh? She’s from your high school, do you know her?”

‘Do I know her? Of course I do, and more than just know her…’ I thought to myself. But how did he know her? That was the question I wanted to ask, and I did ask. “How and, where did you know her?” I asked him, without answering his previous question.

Jenkins didn’t respond, just standing there blithely and silently, thinking about something or thinking about nothing… finally my mom broke the silence. She was talking with Jenkins’s parents but still heard the talk between Jenkins and me.

“He must’ve known her from Sunday school or something, not everyone is so lazy as you’re, son. They attend Sunday schools, which’s nothing uncommon.” Mom said.

Jenkins nodded slightly but didn’t say anything, as if he was trying to disguise any stronger association with Leigh… “So, do you know her?” He asked me again.

“I ah… no, I don’t.” I lied.

Why was he asking about Leigh? Was it possible that he had heard rumors about my crush on Leigh, and he was intentionally trolling me? I had no idea whether he was trolling or genuine, but he sounded serious enough which I could feel.

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirteen

There were similar counsel meetings at our high school the next two to three days, so I went to school each day, but definitely not for counseling. To my chagrin, however, Leigh was nowhere to be found. Maybe she had already set up her mind to go to the college she desired, the one I had no idea which it was at that time.

Then it finally came the day when we were asked to file our official applications for college, and I knew it was probably the last time I could see Leigh in my high school era, and maybe my entire lifetime as well… I didn’t even notice what she wore on her feet that day, maybe that same pair of navy blue NB’s or maybe something else, because I was kind of transfixed by her exquisiteness above, her thick dark hair tufted hanging down her neck, her white tennis shirt through which her white camisole could barely be seen, and her butt looked so nice and touchable under her short black pleated skirt whose lower brim waggled left and right as she walked.

I didn’t even dare to look at her face, so I just looked down when she turned around, for the fear of her noticing that I was gazing at her… and also for the fear that I would lose control of myself and rush up to her, hugging her tightly and kissing her vehemently. Then probably she would sue me for molestation a bit later, and my life would be ruined.

My life was ruined either way, however. I was legitimately mesmerized by Leigh, and I couldn’t spend even one minute not thinking about her…

Leigh didn’t leave right away after she submitted her application. She stayed in the classroom talking with several friends of hers. I hadn’t submitted mine yet, so I had a reason to stay in the classroom, listening to her voice and laughter, even hoping to sniff a strand of her scent, which was unlikely though, because her scent was spoiled and diluted by those of other girls even if there was anything.

Not just Leigh, all my classmates were chatting with each other vivaciously in the classroom, but I was apparently not in the right mood to join them. I just sat there silently and I felt as if I were an idiot, I probably was an idiot… So finally I decided to submit my application, and to leave.

I walked to the teacher’s desk that Ms. Watson was sitting at, and handed in that piece of paper. She looked up, caught a glimpse of my eyes then quickly looked away. She always had high expectations for me because she thought I was the smartest student in our class. I was always among the top range in math and physics, the two main meters measuring a student’s intelligence, and I was the only one in our class who qualified for the second round in both the math and physics knowledge competitions earlier that year. In her mind, maybe, I was a kid of abundant raw potential, superb intelligence and even good work ethic, but always lacking in a good mentality.

Ms. Watson was disappointed with me, obviously, not just because I only applied for a local college that was one or two levels below the best ones in our country, and also that I had been acting in such a wimpy manner. And yes, I was such a wimp I didn’t even dare to show my affection to the girl that I genuinely loved. Ms. Watson was kind enough, however. Without saying anything but a slight sigh, she showed me Leigh’s application so that I knew which college Leigh had applied for… a remote college, in another city, more than five hundred miles away…

[lefty]

I was expecting some chuck story :cry

[Rogue]

I was expecting some chuck story :cry
Sorry bro but Chuck was just a minor role in this novel :cry Even Jenkins (Leigh's one-time boyfriend) was a supporting role, and "Rogue" was a supporting role too, in some way... It's a story about Leigh after all, about what a scarlet woman she had been and how regretful she felt in the end.

[lefty]

lol I meant cuck

[Rogue]

Chapter Fourteen

I left the classroom without looking back, and I was aware that this could be the last time I saw Leigh in my life time. I knew I had to gradually accept the fact that Leigh and I were just random passer-bys in each other’s life, though there would certainly be a hard time doing this.

I walked out of the building and headed straightly to the gate. Several classmates and friends were playing basketball on the playground, they saw me and greeted me, and invited me to join them. But I didn’t feel like doing it at the moment, not at all, not doing anything but going back home straight away, digging my head in the pillow and beginning to cry… I gave them a smile as my only response then quickly walked away.

It was also my last day as a high school student, a student of the best high school in this city, the school I had been studying in for six years. I felt light-headed, as if had nothing left in me, the pride, the knowledge, the joy I had with my best friends throughout our junior years… everything was gone and buried into the ground, except the memory that would make me feel nothing but grief for years to come.

I stepped out of the school gate, also out of an era. I looked around to catch one last overview of our high school, no, my alma-mater. It was only at this point that I realized how beautiful our school was, a feeling that I always felt when I was in primary school, a feeling that had been missed for six years long. While I was in primary school I never thought I could make it to this school, never even dreamed of it but at the end of day, I did it.

My best friend during primary school time was a dude from a military family, and he was very honest and very kind. Rogue was also such a boy, honest and kind, even a bit tender and delicate. There were so many similarities of personality between him and me so it was no surprise we could be best friends, and we even had the same family name. Only difference was that he was a tough guy, both mentally and physically, like he might suffer a wound on his knee and he wouldn’t cry at all. No wonder he was from a military family. And there was another classmate in primary school, also a friend of mine, who was so lovely and flabby and who was the mascot of our class. Was he still so fat in such a lovely way?

There was a slideshow of my primary school classmates going on in my mind, the good ones and bad, those I liked and those I disliked. Memory was such a strange thing, half real half dream. Six years had passed yet those images were still vivid and clear in my head, as if I had just seen them a couple of days ago, and they had come out of my memory, in to the real world.

And I did see a primary school classmate, in the real world, whom I indeed had seen just a few days ago. It was Jenkins, his shirt still white and clean, and his hair still tidy and glossy. I never admired his look while we were in primary school, but at this point of time I had to admit that he was such a guy whom girls would easily find handsome, even though his look hadn’t changed much from primary school time, nor had his size.

[Rogue]

Chapter Fifteen

Jenkins also saw me as soon as I saw him, or maybe he had seen me quite a while ago when I was pondering the past. He was standing there by his bicycle, staring at the gate of our school… obviously waiting for someone, I thought, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t waiting for me but I still greeted him and even thanked him, pretending as if he was waiting for me.

“Jenkins bro, you waiting for me here… Thanks, how did you know I’m coming to school today?” I said to him, half seriously half jokingly.

“Haha… you’re so welcome, Rogue.” Jenkins responded to me with laughter, and the laughter was genuine and sincere. He looked and sounded rather happy this day, for some reason, seemed he had finally extricated himself from his failure of the exams.

“Bro, you’re laughing, good… Glad to see you laugh again, glad you are glad.” He was glad genuinely, but I was probably in the opposite mood. I felt depressed and frustrated and I would’ve probably killed myself if I had a gun in my pocket at the moment. I didn’t know if I would have such bravery and fortitude to face the fact that I would probably never see Leigh again, never meet her again for the rest of our lifetimes, which was like a permanent loss that was just unbearable, too awful to be borne…

“So, you’re going home?” Jenkins asked me carefully, even considerately, he might have noticed the sadness on my face. Rogue had a shallow face, like I would always wear my real feelings on the face. I was just an honest person, too honest to know how to hide my emotions, and it was still baffling me how I managed to lie to Jenkins the other day, about Leigh.

“Ah… yeah, where else shall I go?” I wanted to spend a day with him, with a friend whom I could confide him, whose shoulders I could cry on. But it was apparent Jenkins was waiting for someone else. ‘I didn’t tell him I would come to school today, so he must be waiting for someone else’ I thought. Maybe he was waiting for his, hmm, girlfriend, because he was dressed so neatly today, his face three or four degrees whiter and cleaner than when I saw him a few days ago, maybe he had brushed his teeth three or four times as well before coming out of home.

“Bro, don’t sound so negative please… and which college do you apply for?” Jenkins asked me.

“That college where we met that day…”

“Solid pick, bro, it might not be the best in this country but you’re such a smart dude and you’ll certainly succeed wherever you are.” Jenkins said that to me in his trade mark calm voice, soft and clear like the music from a violin, and it seemed like he was also saying that to himself. We were in the same boat, in some way, for a moment I had such a feeling that we were brothers born to different moms.

I moved closer to him, driven by some mysterious magnificence that I could hardly define or figure out… close enough for me to extend my arm round his shoulders. I pulled him close to my body, tapping his shoulder softly with one hand, and I could even sniff his smell. Unlike the smells of other guys, I didn’t find this smell repulsive, not at all, and I even felt attracted by one part of it, which didn’t belong to him or any other guy, like a strand of female scent that had been mixed in. Maybe it was just that smell, which drove me close to him, the magnificence that I tried to figure out but couldn’t, the magnificence that I could hardly resist. I wanted to also put the other arm around him, to pull him closer and hug him tighter, and I even felt a sudden impulse to kiss him… but I didn’t. I let go of him just as I let go of everything. I encouraged him too, and thanked him again, and we said goodbye to each other, then I walked home, alone.

[Rogue]

Chapter Sixteen

I went instantly for my bed and the pillow as soon as I arrived home, yet I didn’t cry, I was dry eyed. I picked a book from the bookshelf then began reading it, but found it hard, hard to concentrate, hard to think about anything without Leigh popping up from my memory. I felt that as my high school era was gone, my knowledge was gone too.

I started my computer, thinking that computer games might enable me to forget about Leigh, even for a short while, but it didn’t work either. Even the computer games could remind me of Leigh, one way or another. NBA live 07 was the game I liked best and played most back then, but every time I reached the team selection page and saw the Mavs logo (Mavs made the NBA finals the prior season so they were one default team on that page, the other was Miami Heat), I would think of Leigh, because Leigh was a Mavs fan.

But how did I know that she was a Mavs fan? Well, it was an art class, in which the teacher assigned us the work of designing our T-shirts. We each brought a T-shirt from home… pure colored, no pattern, and the teacher provided us with dyes and everything that we needed to paint on our T-shirts. Leigh draw a Mavs logo on her cloth, and logo was so clear and lucid it looked as if it was printed rather than drawn Obviously it took her considerable time and effort to finish this fine work of art, and only a real Mavs fan would do that.

I played computer games the whole day without no intervention except some short breaks for dinner and toilet, and I felt jaded and exhausted at night. I lied in bed, staring at the ceiling with my motionless eyes. I felt sleepy and tired, yet I couldn’t fall asleep somehow. I felt lonely, and scared of the darkness. I wanted to cry, but not as much as I wanted tears to glue up my eyelids so that I would be forced to sleep, yet my eyes were still dry as my pants. I slid my hands down to that soft spot, touching it and groping it until I felt hard inside my hands. I grabbed the hard part in one hand, the soft bag in the other. I began rubbing against the hard one, roughly and hard like it owned me money, the other hand tapping the sack gently and repeatedly.

I felt intense pressure inside my belly as if it was going to explode… I hadn’t masturbated for about two months prior, the longest drought for me since my first time. I and several best friends (from junior middle school) had a theory that masturbation would bring you back luck in an exam, and the longer you were clear of it the better you would do in the exam. And that was probably one reason, but there was another reason for me… I wanted to save it for someone, save the full load for… well, for Leigh, to be exact. Yet it didn’t come, it never came.

But I was coming… it felt like a flood between my legs and that area of cloth was instantly soaked. I took that shit off, wiped myself clean with the rear half of it. Yet I still felt unsatisfied, so I did it all over again, and again, shedding the remaining load into the shaggy pants. My heart thumped hard and my breath hoarse, like I had run a mile, and I had no intention to stop yet… I did it seven or eight rounds in total, beating and squeezing the tap until it ran completely dry. I felt tired, really tired and exhausted, and relieved, and finally I fell asleep with the mess.

So playing NBA live 07 became a daily ritual for me through that summer. I always used the Mavs in every game, opponents varying from Miami to Spurs, Warriors to Phoenix, and I could always end up winning the game even with the difficulty level set as “superstar”. I had watched NBA games for quite a few years since junior middle school but I had just watched the games before, as an inspector, without supporting any team. But as I played the game day after day, I gradually developed a love for them mavs, them beloved boys in blue. I loved Leigh so I also had to love the team that she loved, down to every player on that team, Dirk, JET, Smokey, Ericka, Stack, and even Devin Harris. But whenever I saw the Mavs logo, it was still that one same person I would think of, time and time again. It was Leigh, of course.

[Rogue]

http://markcelibate.hoxx.com/stranger-in-hometown/

[Flawless]

Pretty good story :toast

[Rogue]

Thanks, bro :toast. you're the first poster to give a positive review for my story since my friend Cully :cry The part of my story I like best so far is the masturbation scene. I'll continue writing it of course and Im just having a short break now, because I'm really feeling depressed at the moment. Leigh literally killed my sexual self and turned me into such a wimp who doesn't even dare to approach any females anymore, yet I don't hate her... She kind of made me a celibate and I'm enjoying my celibate life, and as I said in the story, Leigh was a mav fan and she still is a mav fan I believe, and the common love for them mavs would prevail over everything. The happiest moment in my life was when Dirk lifted that O'Brien trophy in that June of 2011, and I believe that was also her happiest moment in her life :cry.

[m>s]

dude you tried to say that you're not obsessing over this bitch? and then you post that^...10 years later after that bitch ever forgot you even existed and she's still impacting your way of life. time to get over it tbh man up.

[Rogue]

I got over it a long time ago imho. I'm feeling depressed but that's more because of the lack of success in my life (compared to my goddess) rather than anything. When my goddess was 25 she had already been nominated 4 times for Golden Globe, yet at that same age I'm still wasting my time and my parents' money on a useless shitty degree :cry. I wished I had watched my goddess's films in 03, so I would've set up my mind to be a writer, an actor or anything but a retarded physics nerd.

I've never had any interest in any bitches in my real life, except Leigh, like she was my first one and also the last one... I was probably born to be a celibate, I think, and I pretty much enjoy my celibate life now. I'm even kind of grateful to Leigh for helping me complete the final stage to make myself a celibate, so I don't need to work hard like a dog now saving money to buy my house and to get married with a bitch.

In fact I never really wanted to make her my girlfriend or something, I just wanted to be a friend of hers just like a brother and a sister, like my goddess and Chris Evans. Guys married to pretty girls are more prone to being cheated on, so even if I were not a celibate I'd rather marry an average-mediocre looking girl rather than a nice-looking scarlet woman (like Leigh), tbh.

[lefty]

http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/Too+long+didn+t+read.+I+loved+this+gif.+Had+to_e13 f5c_3339187.gif

[m>s]

you're a liar though, you always revert back to this^ after being called out for this: "because I'm really feeling depressed at the moment. Leigh literally killed my sexual self and turned me into such a wimp who doesn't even dare to approach any females anymore"

you're in denial my nigga

[Rogue]

Yup, I have to admit that for a LONG period of time during my college years I felt rather depressed because of Leigh, but I got basically over it in my sophomore year when I started to appreciate the beauties of other females, like Halle Berry. I really learned a lot from Leigh, from the obsession that I once had. The tuition was big but I could still afford it tbh.

It's Jenkins, a classmate of mine in primary school, who's still suffering the impacts that Leigh inflicted on his life. Jenkins was in a relationship with Leigh from their 3rd year in high school, up until their junior year in college imho. They went to different colleges located in different cities so that their "relationship" was only maintained by phone and computer, which was tenuous and miserable. And one thing my friend Jenkins has yet to known is that, while he was in relationship with Leigh during their first 2.5 (maybe less than 2.5, im not sure) years in college, that bitch was actually "dating" another dude basically the same way. Leigh's relationship with that dude began in the summer of high school graduation, so it was basically like, she was in relationship with TWO (or maybe even more) guys simultaneously. for maybe 2 or 3 years because I didn't know how long her relationship with that dude had lasted. But I was sure it lasted for at least one year, because I once saw her and that dude riding bikes together near our highschool during summer vacation between rookie and sophomore years.

I just want to tell my friend Jenkins the true nature of Leigh (or a typical woman), and let him know what a bitch she is, but I couldn't tell him straight away because it would be too heavy and too awful for him to bear. So I decided to write this short novel for him, which I've figured out as probably the best way to help him get over it.

[THEGOAT]

Worst.....thread....ever

[m>s]

This girl ruined and is still ruining your life

[Rogue]

My life was pretty much fucked up for quite a long while but my goddess rescued it tbh. And today is her birthday, Nov. 22 (it's already Nov. 22, Eastern time)

Happy Birthday, Goddess :birthday:

[m>s]

You're stuck in delusional arrested development I wish u the best

[Rogue]

Part Three – College

Chapter Seventeen

It was the longest summer vacation I had ever had as a student. It was indeed the longest, and it felt much longer to me than it actually was. Insomnia became a problem to me that summer, like I could always wake up at midnight and couldn’t fall back asleep again, a problem that would last for five years plus until I got the eventual cure – the genuine affection for my goddess. So when I had a hard time falling asleep, I’d just sit by the desk in the dim light of a lamp, open my album and look at the group photo of our class upon graduation – the only photo where I could see Leigh, and also the only thing reminiscent of my high school memory.

Leigh was standing there, in the second row, second from the right. She was dressed in the school suit just like everyone was, yet she always looked so beautiful whatever she wore. Her hair was well combed, soft and delicate. Her hair was loosely tufted behind, leaving out a free fringe that covered more than half of her forehead. Her eyebrows were thick and bold, just like mine, and her eyes so clear and nice. A light smile cured her mouth upwards, decorated by a shallow dimple on each side near the corner of her mouth. Her lips were fleshy and sensual just like my goddess’s, and also the beyond-age serenity displayed on her cute face.

But her portrait was so small on the photo. I wanted to magnify it, to make it the size of a real face. So I opened the drawer and began rummaging in it, and luckily I found everything I needed, a pencil, an eraser and a stack of paper. It was a tough mission, however, especially for someone who had never received any training of it, even if I only wanted to draw a colorless drawing. I began practicing it regardless, and I had no idea how many pieces of papers and erasers I had wasted, or how many nights I had stayed up doing this.

I felt tired and lightheaded, but the fatigue of my body would always succumb to the strong passion that came all the way up from my heart and the desire to send my work to Leigh someday, with the forlorn hope of impressing her, or even moving her… I knew where her home was, and she would be home for summer vacation so that I would be able to sneak my finest work into her home through the crevice under the door, with my name signed on it, Rogue Smith… Would she think of me when she saw my signed drawing, and would she change her mind on me and give me another chance?

One summer of training was obviously not enough for me to acquire the ability to draw anything that I could be satisfied with, but fortunately I’d still have at least one semester to spend honing my skills, and a good friend of mine would be more than glad to help me in that regard. His name was Terry, also a friend from junior middle school and he was a notorious playboy in our school. Terry was about 6’2 something tall, hunky and slightly fat, with a strong nasal voice and diluted hair, just like the famous England footballer player of the same name. And besides his look, he also had similar personalities as that English Terry, like there were rumors that he had “slept” with a friend’s girlfriend, though most of those rumors were faked, fabricated and spread by Terry himself. Terry and I went to the same college, but in different professions… mine was physics while his was architecture. And just like most architects, Terry also had a remarkable talent for painting, like he could draw a cartoon sketch within five seconds. And Terry would be my best friend through college years, even though he wasn’t someone that I would always hang out with. I never hanged out with anyone, to be exact. I would make some new “friends” in the college but there would be no friendship like what we had during our middle school years, the genuine and pure friendship among Chuck, me, Terry, and all of us “gangstas”.

[Rogue]

Chapter Eighteen

Everybody looked excited in their first day of college life, all my new classmates, from all over the country. They kept talking all the time and I didn’t know if they were just too excited or they were born talkative. A senior student was assigned to our class as a guide, to introduce this college and the life here to us, a new era of life that everyone seemed so excited about, except me.

I just half-mindedly followed my classmates, listening to the “guide” or not listening I wasn’t even sure. All I was thinking about was Leigh, how her life was 500 miles from home, who would take care of her if she fell sick…

There was an informal party that night, a party hosted by our class where everyone would get a chance to make a self-introduction. There was no meeting hall or anything though, just sitting on the ground in the huge square before a canteen. There were twenty or twenty-five students in our class, and the vast majority of us were male students which was quite normal for our profession, which seemed like a bad situation for both sexes. Guys would have to seek girls outside our class and maybe even outside our school to lose their virginities to, while it would be very dangerous for the girls to spend four years among a bundle of sexually hungry guys. It seemed everyone would dislike such a situation, but I didn’t care, maybe I even appreciated it because it would be easier for me to stay focused, not on my schoolwork but my ever-lasting obsession with Leigh. However, it turned out that I could never avoid what was inevitable…

We sat in a circle, and although I tried my best not to pay any attention to the girls sitting right opposite my side, my eyes failed me and betrayed me. I checked all the six or seven girls quickly and found no face that stood out, just average to mediocre looking ones, none of them was nearly as beautiful as Leigh, to be quite honest. But there was still one girl who grabbed my eyes, special from the rest. Her didn’t look too impressive, but not too bad either, and there was still plenty of childishness that could be seen on her face. And I would later know that she was indeed the youngest in our class, about two years younger than the class’s average age. And she mind was probably just as childish as she looked, which was why she would always hold such a dream of having a relationship with… me, until it all went broke and dead in the summer of our graduation from college, in the summer when I didn’t say anything to her at all, not even a goodbye.

Her name was Chelsea, and it almost made me laugh when I first heard her name. Was it irony, or coincidence, that my best friend of college years was named Terry while my biggest admirer in college was named Chelsea? Sometimes even I felt lucky that I hadn’t developed a relationship with Chelsea, otherwise Chelsea would have probably become another victim of Terry’s philandering, knowing that he had such a fetish for sleeping with his friend’s girlfriends. Terry played PF most times when he was playing basketball in high school, given his size and strength, and I usually saw him wearing either a Dirk #41 jersey or a Duncan #21, and it kind of puzzled me whether he was a Mavs fan or a Spurs fan. Spurs fan more likely, I thought, since “sleeping with friends’ girlfriends or even wives” was a widely shared habit among the Spurs, which had even become a norm in their locker room maybe.

But it didn’t mean I would have worried about losing Chelsea as my girlfriend, even if I had made her my girlfriend, because I would have total faith in her. Terry could take her clothes off but could never take her heart away. Chelsea was so innocent and so loyal a girl, which could be seen in her clear eyes. She was only 17yr old, and she looked even younger than that, with her tiny nose and mouth, small and delicate like they had never grown since her sixth birthday, and her supple full cheeks that hugged her lovely face. It was probable that I would’ve fallen in love for her at first sight if I had never known Leigh, had never developed the crush on her, but it found it extremely hard with Leigh already in place.

Yet I managed to smile to Chelsea somehow which was caught by her eyes. Maybe she thought I was interested in her, maybe I indeed liked her at a very basic and very primitive level of my awareness, but I just couldn’t go there where Chelsea was waiting for me to lead my shoulder to her to cry on, because Leigh was always standing there in my way. I could’ve pretended to like Chelsea, flattering her with lies like most guys did with their girlfriends, and I could’ve even played “hit and run” on her… But Rogue was an honest guy, and I thought it would be unfair to her if her boyfriend had another woman in his mind all the time. Chelsea was a good girl and she certainly deserved a real love, a man’s heart that only belonged to herself, which I could never give her. And the emotional attachment between Chelsea and me would only turn out to be a mistake, a horrible yet romantic mistake.

[Rogue]

Chapter Nineteen

“Hi Rogue…” I heard a girl calling my name from behind, a tiny finger nudging my shoulder gently. It was Chelsea, her voice which sounded just like Scarlett’s minus huskiness. She was sitting right behind me, before the class began. “Have you brought your headphone?” She asked.

The headphone was right inside my bag. I always brought it with me so when there weren’t any classes I’d go to a public computer room to listen to some music or watch some movies, stuffs like that. ‘But why’s she asking me if I’ve brought it, not someone else?’ She wanted to borrow it, I thought, and I wouldn’t have no problem lending it to any classmate, but Chelsea… I didn’t want any association with her, not even the tiniest simplest one like a headphone shared. Maybe she had seen it in my schoolbag, or maybe she just wanted to talk to me, to have more intersection of my life and hers besides being in the same class.

“Sorry, I… I haven’t brought it today.” I lied. I couldn’t figure out at the moment if she knew I was lying or if she didn’t know, and it didn’t made any difference to me either way. I lied to her, being dishonest to the girl who had such a genuine affection for me. She probably knew I was lying because she wouldn’t ever approach to talk to me for maybe two years, until junior year or something, but she was attracted to me all the time throughout our college years, wasting four of her best adolescent years on a piece of shit that I was.

Or maybe I was just intentionally snubbing Chelsea, as a revenge for myself, for what Leigh had done on me… Leigh hadn’t actually done anything though, just leaving me out in cold, and I was treating Chelsea pretty much the same way. I suffered considerable grief because of Leigh and now I was inflicting the same grief, even with a vengeance, on another girl who was totally innocent. Did I just hate females… hate the ones who loved me? What a misogynist asshole had I become because of Leigh?

Yet I still couldn’t help but keep thinking of her, thinking of Leigh. I was eager to know what was going on in her life, if she felt happy or not in that southern city 500 miles away from her hometown, as well as anything about her. The thing that I most often did when I was in the public computer room was searching Leigh on Google. I didn’t do it at home because I didn’t want my parents to know my morbid obsession with Leigh. Fortunately there were such things like social networking websites in our time, so that there was some hope that I could find her page on one website or another, like Facebook or something. But unfortunately, Leigh was such a common name, like when you googled it you would get more than one hundred thousand results. I had persistence and patience, checking the results one by one. Sometimes I would add some more details about my Leigh, like the name of our high school, name of our city, our neighborhood etc… and my efforts finally paid off one day, the day when all my dreams about Leigh went dead.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty

It was a cold afternoon, late November in my rookie year. There was no class in the afternoon but one important class at night. The whether was cold and I felt rather tired that day so I decided to spend the afternoon at school after the morning classes were done, rather than go back home then return to school for the night class.

I couldn’t really figure out what to do for this whole after noon, so I just went to a public computer room on the campus as I usually did. There weren’t any interesting news on the internet, just trivial reports and groundless rumors about random NBA players. And yes, the sports boards were what I visited most frequently, because I was such a big sport fan, a big NBA fan, a die-hard Mavs fan to be exact.

There were many transfer rumors going around there, rumors like Jason Kidd coming back to Dallas, and Pau Gasol being traded to LA for trashes etc… I wasn’t interested in those rumors though, not even those about the Mavs. I knew most of them were not credible, and I didn’t really care since there didn’t appear to be any feasible trade that could escalate us to the range of title contention. But the Mavs logo still grabbed my attention, and reminded me of someone… a very significant person in my life.

It was Leigh, of course. Mavs logo was mainly comprised of three colors – blue, white and black, which also seemed to be Leigh’s favorite colors supposedly… her white shirt, the black skirt, and the navy-blue NB running shoes that I could never forget ever. I tried to not think about her but my fingers still found their way to the keyboard where they deftly typed the name “Leigh” in Google’s search engine… So I once again began searching that Leigh, searching my Leigh among the numerous results as I usually did, and like always, I failed to find her page on facebook or any social networking website. But there was a difference this time… There was one item that caught my eyes, and I was pretty sure that was Leigh, that was my Leigh, the same high school name and the exact right year of college entrance. But it wasn’t her page, but someone else’s… it was the page of a guy who was also a graduate from our high school.

At first I thought the Leigh mentioned on his page was probably another Leigh, there might be another Leigh who graduated from our high school that same year since Leigh was such a common name, or I just arbitrarily wished so… But as I read more of his page, I realized I was wrong, childishly wrong. The Leigh he mentioned went to the same college, same southern city that Leigh went to, and he even mentioned the number of our class which was exactly correct… I wanted to stop reading by that moment before some following words appeared in my eyes and embarrassed me to death. I felt humiliated and afraid of reading anymore, but I still continued anyway.

That dude was an elite student in our school, our same grade, and I had even heard of his name when I was a student in high school, where I had known or heard of few students outside my classmates and those my best friends from junior middle school. His name was Conceição, and I didn’t even know if that was his first name or last, nor did he reveal it on his page which just appeared “Conceição’s page”. Conceição was much better than me at schoolwork, which was well reflected and justified by the name of school he went to… It made me feel dwarfed, and it was no wonder that… um… no wonder Leigh had chosen him as her… well, her boyfriend.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty-One

The relationship of Conceição and Leigh didn’t begin while they were in high school though. There was a post on Conceição’s page, written in July that year, in which he asked for Leigh’s phone number… Obviously he didn’t even know her phone number at the time, let along having a relationship with her. But apparently he got her phone number somehow, or he just proposed an appointment to Leigh on the internet which Leigh somehow got to see. That was their first date, I thought, at a shopping mall near our high school…

I felt dejected at the moment and I would’ve probably killed myself right there if I had a gun in my hand, but I didn’t have any gun, or even any sharp knife anywhere I could see. My heart was beating furiously and hard, as sweat quickly wetted my palms. I hated that dude, or maybe just envied him, but not as much as I hated myself… ‘If I had acted more aggressive, and more like a man, I would’ve probably already wrapped up Leigh as my girlfriend before anyone else could have a hand in…’ I thought, and I regretted being such a classless wimp during the last several months of high school time, or during the whole 3 years of high school.

But it was also apparent that he loved Leigh and I had no doubt that he would treat Leigh right, like a goddess maybe, if they got married someday… Dude sounded hysterical and even a bit insane in the post where he was asking for Leigh’s phone number. He must have known her when they were in high school, and seen her from somewhere far away, and he probably also had a long time crush on Leigh just like I did. I could understand his desperation, vicariously, even empathetically, though the results of our crushes turned out to be entirely different…

Leigh became his girlfriend, and according to Conceição’s words in his most recent posts, they exchanged texts via their cell phones all day everyday… Conceição went to a college that was absolutely the best in our country. The college he went to was located in another city but was rather close to our hometown, less than an hour’s drive or something, north to our hometown. But Leigh was more than 500 miles away from home. She was even farther away from her boyfriend than she was from me, which was the only fact that I could use to somewhat console myself, ironically and pathetically.

So the young lovers could only afford few months in a year to spend together, during summer vacation or something, while the vast majority of time their relationship could only be maintained by internet and phone lines. That was miserable, I thought, though not as miserable as I felt for the moment.

Conceição was one year younger than Leigh, so he referred to Leigh as an “elder sister”, which made me want to vomit… Yet I didn’t vomit, I beat the whole thing back down my throat. I wished them the best though, because I didn’t have any reason to hate them more than I should hate myself.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty-Two

Conceição referred to Leigh as a “sister” but which guy would keep exchanging text messages with his sister all the time? It was just an endearment appellation between them, I thought, just like that often used by the in-love male and female protagonists in Louis Cha’s novels. It was just as obvious a lie as a guy inviting a woman to his bedroom and spending a night with her and claiming next morning that nothing had happened.

I felt grievous, and disgusted, and the air seemed even turbid inside the computer room with all windows closed. So I finally decided to leave for some fresh air. I spent nearly the whole afternoon here and I didn’t want to breathe any more such stale air in this place, or I just couldn’t bear to learn any more about the updates of Leigh on Conceição’s page.

It was dim and dark outside, already past 5pm already. I headed straightly to the canteen before the last afternoon class was over so I wouldn’t need to waste too much time waiting for my order. I ordered the most expensive dishes in the canteen, a treachery to my frugal lifestyle, though they were basically tasteless on my tongue.

I finished my dinner quickly and walked out of the canteen, but still felt unsatisfied so I went all the way into another canteen located right on the opposite side of the road… I ate twice as much tonight as I usually ate, and I felt bulk in my stomach, even painful, but not as painful as my heart felt. Indeed, the discomfort of stomach even helped alleviate the pain in my heart, by distracting me from thinking about what I just saw on the computer’s screen earlier in the afternoon.

I went to the classroom which was still half-empty when I arrived. I sat in a seat in the rearmost row, putting out a book that I could pretend to be reading… I could hardly see the slideshow, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t concentrate on the class anyway, when my head was haunted by the memories of Leigh all the time. My hands felt cold like the iron legs of the desk, while my heart might be even colder. I was just sitting there motionlessly as if I were dead… maybe I was dead, in some way.

Leigh was the first girl that I had really love, and probably the last one as well. I was aware that my hope of getting Leigh back in my life was already dead, thoroughly devastated, I knew it just as well I knew everything. Maybe it was time for me to move on, to get my head out of my butt and start paying attention to the girls who loved me and who had been caring about me, like Chelsea… but I just couldn’t. It was just too hard for me to forget about Leigh, despite how hard I tried…

As soon as I arrived home that night, I opened up my closet and put out all those pencil drawings of Leigh, my own works of art that I used to treat as my most valuable possessions, and tore them all up then flushed them down the toilet.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty-Three

I couldn’t fall asleep that night, and the many nights to come, just lying in bed with my eyes closed but being awake all the way until morning the next day. I just couldn’t help but think about Leigh, all the time… how was her life in that southern city, and how far her relationship with Conceição had evolved. Had they kissed, and even fucked? Though I knew I shouldn’t be thinking about her any more, nor did it matter to me any more.

Classroom became the sleeping place for me the next several months, with my forearms being the pillow, not too comfortable but at least I could fall asleep on them. I used to be passionate about Physics, about the art of nature, but now I found it all boring and tiring. The math was too hard and too complex for me when I had been so severely deprived of sleep, and more importantly, I no longer had any interest in it, or anything…

I was convinced that Leigh also chose physics as her major for undergraduate years, and I was right, I confirmed it by myself when I found her page through Conceição’s on that same social networking website. She was also studying physics. I ought to have been delighted with this news, even ecstatic about it, because we were studying the same subject, learning the same courses… but I felt no delight or excitement. Leigh belonged to someone else, now Conceição and probably later to some other guy waiting in the queue, but I would never have any chance again… I had been eliminated.

I longed to be just a friend of hers, with whom she could discuss questions concerning her major, no, our common major, but even that was too far away for me to reach. She was aware of my crush on her during the last several months in high school and, she either didn’t have no interest in me at all or, she once had some interest but then hated me for being such a wimp. Yes, I was a wimp who didn’t even dare to talk to the girl I loved so much, let alone presenting my love to her in straight forward in a bold manner.

Maybe I was just didn’t dare to approach her for the fear of the possibility that she might think of me as a dick or something, or that she was already in relationship with someone at the time. I could think of a million excuses for me being such a wimp during that most important period of my life, which pretty much shaped my future, but I still regretted it. Failure would’ve been painful, but still not as bad as not trying at all.

But why was I still thinking about Leigh all the time? Maybe there was still a strand of hope in the deepest part of my heart, that Leigh might just be a friend of Conceição, a brother-sister friendship just like Conceição described it… I knew I might just be deluding myself, again, but I was genuinely hoping that I wasn’t. I would never believe it, or never want to believe the cruel fact that my dream girl had become someone else’s girlfriend until I actually saw it… And I did see it, and I didn’t wait for too long before that happened.

It was the summer vacation after our rookie year. I hadn’t seen Leigh for roughly a year, yet it felt long to me as my entire lifetime. I saw her and Conceição riding bike together near our high school, our alma mater. I felt as if my heart was ripped into a thousand pieces when I saw them… They stopped at a corner, talking about something that I barely heard. They were talking about a shop or maybe something else opposite our school’s gate. I knew there was one shop selling flight tickets, so maybe they were going there to buy tickets for Leigh… I had no idea if they had seen me. Perhaps Leigh had seen me, but pretended not, while Conceição didn’t seem to know me at all.

Leigh’s hair was longer than last time I saw her, almost a year ago. Her hair was almost as long as her spine now, draping down her head all the way to her waist. And she looked more than one year older, her face two or three degrees darker. Did she feel happy? Probably not, but it was not my business to care about that… it never was.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty-Four

So, my memory of Leigh stopped by that summer. I hadn’t ever visited her page or Conceição’s again, not even once. I longed to start a new life, but it was impossible, because the damage was already done. I once vowed that Leigh would be the only woman in this world that I would ever get married to, and I stuck to that vow even though I had completely cut ties with Leigh mentally.

My mom urged me to not date any girl who had been badly hurt, yet she didn’t it was me who was mentally devastated by a woman, by Leigh. It was like a nightmare that would always prevent you from really loving someone else, a nightmare that you could never wake up from, and a mental damage that there was no cure to.

I was not sure if it was just fear or remorse or something else, but I just found it impossible for me to accept the love from any girl, especially such an innocent girl that Chelsea was. Chelsea loved me, however, unfortunate to herself, and also to me. I just couldn’t accept her love, because it would be unfair for her to have a boyfriend who still lived in the nightmare inflicted by another girl, and the more she loved me the more remorse and guilt I bore.

Chelsea was a shy girl, even a bit introvert which was similar to me. But she was rather bold when it came to love, or she was just too innocent to even know how to hide her feelings, her affection… for me. I knew she loved me and I was sure of it, and so was everyone in our class. She made it so obvious that both of us would feel embarrassed if we somehow sat too close in the classroom even when “too close” was still no less than one or two seats apart, yet I couldn’t criticized her for anything… she loved me and I couldn’t think of no reason why she should hide it, because it was so natural, and so rightful.

So I would be a Model (an elite defensive strategist in the Nazi army during World War II) for the remainder of college time. The offensive movements of Chelsea were strong enough, and there were several times when I almost lost my trench and surrendered, yet my heart of iron would prevail over my natural appetite each and every time. I would remain a free man past our graduation from college, and I had never seen Chelsea again ever since.

I still remembered her every now and then. I felt sorry for her, guilty and remorseful. I had no idea how I managed to be such an insouciant asshole through all four years in college. Even if my heart was made of iron, it would’ve been already melted down by the relentless wave of heat from Chelsea. Yet I remained cold and hardhearted, all the time, no matter how hard Chelsea tried, snubbing her time and time again. I could even imagine her crying in the bed at night, just like I always wanted to do during that summer of graduation from high school but always failed to. I knew exactly how it felt being snubbed by the one you loved…

I had no doubt that she loved me, but… did I love her, at all? Even I didn’t have an answer to that question. Maybe I loved her, or maybe not. I thought I became immune to all females after being hurt so bad by Leigh, but it seemed Chelsea could always hit the softest spot of my heart. She made me hard when I was sleeping in my bed at night, or not sleeping, just lying there pondering every exciting proposal that could possibly come true this year or next, but none of them came true. I imagined how my life would be with Chelsea being that significant other, and I craved it, but I just couldn’t make one single step towards that end. There were many chances, one after another, yet I fled away every time, like the same sorry wimp that I had always been.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty-Five

I remember at the start of our sophomore year, our class appointed a hang out or something like that which every classmate was supposed to attend, like we would have lunch together then spend the whole afternoon having fun. There were many possible activities waiting on the way, like dancing and singing, at places that I had never been. We had classes in the morning but none after so the time would be all ours the rest of the day, and probably night as well.

I still remembered the look of Chelsea that day, in the morning when she was arriving at the classroom. She wore a white shirt, her hair neat and glossy more than ever. Her eyes found me when her legs were still outside the door. We exchanged a glance then both of us looked away quickly, but the smile on her lovely face didn’t go away. I couldn’t help but turn my eyes back to her side, immediately. Her cheeks were a little flushed, and the little pinkish on her face only doubled her magnificence if not tripled.

My heart began to pound fast, and I felt hard down there so instantly I had to sneak my bottom towards the back of the chair as much as I could, and lean my torso slightly forward to form an angle with my thighs in order to avoid being embarrassed by the hard convex that would otherwise obtrude.

I didn’t even dare do look further down, as if the hard tool would grow longer and pierce the cloth then stick out, but I did look down anyway, observing the other half of my beautiful girl below her waist. Her butt wasn’t too big but still filled the tight jeans skirt, which only covered half the length of her thighs. The white fleshy cylinders were so smooth and so touchable, and so tight against each other. I couldn’t help imagining how she felt when inner sides of her thighs rubbed against each other as she walked, and how I would feel with her legs around mine, hugging and rubbing against my bare legs…

It was only the second time I saw her wearing skirt, since the very first day of college, that night when all of our class sat in a circle, like we were camping except that there was no fire in the center. She sat right opposite me that night, her arms and hands resting on her thighs which were wrapped inside her white knee-long skirt. The moonlight was so dim it was hard for me to see her face clearly, yet we still looked at each other tacitly, though there was nothing to be seen but our blurred body figures.

Then it came her turn to stand up and introduce herself, and that was when I first knew her name – Chelsea, so chaste and holy a name it was, a name that fit her so well… It was still dim and dark, but I felt as if there was spotlight on her as I could see her face clearly somehow, for the first time. She looked much younger than the rest of us, not impressively beautiful but still lovely enough, in a childish way, like a pubescent Scarlett Johansson who hadn’t grown into her features yet.

And as she finished her self-introduction and sat back down, I was surprised to see more than I expected, thrilled and transfixed… there was still quite an angle between her legs when her ass hit the ground. She quickly wrapped her skirt back around her thighs, but not before I caught a glimpse of the inside… a white narrow length of cloth running across the area, covering up the valley between her legs. I felt hard in that same area of mine, and even slightly wet, and I was grateful that there were still quite some students waiting to make self-introductions before me, so I would have enough time to calm myself down. I couldn’t bear to look at her anymore, but I could feel that she was staring at me, and she probably knew what I had just seen, what I should have not seen.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eyes, expecting some reasonable angriness on her face… but no, there wasn’t no angriness, but shyness and, the warm smile that I would never forget.

[Flawless]

Thanks, bro :toast. you're the first poster to give a positive review for my story since my friend Cully :cry The part of my story I like best so far is the masturbation scene. I'll continue writing it of course and Im just having a short break now, because I'm really feeling depressed at the moment. Leigh literally killed my sexual self and turned me into such a wimp who doesn't even dare to approach any females anymore, yet I don't hate her... She kind of made me a celibate and I'm enjoying my celibate life, and as I said in the story, Leigh was a mav fan and she still is a mav fan I believe, and the common love for them mavs would prevail over everything. The happiest moment in my life was when Dirk lifted that O'Brien trophy in that June of 2011, and I believe that was also her happiest moment in her life :cry.
No problem bro, its a good read. Your story can only get better with more practice.

[Rogue]

Thanks bro :toast, I'd never be as good as you though, you're flawless

Chapter Twenty-Six

It was the same smile this morning in the classroom, on the same beautiful face that was a bit flushed. The only difference was that the classroom was bright enough, and her skirt was only half the length of the white one she wore on our first meeting, so I could see more of her, and I could see more clearly.

She was moving gingerly wearing the short skirt as if she was on her period, and I wished I had superman’s eyes at the moment so I would be able to check if she really was or not. Maybe it was just because she wasn’t quite used to wearing skirts, especially skirts short like this, knowing it was only the second time I saw her wearing a skirt… which would turned out to be the last time as well.

I tried my best to steady myself but the muscles in my legs were still trembling, and I felt the voltage between my legs was increasing fast. I couldn’t focus on the class surely, yet I couldn’t turn it another sleeping time either, because I would otherwise dream of making love and that would make me come…

‘You’re a good kid, a good student, Rogue, stop thinking about that…’ I said to myself, trying to use my pride of high school to beat down the primitive desire coming up from the animal side, but it didn’t work. I used to be a good student and a good kid, but that time was long gone, and it was the first time I felt being grown, even though I didn’t want to grow up, I never wanted it.

But in the end it was still the memory from high school that finally cooled me down, and for sure it was the memory about, Leigh… ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself again, Rogue, bitch’s just fooling you around, wake up man.’ I tried to pretend as if it was not Chelsea, but Leigh who just walked past my eyesight, trying to convince myself that Chelsea was just yet another scarlet woman like Leigh… but I knew Chelsea wasn’t. She was so innocent, and her soul must be just as pure and clear as her look.

Finally I turned the blade to myself, and it worked… ‘You’re such an asshole, Rogue. You don’t deserve no love from any woman.’ I said to myself. My heartbeat slowed down, and the hardness vanished. I then took a deep breath and the passion was completely gone.

I went back home as soon as the class was over. I turned off my cell phone and didn’t turn it on until the next day… I was such an escapist, and that kind of became a norm of my life for the next three years or something. Maybe I should’ve told her straight that I didn’t love her, not at all, or just that I couldn’t accept her love or whatsoever. Yet I was a wimp, I didn’t even dare to have a talk with her. I feared that she would burst into tears right in front of me, which would break my heart and probably change my mind. I feared that I would put myself into such a situation where I couldn’t help leading my shoulder to Chelsea for her to cry on… But nothing happened, no matter if I feared it, or internally craved it. I refused to give even a slim chance to Chelsea, or to myself to change our lives.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The summer of graduation was always a season of sadness, a lot of breakups and ends of romantic stories. Most our classmates had signed job contracts before graduation, ranging from good jobs to average ones, and they all seemed to be content with they lives anyway, or they just pretended to be glad when they were to start a new era of life, just like they were four years ago.

I hadn’t found a job, or even tried to, and I didn’t care. I cared about Chelsea though, and that was the only thing I cared about around that time, if anything. I wanted to know how her life was… had she found a job, or ever considered giving up on me, or had she already given up on me? I had no answer to those questions, and for sure, I didn’t have the courage to ask her for answers.

Many pairs of college sweethearts had to break up, like Joan and her boyfriend. Joan was Chelsea’s best friend through college years, both smart and good-looking, and both devoted to love. But the difference between them was obvious… Joan was very serene compared to Chelsea and she had a much better ability in handling her mood, and her relationship. Joan was the pants wearer in her relationship with that dude, through all three something years as the relationship lasted. Although she also looked rather sad, and also wept on the day when her boyfriend was about to go back to his hometown where he had found a job, she could handle it pretty well, like she could just wipe her tears away and she would be a happy girl the right next second.

But my Chelsea was different… sorry I shouldn’t have called her “my Chelsea”. She had never been mine, not even close. I had imagined countless times how it hypothetically felt, to both of us, when we were rolling around in our bed, our mouths sealed and legs twisted together. But it never came true, and never would, and I never even tried to work towards that end. Instead, I tried my best to avoid it in such a wimpy manner, time and time again.

Joan was about to leave her boyfriend and both of them felt sad, but at least they had a good time together, which would be such a sweet memory for them… but there was nearly zero memory for me and Chelsea. Joan and her boyfriend had kissed right before my eyes, their foreheads touching. They gazed at each other affectionately with eyes that were full of love, which made me feel envious, and Chelsea must felt the same too. If that dude someday told me that he had slept with Joan, his college sweetheart, I wouldn’t have no doubt and wouldn’t feel no surprise, but I hadn’t given Chelsea even a hug, I hadn’t even touched her hand…

Was I too classy, or too much of a pussy?

I hated pussy, even feared it, which I later figured out as a possible reason for all my wimpy behaviors in the past. I once thought that Chelsea might be the right replacement of Leigh in my mind, a possible cure to all the damages I had suffered because of Leigh, but it only ended up making things worse. I couldn’t blame Chelsea because it was entirely my fault, and Chelsea was just a victim of my cowardice, for whom I could only feel sorry and guilty.

[Rogue]

Part Four - Goddess

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I lived an idle life for two entire years, doing nothing but playing computer games after computer games, posting on a message board named “spurstalk” 24/7 quarrelling with random posters over meaningless trivia. I just couldn’t figure out what to do during that time, but that was indeed the happiest period of time in my life since my first day in primary school. It reminded me of my childhood, nothing to do and nothing to care about… It might sound a bit lame, even pathetic, but what else was I supposed to do?

I used to have many dreams as a child… I dreamed of becoming a great person, and the greatest historical figure in my young mind was Isaac Newton. I wanted to be someone like him and that was probably the biggest reason why I loved Physics so much, I thought, and I did pretty well in that area through high school time. But my head was pretty fucked up in that summer by the morbid obsession with Leigh, or I was just not that smart in the first place… anyway, the dream of being an eminent physicist turned out to be nothing but a dream, but I ended up having one thing in common with Newton…

I usually thought about the goal of life… ‘What are we living for and, what shall we live for?’ I often asked myself that question, a question that had never been convincingly answered. We should live for wealth, health, or something else? What did other people think I felt when I attended a cousin’s wedding, or how was I supposed to feel when my best childhood friends all had got their babies while I was still living on parents’ money? Should I also man up and go out there and get everything that I was supposed to have, as my parents and friends always urged me to?

But there was no point for me in living a life that way. I had no clear idea what I really wanted, but I knew what I didn’t want, in which sense I was just like “Cristina” in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a movie written and directed by Woody Allen, and of course, Cristina was portrayed by Scarlett Johansson.

I hadn’t really watched any movie of hers in the past, never even heard of her name before, and it was as late as November 2012 when I came to know about her, watching a film she made- The Avengers, which was the first film of hers that I had watched. I was impressed by her phenomenal beauty even though that Black Widow character was far from being the prettiest character she had portrayed. I was really impressed by her beauty, but not as much as I was intrigued by her extraordinary charisma after learning more about her on wikipedia, from her childhood experiences to the hardships she had lived through.

I went on to watch a few more films of hers, and finally it was Lost in Translation that moved me and touched me, and made me fall in love for her incorrigibly. I watched that film at night, which turned out to be a poor choice because I would have a hard time falling asleep that night. Insomnia used to be an issue that haunted me for two to three years after graduation from high school, but sleeping had been fine enough for me for more than a year, while I was pretty much living the lifestyle of a baby and often sleeping like one. But I relapsed that night, when I didn’t sleep at all, just lying there in my bed thinking about Scarlett, about her elegance and gorgeousness, and everything.

It even injected into my head such a feeling that I had wasted the past ten years of my life. What if I had watched Lost in Translation in 03, when the film was initially released, rather than ten years later? I would’ve lived a much happier life the ten years prior, and I would probably have never became obsessed with Leigh or anyone, wouldn’t have even given a shit about her. Yes, Leigh looked pretty good, better than 90% women out there to say the least, but she was not even remotely comparable to my goddess Scarlett, to be honest, at least one light year below my goddess’s level.

Even my goddess wasn’t perfect though, which was the truth I knew and I could be honest to it. She had shitty tattoos, and she was an avid smoker, and she had more artificial holes than natural ones on her body… but those things only added charm to her rather than deducted any. I knew they were bad habits and I would never touch any myself, but I could hardly find them repulsive when it was my goddess who had them. Like, my goddess was too brilliant to be smudged by anything.

[Rogue]

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was my goddess who enabled me to see the bright side of life again, and see the meaning of life beyond just having joy. I wished I had watched her films ten years ago, so that I would’ve studied harder, with Scarlett being my idol and source of motivation. I would’ve been more devoted to the pursuit of my dreams and my life would’ve been completely different. I regretted the past, but later was still better than never… so I decided to come back to school, pursuing a writing career which in my humble opinion was the only feasible and possible way for me to get famous and brilliant like my goddess was.

I majored in “writing translation” for graduate study, but I’d rather refer to it simply as “writing” while ignoring the “translation part”. I was passionate about writing but, I never found much interest in reading other people’s works. So I didn’t choose literature study or anything that required massive reading. I believed that everyone was entitled to their own writing styles, and reading too much of other people’s works would only dilute one’s own style, or even mess it up. Language is a god given gift to everyone of us, so I’d just let nature take its course rather than imitate any body, and the words would come fluently out of me, no matter from my hands or my mouth.

I did read some good novels, but not many, and all the novels I had read were associated with my goddess Johansson one way or another. Like that novel named “The dive from Clausen’s pier” (by Ann Packer), which I first knew because there was a narration of it by my goddess, the 17yr old goddess to be exact. I downloaded all six tapes of it from scarlettfan.com and listened over and over again, more to my goddess’s magnificent voice than the story itself, of course. I spent quite much time and effort searching the full text version of that novel on google and finally found a free download of it, so I was able to read the story myself as my goddess narrated it for me.

And there was another novel, The Horse Whisperer by Nicolas Evans, which I had also read a couple of times. And of course, it was because I had watched a movie of the same name, based on the story of this book, and yes, my goddess was cast in that film. She played the character of Grace, a girl who lost a leg in a horrible accident, in which her horse named Pilgrim was also badly injured. She suffered considerable pain physically, and even more mentally, but she ended up coming back strong, so did Pilgrim… I was moved to tears when I saw my goddess riding her Pilgrim again, and it was only the second time I was moved to tears. The first was when Dirk lifted that goddamn O’Brien trophy in June 2011.

I never wanted to hide my affection for my goddess wherever I was, on the message board, or in the classroom. I was even proud of it to be honest, and I even bragged about it any chance I got. Like I could always incorporate my goddess in every post I made on spurstalk, and when I was talking to a classmate of mine I could always get my goddess’s name mentioned before either of our names was called.

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirty

The guys I most often talked to were Fernando and Shawn. Although neither of them seemed to have any interest in my talk about Scarlett, they could still give their ears listening. They were about my best friends through graduate years, guys I could confide in, and I believed if we were all girls we would be close enough to share the “moon”. Even with that said I still found it too hard to find any common ground with them when it came to the topic of… love.

I remembered one time, Fernando and I were walking on our way back to the classroom from a printing shop when we talked about something like that. It was Fernando who directed our talk to that topic, I believed. He said, “I’m like the only one from my college class who’s still studying at school, I think.”

And I was like, “Sounds cool, bro, so we’re the last few lucky guys.”

“Lucky?” Fernando looked rather sad and depressed after hearing that word. He paused for a moment then continued, “Do you think we’re lucky, or unlucky? Young people our age are making money as we speak. They have been working and living with positive attitudes, and many of them are married already…”

I knew he wasn’t married, none of us was, and marriage was probably not even close to him on his schedule… but maybe he craved it just like everyone his age did, and that was probably the exact thing that depressed him. So I intentionally diverted our talk elsewhere, and yes, it was time for me to bring up the Scarlett talk again, “Yes, yes, they’ve true winners compared to us… just like my goddess, Scarlett Johansson, she’s been famous since her early teens, and…”

I wanted to say more, and I would never say enough about my goddess Scarlett, but Fernando interrupted me, “C’mon dude, give us a break bro…”

“I can’t live without her, you know.”

“Sure, I know it, but you don’t have to mention it every fucking minute, do you?”

Fernando looked really irritated, and even more depressed and sad… we continued to talk about some basketball and stuffs that we had common interest in, but I would keep thinking about his question for the rest of the day, and for the next a few days as well. ‘Are we lucky, or unlucky?’ I asked myself.

Fernando, and maybe Shawn for that matter, had every reason to feel unlucky. They craved the same type of life that MOST people their age were living. They wanted to get their true loves and everything that other people had. Finally I kind of came to a vague conclusion concerning that same question, “what are we living for, and what shall we live for?”

‘We shall live for… love, or in another word, happiness.’ I thought, and there was a sheer difference between happiness and joy. Joy was something like what I had, and enjoyed during that idle period of time that lasted for more than a year, during which I did basically nothing but playing, and playing. I had enormous joy during that time, but did I feel happy? I was basically just wasting my life just like the past ten years since 03, or the past twenty years since I first went to school… wasting my life on such a forlorn hope, a dream of my life and fate being changed through education, which turned out to be nothing but a soap bubble, yet I was still wasting my time on it, and my parents’ money.

The paperwork received from college would possibly help me land a good job, with decent pay, but anything else? My goddess achieved tremendous success in Hollywood without even a college degree, making more money in a year than I would expect to earn throughout my lifetime even with a Master’s. My goddess already got her star on the walk of fame, while I would probably die no name…

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirty-One

It was still my goddess Scarlett who let me see the hope, who encouraged me through hardships. My efforts may not guarantee any success, but I would regret to death if I didn’t make a try. College sucked which was no news but I still had the passion for writing, and I would never let it die.

My goddess had always been passionate about acting since a very early age. She once said to her mom “I had a little fire in my brain to act”, when she was only three. And I also seemed to have the same amazing talent and passion in me at a very young age. When I was like three or four year old, well before school age, I wrote a short comic book about my cousin. It was a very short one, coarsely made, but yes, just like my mom often joked about, it was my maiden work. The talent had been hidden for so long I had almost forgotten, but thankfully I didn’t, and I finally dug it out from my old memories. If there were still students who saw college education as a way of improving themselves rather than an easy path to good jobs, then I was definitely one of them, I could say confidently and boastfully.

Shawn and Fernando might think different than I did, however, and probably all the other students in our profession as well, maybe all the students in any profession… Sometimes I even felt like a queer, a fucking retard loitering through the streets of this city that was both strange and familiar to me. It was my hometown, born and bred, yet I felt as if I were a stranger here… and maybe I was a stranger, in some way.

A master’s degree and a decent job that followed would be satisfying enough to most college graduates these days, including Shawn and Fernando, and all our classmates as well. They would be independent financially and would have the power to buy stuffs they wanted without feeling the guilt of using parents’ money, and more importantly, they would have the privileges to seek and finally get the things they wanted most…

But what did I want? What should I live for? I didn’t want no change in my life because I didn’t see no reason why I should, and I could pretty much maintain such a lifestyle thanks to the combination of the facts that I was the only child in my family, and that I was a lifelong celibate. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t take on any unnecessary burdens on my shoulders so I could continue to go all out pursuing my dreams, with my parents, my cousins and friends standing by ready to lend me a helping hand whenever needed. And I couldn’t imagine any other situation where success could be easier achieved. There was no easy path to success, but at least I could make everything work in my favor and that was exactly what I did.

I also needed to be loved though, I knew my parents loved me and they always did, and that was enough for me. I loved them too, and my goddess of course, though in a completely different way that wasn’t even comparable. I didn’t only call her “goddess”, but I also saw her as one. She was just like the sun to me, in someway. She gave colors to my life and I couldn’t even survive without her, but I couldn’t get too close to her either, because she was too hot… I even wrote a song titled “Scarlett, goddess of the sun” when my obsession first began, based upon the tune of Chelsea FC’s anthem – Blue is the color:

You are in sky, we all can see
You are the reason, for which we live
Give us light and bring us heat
Your name is Johansson Scarlett

Though you’re a star of that too many
You got the beauty which’s the only
You brighter than them all combined
Cuz you our for ever goddess

You are in sky, we all can see
You are the reason, for which we live
Give us light and bring us heat
Your name is Johansson Scarlett

Wish there’s a world only you and me
Full of bliss, no more grief
We together till the end of the world
And you’re my for ever goddess

You are in sky, we all can see
You are the reason, for which we live
Give us light and bring us heat
Your name is Johansson Scarlett

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirty-Two

As a lifelong celibate as I was, there wasn’t anything that I could expect from the opposite sex except some visual pleasure, and my goddess Scarlett gave me just that, more than I needed. She was so extraordinarily exquisite, and I was so fixated by her beauty I would even trade ten years, or even twenty years of my life time for one or two years’ extension of her prime. She was the only reason for which I lived. I feared death just like everyone, but for me the biggest fear was that I would not be able to see her pictures anymore after I died. And the worst nightmare to me was if I went blind, because I would have to take my own life… being alive while not being able to see my goddess’s would be the cruelest torture to me, to be honest.

Scarlett was the only thing on my mind wherever I was, whatever class I was taking. The CAT translation class every Monday afternoon was my favorite class because the class was taught in a computer room, with internet access, so that I could browse Scarlett’s IMDB page, guiltless searching for news about her on Google while the class was underway. I could do that at home, of course, but it was much bigger fun when my friends were sitting right at my side, seeing me smirking at those pictures of my goddess. They might be envious or maybe not but I didn’t care, and I just felt proud of being watched as I was demonstrating my affection for Scarlett, my goddess.

Then it was that afternoon on Monday, the same classroom and the same people. I took a seat in the rearmost row with Fernando sitting at my left, while Shawn was a few rows ahead sitting next to some girls whom we thought he might be interested in. He was such a pro in doing that, we thought, despite his naive look which had even literally fooled me into thinking that he was also a lifelong celibate. I was seriously convinced at one time that he was a lifelong celibate just like me, because of his shyness combined with his AIM screen name that included the term “monk”. I thought he was also proud of such a lifestyle like a monk’s, or mine, until he asked me that question one day after class.

He asked me, very seriously, “Have you ever got a girlfriend before?”

Of course I said no. I had one who I loved and another one who loved me but there was nary a relation with neither of them. So I proudly gave him the negative answer, “Of course not, I’m a lifelong celibate just as I told you bro. And, how about you, have you got any?”

I was expecting a “no” based on what I knew about this guy but his answer kind of surprised me, or not… I shouldn’t have found it surprising, not at all.

“Yes, had one but… she left me…” he sounded sad when he said this and his face turned sallow instantly, his eyes glittered in the morning sunshine like he was trying to blink back tears. He was struggling to squeeze words out of his mouth, or he just didn’t want to talk anymore about it but he still somehow continued. Maybe he had finally found someone to confide in… “She left me. She even left this country, to get married to a foreign dude…”

Shawn was like two years younger than me and I never imagined that he had experienced so much… I thought he was just some bookworm who devoted all his time to schoolwork, just like what I was during my first two years in high school. I could understand him empathetically because I had gone through some similar grief, similar vicissitudes… “Leigh left me and became Conceição’s girlfriend, and maybe they are already married now”, I thought, but I instantly realized it was wrong to use “left” because she had never been really with me in the first place. At least Shawn and his girlfriend once had a good time together, I thought, while there was nothing between me and Leigh, not even a light touch on her hand.

I wanted to know more about Shawn’s relationship with his ex, such as how far had it evolved? Had they fucked? But I forbore to ask any question about it, instead I said something else to divert our talk elsewhere. “Bro you hide it so well, I thought you were also a celibate.” I said half jokingly. I paused for a few seconds then continued, “You don’t need to feel so sad just for a… well, for a bitch. You don’t need a bitch to live a happy life…” I said that hoping to console him, and also to console myself.

His face colored slightly, in a calm voice he said, “I know it and I’m fine now, I’ve got over it.”

I was really glad he had got over it, but it seemed it was me myself who hadn’t got over it yet. Why was I still thinking of Leigh? I tried to eradicate all the memories about her out of my head but they were never gone entirely. I just used the obsession with my goddess to overlay the miserable memory about Leigh, but it turned out more like a palliative rather than a remedy.

[xmas1997]

You're writing your book on SpursTalk???

[Rogue]

^ yes, that's kinda the truth. Spurstalk is like my homesite and I just can't find any better place to publish my writings. I'm still missing Cully but at least my comrade Shadowflames has returned. He ain't having much interest in this novel though, since it doesn't feature my goddess, but I'm still wondering how he will react when he sees my other 6 novels in "Hey Thread" thread that I had written the past several months in his absence, and realizes how much he has missed.

[xmas1997]

You had best save it somewhere because there is no telling how much longer this site will last or be maintained.

[Rogue]

I would be a complete retard if I hadn't saved those writings in the form of .doc on my computer. Actually I write them using Microsoft Word, save them on my computer then poster then on Spurstalk when I feel like it. The chance both Spurstalk and my computer went dead at once would be very minimal imho.

[xmas1997]

I would be a complete retard if I hadn't saved those writings in the form of .doc on my computer. Actually I write them using Microsoft Word, save them on my computer then poster then on Spurstalk when I feel like it. The chance both Spurstalk and my computer went dead at once would be very minimal imho.

I guess some people on here are interested. It takes all kinds to make this world go around.
I have never really enjoyed biographies though so you'll forgive me for not reading I trust.

[Rogue]

you didn't read my Goddess series either and I don't think any novel of that series was much of a biography tbh. This novel I'm working on is dedicated to a friend of mine from primary school who's still suffering from a past relationship that he had with a shameless tart named Leigh, and coincidentally, Leigh was a classmate of mine in high school whom I once had a serious crush on... Life itself is a story, in some way, and I feel lucky to have such insight to recognize and extract the story from my real life, and the writing skills to convert it into a novel. I just hope my novel will help my friend (Jenkins) finally extricate himself from the atrocious memory of that bitch Leigh tbh.

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirty-Three

Thankfully my head was almost occupied by the thoughts about my goddess, with only a small portion left for schoolwork and other distractions. Leigh could still make a sharp stimulus to my nerves but it was safe to say she would never again make the same severe impact on me like she did back in high school. I could even remain calm listening to other people talking about Leigh, even talking about Leigh myself, as opposed to those pre-goddess years when it would feel like a prick in my heart every time my ears caught the name “Leigh”, or any word sounding similar like “lay”, “late”, “lame” and many else…

Fernando was someone that you could’ve hardly missed. He was like the tallest guy in our class, humorous and kindhearted. He might play jokes with you but he would always lend you a helping hand seriously when it came to serious issues. But just like Shawn, and also like me, Fernando was also rather quiet the majority of time. I believed that we shared many similar personalities, and that was probably why we had the common language and became best friends through graduate years. We might look shy most days, even a bit introvert seemingly, but when it came to a topic we were interested in we would be very talkative. We would talk loudly about football, basketball and things we had common interest in, and we would often make even the whole class hear our voices.

So I was talking to Fernando that afternoon, both of us sitting in the rearmost row, simultaneously he was playing some arcade game on his ipad while I was browsing pages about my goddess like I usually did. The class had begun so we could only talk in our lowest possible voices, yet we could still understand each other’s words pretty well since we knew each other so much, or not so much…

We had a lot of interests in common… sports, literature, fashion and celebrities, and many others, stuffs we most frequently talked about. And of course, we had even talked much about Scarlett the past a couple of months since our enrollment, before my obsession with my goddess finally pissed him off. I still remembered the first time we talked about Scarlett, when the first question he asked me concerning my goddess was if I had seen “those” pics of my goddess… I knew he was referring to those lewd pics stolen from her iphone and leaked on the internet, and of course I had seen them, even downloaded them in my computer, but I emphasized they were my least favorite Scarlett photos. Every woman looked pretty much the same with all clothes gone, and it was definitely not those stuffs that inculcated such strong affection for her in a lifelong celibate’s mind. I thought Fernando was also a fan of her maybe, he at least liked her, but it was apparent Scarlett wasn’t the only female celebrity he liked, and the reasons why we liked Scarlett were entirely different. Even if my goddess were a man I would probably love her just as much, if not more.

But we hadn’t really talked much about our past, about his past, to be exact, especially not about our undergraduate years… Most of our classmates were graduates from… well, not-so-good colleges, and I didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable or offended by talking about my alma-mater which was fairly one or two levels above theirs. So it was basically a topic I would always try to avoid talking about, unless talking about it with my best friends like Shawn, and it was that exact afternoon when Fernando also became a best friend of mine.

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirty-Four

We talked about our high school time that afternoon, college entrance exams, and then our talk proceeded to college, which was the first time I knew which college he attended for undergraduate years. He hadn’t ever told me about it before, nor had I asked.

His alma mater was a local language school which I was more than familiar with because it was located just a few blocks away from our high school. Then I asked about his major… it was Spanish literature, Spanish literature… I suddenly remembered an old friend of mine, who also studied in that language school and who also majored in Spanish literature…

It was Jenkins… Jenkins’s dad worked as an accountant for a finance company during the first three something years after my graduation from high school, and his workplace was just near my home so I could often see him and sometimes talk to him when I was back home from college. I learned that Jenkins was studying in that language school majoring in Spanish literature, but no more details, and no more further updates after my junior year because the company moved elsewhere, and I’d never met his dad again, let alone meeting Jenkins himself.

The name Jenkins popped up from my memory, and also came out of my mouth. The teacher had given us a ten minute break or something so now I could talk to him freely. “So you majored in Spanish Literature… so do you know that guy in your same profession, named Jenkins?” I asked Nando.

“Jenkins? Haha… wow, sure.” Nando laughed out like I just told a very funny joke. “You mean Jenkins? Sure, we were best friends through college years, and we’re still in contact on facebook.”

“Wow, really?” What a coincidence it was… I still had a hard time believing that we had not only found common interests, but also a common friend of ours, and what he was gonna say next would surprise me even more…

“And Jenkins was a true love saint… it was so moving and so romantic a story, his relationship wit Leigh… Do you know Leigh? She was from your high school, I think” Nando continued to say.

Leigh? What a familiar name it was… but it was also a common name, so it could be another Leigh. I hoped Nando was referring to another Leigh… I wanted to move our talk to another topic, to Scarlett’s recent prize on the Rome film festival, or anything, but I still couldn’t help asking him more about, Leigh. “Nando, I’m sorry but pardon me please, what was that girl’s name and why am I supposed to know her?” I asked him.

“Well, her name was Leigh, a graduate from the same high school you went to. She and Jenkins could only date each other on the internet during the majority of their relationship, because Leigh went to a college in a southern city like 500 miles away from here…”

It was quite clear at that point, it was that Leigh who once played such an integral part in my mind. I felt lightheaded, I tried my best to steady myself and thank god, no, thank my goddess I managed to prevent any peculiar expression coming visible on my face.

“But you know… a relationship only maintained via the internet is weak and tenuous by its nature. So supposedly, they broke up. Actually it was Leigh who left Jenkins for a local rich dude who in Jenkins’s words was a redneck parvenu…”

I was a bit shocked when I heard him mentioning the name of Leigh, but when I heard him say she left Jenkins for a rich redneck, I wasn’t quite surprised. Leigh was just such a person, I knew it, and it was really no surprise that she did such a thing.

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirty-Five

All of a sudden everything seemed to make perfect sense to me… I wasn’t even a friend of Jenkins during primary school time. Actually he was one of those guys in our class whom I disliked back then, but when I met him and talked to him outside our high school that summer, I felt a mysterious magnificence in him for some reason, and now I knew what the reason was, and where the magnificence came from. It was from Leigh, of course. Maybe they hugged the day before, in a hot summer day, their sweat mixing together, so there was supposedly some residue of Leigh’s sweat and smell left on Jenkins. I hugged him lightly that morning, extending an arm over his shoulders and tapping him endearingly, but at that moment there was no way I could know that I was touching the shoulders that Leigh touched the day before, hugging the person that Leigh hugged, the person that Leigh would touch and hug again later that morning…

During those months preceding high school graduation, I imagined it many times even though I feared the possibility of it being true, that Leigh already had a boyfriend at the time, a handsome guy she loved just as much as I loved her… my life ruined. I imagined how her boyfriend looked, if there was one, and how tall he was? I imagined him as a 6’5 tall courteous dude with a nice looking face that every woman would find attractive, and it turned out that I was right about everything but that he was only 5’6 as opposed to 6’5.

I thought that when it came to the choice of her significant other, what mattered most to Leigh was brain rather than brawn, and I was almost right about that one. Jenkins was a smart guy, smart and courteous yet not athletic or stout, and Conceição also fit the criteria pretty well. I was pretty much the same type, to be honest, so the question had always been baffling me why she didn’t choose me, didn’t even give me a chance, or even a slim hope… but at the end of day I realized I was wrong, she didn’t care about neither. She didn’t care about how the guy was, but what he had… and they both beat me to this. But in the end they both lost to that redneck parvenu in that regard.

For quite a while I had even hated Conceição, thinking he was the reason that Leigh “left” me. But now I’ve realized it was Leigh’s own greed or sycophancy that killed my chance to even befriend her, if anything. I wasn’t ready to tell Nando anything about Conceição though or anything about my association with Leigh, because if I did he would tell it to Jenkins immediately. For some reason I didn’t want Jenkins to know my crush on Leigh, to know anything about the secret of mine that I was determined to keep and bring into my coffin. He would probably think me as the reason why Leigh jilted him, at least part of the reason, and he would blame me just as much as I blamed Conceição back then. And I couldn’t figure out how to tell Jenkins that while he was online dating his girlfriend Leigh, she was dating another dude the same way simultaneously. It would double the pain to him, would only spray salt over his wound.

“So… when did their relationship start? In high school, what year…?” I asked. I wondered about how long they had been together, and how long they had already been together before I developed the crush on her.

“Well, they broke up in junior year it seemed like and Jenkins said they had been together for one thousand and something days, haha…” Nando laughed for quite a few seconds then continued, “Dude counted the exact number of days they had been together, so I think their relationship started in the second high school year, or the beginning of the third.”

Nando confirmed what I had assumed. They were already in relationship before I wanted to start one with her, and what an asshole would I have been if Leigh had left him for me at that time? What would I say to excuse myself for stealing Jenkins’s girlfriend? Thank God nothing happened, thank God Leigh left me out in the cold without giving a shit about me.

[Rogue]

Chapter Thirty-Six

“It was not until after their relationship ended that Jenkins began to talk about that relationship and his ex…” Nando continued to say, “You know, during the first two to three years in college we often saw him text messaging with someone whose name appeared as ‘1’ on his cell phone, and every time we saw it we’d joke with him like ‘hey dude, you messaging with that 1 again?’. But when he started to talk about that relationship we knew that it wasn’t ‘1’, but the first letter of the name Leigh…”

Nando paused, waiting for my response, but my mind was in a mess at the moment and I didn’t really have anything to say, just listening to him quietly and curiously. I wanted to know more about Jenkins, and also about Leigh… “And Jenkins even began to hate that high school, your alma mater. But we could feel that he still loved Leigh, probably he still does up to this day. He was really hurt and he talked tons of shit about that high school Leigh graduated from, but nary bad word was said about Leigh, like he could hate everyone from that high school, with Leigh being the only exception.” Nando continued to talk about his best friend of undergraduate years.

“So he probably hated me too…” And I was really afraid so. He probably did hate me I thought, if Leigh had talked to him about me. Had she told Jenkins anything about me, describing me as a stalker or something?

“Not really. He never talked about you with us… so how did you know him?”

“We were classmates in primary school.”

“Cool stuff bro.” Nando sounded excited, “So we can share our knowledge about Jenkins, yours about his primary school and mine his college time.”

“Yeah, excellent proposal bro… Jenkins was a fair-haired student in our class and was always atop our class in schoolwork throughout all six years in primary school, always head and shoulders above me which even made me envious… Dude has changed a lot since then, I think”

“I didn’t know anything about his primary school glories, to be honest. He never seemed to want to talk about it… Now it starts to make sense to me why he always seemed so upset, throwing his fists at the wall sometimes grumbling something like ‘what a shitty school it is’ and stuffs alike. He had every right to complain I think, dude deserved to study in a prestigious college.”

“Yup, he was such a wonder kid back then in primary school… and how is he now? You’re still in contact with him?” I asked.

“Yes, sure, he’s fine despite emotionally lost. He’s currently working in Venezuela on a construction project, as an interpreter or something. He’ll be back next year maybe when the work is done…”

So Jenkins became the topic Nando and I most talked about for the rest of our graduate school time. I wanted to know more about Jenkins, and more importantly, also to know more about his relationship with Leigh. I wanted to know everything related to Leigh, and it seemed like my crush on Leigh had been suddenly restored.

[Rogue]

The Last Chapter

I kept thinking about Leigh for the past entire year, not as much as I thought about Scarlett for sure, but it was still weird enough… I knew that Leigh was not the type of girl I wanted, and there was no chance for me to get her even if I wanted, not to say I was already determined to be a celibate lifelong. But it still seemed as if we were bonded together, by kinship or something similar which I couldn’t define.

I was sitting there in the sofa waiting for the arrival of my high school teacher, Ms. Watson, and my mysterious date… I half hoped that was Leigh, and half hoped not. I craved to see Leigh as if she was a twin sister of mine separated from birth, but when she indeed appeared before me, what should I say? I wondered how her life had been, and how much her look had changed. Although neither thing really mattered to me, I still couldn’t help caring about her. She might have hurt me bad before, but I couldn’t hate her, instead I still loved her in some way.

My heart was beating fast and my palms were sweating so hard I had to keep wiping them dry on my trousers. I had no idea what would happen right here in my home, in an hour, half an hour or even just a few minutes… It was my home where I’d been living in since my birth, yet I felt anxious as if I were a stranger.

The doorbell rang, but neither of my parents stood up to answer it, instead they were both looking at me… Of course it was my mission, even though I felt lightheaded and my body was shuddering. I walked to the door regardless, and opened it…

It was Ms. Watson, looking more affable today that I had ever known she was. I hadn’t seen her for nearly eight years but there wasn’t much change on her look, much less that I expected. She looked really delighted today, like I had done very well in an exam. For sure there wasn’t anything that I could do wrong in her eyes today, because she was no longer a teacher to me, but a friend. She walked in, opened her arms and gave me a warm hug, and I also put my arms around her waist… Ms. Watson was the first and only woman I had ever embraced by that time, I had never even hugged my mom that way, but very shortly afterward I would embrace the second one.

And sure, it would be Leigh. Leigh was standing right behind Ms. Watson at the moment but I really had no idea what to say to her, I couldn’t even figure out a way to look at her without either of us feeling embarrassed. But thankfully my parents would back me up, and I didn’t even know when they had also walked to the door, maybe I was just transfixed by the arrival of Ms. Watson and, of course, Leigh.

They shook hands pretty much the mainstream manner, and each of us had a seat. My parents and Ms. Watson tacitly sat on both ends of the sofa, only leaving enough space in the middle for the two of us to sit in. I didn’t want to even look at Leigh with straight face so I was just staring at the floor, trying my best to look calm, but my heart was thumping hard inside my chest because I could feel that Leigh was looking at me. ‘Does she feel sorry to me, or sympathetic, or anything?’ I was thinking, ‘does she love me, or… has she ever loved me?’

I refused to look at her and I also tried my best to not hear her breath, or to feel her temperature, but still couldn’t help breathing in the magnificent scent of hers. I subconsciously pressed my thighs closer, for the fear of my erection coming visible, but strangely enough, there was no erection… The smell of hers enchanted me and comforted me, but didn’t arouse me at all.

“So… how have you been, I mean the past so many years?” Finally it was me who broke the silence.

“I… I’ve been fine. And, I’m sorry, Rogue, I’m really sorry.” Leigh said considerately.

“Don’t, don’t say sorry. I was just being delusional back then and I hope I didn’t make you feel too much discomfort.”

“No, you never did that… I know you’re a good guy, and it was totally my fault…” Leigh said sorrowfully and sobbingly. Tears streamed down her sallow face and it was too hard for her to continue saying anything.

I turned my eyes to Ms. Watson looking for answer, just like I usually did when I was her student, and I knew that Leigh had told her everything beforehand, about her relationship with that redneck parvenu, everything that I wanted to know but didn’t.

Ms. Watson told me about it, she told me everything that Leigh told her earlier… That redneck parvenu jilted Leigh. He was never serious about the relationship with Leigh, instead he just wanted to play hit-and-run and he did it…

Finally, Leigh realized that there was something in her life that was more valuable than wealth. She was born with such a pretty face, which was both fortune and misfortune for her. She came across quite a few guys who genuinely loved her, yet she broke up with them all one after another sequentially, breaking their hearts. She also broke my heart, in some way, but at least there was never a legit relationship between me and her, so she was probably expecting a chance from me for a fresh start. Should I give her such a chance? She refused to give me the chance when I had such a strong crush on her in high school, but… I could hardly turn it down at the moment. I had to accept her request, as a consolation for her and also for me, even if I didn’t really want it.

“Leigh…” I extended my arms round her shoulders and clutched her body towards my chest, rumpling her long dark hair with my hands, “I love you, Leigh. I still do. I’ve wanted to say that exact three words to you for so many years, hope it’s not too late yet.” And my eyes also felt wet as I spoke.

“Rogue, thank you…” She whispered to me and began to squeeze out some laughter through the sobbing.

“Rogue… congrats to you, son.” It was Ms. Watson’s voice, and I really liked her referring to me as “son”, it made me feel so warm in the heart.

“Yes, it’s quite a self breakthrough for him.” My mom said.

But my dad was sitting there silently. And if I remembered correct, he hadn’t said anything since Leigh arrived… he was studying Leigh all the time like there was something on Leigh’s face that he found familiar with…

“Leigh…” My dad finally opened his mouth, “Pardon me please, but, may I ask you… um… what your mom’s name is?”

“Sure, Mr. Smith, her name is…” Leigh responded immediately. I felt there might be something wrong going on here, something that worried me, but I could hardly figure out what it was. I almost lost my auditory sense at the moment and I didn’t even hear her mom’s name, but my dad heard it and that was enough…

“Ahh…” my dad shrieked and his body quivered… he paused for a long while, like he was trying to steady himself, then he said, “You… I’m sorry, Rogue, but… she can’t be your girlfriend. You ain’t never gonna marry her.” His voice was serious enough and it was apparently not a request.

“What… why?” Leigh said in a tentative and trembling voice, she was flummoxed really, and even scared…

I didn’t ask why, because I already got the answer. Not just the answer to dad’s peculiar statement, but also the answer to my life…

I hugged Leigh even tighter in my arms… “I still love you, Leigh, the same way I love my goddess Scarlett…” I turned to my dad and said, “I ain’t gonna get married to her, or to anyone, because I’m a lifelong celibate, but it doesn’t mean I’ve given up the right to love any person… We don’t need a marriage or relationship to love each other. I love Scarlett, and now I love Leigh too…”

“Rogue… thank you…” Leigh said, gazing at me with her tearful eyes, “though I know I’m not even comparable to Scarlett…”

“Yes you are, you definitely are, honey.” I rebutted Leigh, “You’re just like an angel to me, if Scarlett is my goddess… no, she isn’t just my goddess, she’s our goddess… She’s our goddess, for ever…”

End of Story