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 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 's best friend during his undergraduate years. I've been out of contact with that since before I went to college and I learned from that graduate school classmate that my primary-school is currently working in Venezuela, and he still has yet to get off from that 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 , 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 who had been in relationship with that for 3-4 years. I was kinda surprised when that graduate school classmate told me about the relationship between my and that , but I was not at all surprised when he later said the jilted him, leaving him for a rich redneck... 's a pure ty 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 were classmates in primary school, and he told me everything about that , 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 plen ude of homegrown students in our high school class, but they all looked too mainstream, too different from those s 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 compe ion 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 o 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 ing 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 , Leigh, and I’m seriously suggesting you quit it before ruins your life.”

“Why?” I felt a bit annoyed by the way he referred to Leigh. ‘How dare you call her a ?’ 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 ?” I said with a wan smile.

“You don’t know her probably, but I know. 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 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]

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 , I just don't give a about her anymore. instead, I've been obsessed with random celebrities (mostly Halle Berry before, and my goddess Johansson nowadays) since my sop re 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 () 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 s' 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 Leigh, Jenkins's girlfriend for more than 1000+ days (dude counted everyday he was in relationship with that , 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 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 named Leigh. I liked her but I knew she was a "bad girl" (just like my goddess who smokes weed and has ty 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 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 sop re 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 ing tart named Leigh.

I'm just hoping that my novel will help my friend Jenkins get completely out of the haunt of that , 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 .

[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 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 . 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 , 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. “ o… hey, who’s that? o…” 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 ‘ o’ 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 which college to attend. 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 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 compe ions 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

[Rogue]

I was expecting some chuck story

Sorry bro but Chuck was just a minor role in this novel 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 for ude 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 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.