Stranger in hometown

[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 en led 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 at udes, 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 ing 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 , a ing re 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 led “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 ed? 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 . You don’t need a 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 re 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 re 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 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 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 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 ty 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