Break Point

Chapter 8

Dedicated to Srishti Omre

Louis Watts
"And how many of your students will be traveling sir?" asked the travel agent. "Please call me Louis, and about twenty"

The travel agent, her card read Rita, smiled an unnecessary smile at me. "Will you be needing a guide sir, because I'll be glad to help", she said putting her manicured hand on mine.

I cleared my throat, but did not take my hand back. I can handle her.
"The students would love that", I said in a cool voice.
"And what about you, Louis", she asked seductively. Pouting her blood red lips.
I bent forward and said, "Why don't you drop by and find out. You know my address", with that I left, I was late for class.

I entered the class in a hurry. It was good to see Zia again in class. She looked a little worried, but that was normal, I guess. Maybe I can talk to her after class. Poor girl. Must be trying very hard not to cry. I am her teacher, maybe I can provide some help.

I turn back to the class and say, "Okay class, settle down. Now, please everyone, welcome back your classmate and make her feel as comfortable as possible okay?" I was trying my best.

"So about your field visit, it is all set. I just got our tickets. And, as I have told you earlier. Get your application signed by your parents. Students with no application, will not be able to go. Okay?"

"Now open your books to chapter seven.....", and with that the day went into its usual blur.

Zia
Raul did not come to English class. Nor did he attend our second class together Geography. I was starting to panic by lunch. It was my first day back and he wasn't there. Alex was there. But he wasn't enough. I needed Raul, like I needed air to breath.

I had started to shake a little at the end of the day. I frantically asked Alex to drop me by the swings. He agreed, "Are you sure he'll be there". "Yes", I answered with a confidence I did not know I had.

I paced about in front of the swings. Trying to breath. One breath at a time. Like Dr. Angel had taught me.

Unease. I felt it like a bruise, which throbbed with every surge of blood. It's been an entire day since I saw him.

With this new found freedom, I was brave, but it also made me feel dangerously exposed. There were no parents now, pretending to be superheroes anymore. In this brave new battlefield, Raul was my only mast. Without him, I felt restless.

It was early evening and the long days' anxiety was taking its toll on me. I started to tremble and teeter on the edges of equilibrium..

Long before I was married to my solitude, she had a passionate love affair with it. But today my beloved solitude had turned itself into isolation. Destructive and powerful. I longed for Raul and his kindred presence beside me.

As always I felt him before I saw him. He was coming towards me like a blizzard. Slow yet powerful. Strong yet tragic. Even at a distance I could see the sadness deep seated behind his eyes. And conviction. Like he was going to die trying. He came closer and I reached a hand for the scar on his upper lip. My hand had been itching for a month to touch it. Childhood accident, was it? I couldn't remember.

He flinched a little. I paused, looked him in the eye and kept reaching for it. My fingers traced the smooth white line. It looked softer than the rest of his skin, like a delicate stroke. He shuddered.

"I Love you", it came out of his mouth like a prayer. The revelation hit me like a train. Knocked out the wind from my lungs. I couldn't breathe again.

"Don't say anything. It's my problem. I didn't plan to love you. The way you just existed, it was the most beautiful thing. I've ever seen. I'll..." I couldn't stop myself, I didn't let him finish.

And in a flash, I moved into him and his arms felt home. Cheeks pressed into his neck, I felt safe. His finger threaded themselves in my hair and our eyes met. I was feasting on his strength. He was feeding on my tenderness. Lips collided and all I could think was, that I was home.

In a millisecond the electric surge of a month settled into a low lull. The kiss quenched the thirst of longing. His hands found mind, and our fingers found there resting place, his hair felt soft, his lips softer. When we broke, the longing hit us again. In a heartbeat we were kissing again.

When we broke for the second time, I felt tired immediately and sat down on the grass. He sat beside me, a strange smile was playing on his lips, and he had a million thoughts in his mind. And they were mine now.

"I want you to know about me. To understand me. Because what I am going to do next. Will be painful for both of us", I could feel the pain in his voice, like it was my own.

"My father, is originally from Philadelphia. He moved to England when he was sixteen. He went there, to live with his girlfriend, my mother. He married her after four years. My mother was extremely rich. I grew up with elite English people and my family was a member of the Royal Society. It's this society of extremely rich people." I nodded, it explained his deep British accent that had caught me off guard the first time I heard it, but I had no idea where this was going.

"I was in an accident five years ago with my mother. She died and I survived." I could see tears pooling around his eyes. I could not see him in pain. I leaned forward and hugged him. He continued his story in a muffled voice, "We lost everything when she died. Our home, our money, our status. It all went to the Royal Society. That's what my grandparents intended to happen if anything happened to my mother. Coincidently, that's not even the worst part. When my so called friends found out about my degraded status. They left me. People blamed me for my mother's death. They wrote murderer on my locker. They splashed red colour on my face. They painted my car red. And everybody supported them. Even my father" I was in shock, words left me. I could imagine Raul, with his face painted red. Walking down the hallway. People blaming him for his mother's death.

"You know what's even worse than the death of your mother. Killing your mother. I heard it so much, so much, that I started believing it", tears were streaming down his face now, and his voice was foggy. I could barely make out what he was saying. I felt a peculiar pain in my own heart. Poor Raul, my poor Raul. People blamed him for something he did not do.

He looked up from his hair, "And then I found you. Zia your strength has been my strength, your will power, the way you have everything in control. It has inspired me. To move on, to live again", he was looking at me in the eye now.

"My father has come to take me back, my mother had left a will. All her money is mine. And that's what my father wants from me now", my breathe catches in my mouth. I cannot handle anymore shocks today. I might break, and this time I may not recover.

"What are you going to do then?"
"I am going to go back"

"But..."

"Don't Zia, I might change my mind."
"Do you want to go?"
"I have to go."

"Do you want to go?"
"No"

"Then don't"

"I killed my mother, I cannot kill my father"

"But why did you.....",
"...Kiss you. I wanted to know if it was real. I love you Zia and that's the only reality I know right now, everything else is a hallucination."

And with that he left me, alone, and broken. He broke me.

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