Wingless and Beautiful

Chapter 10

“I fear oblivion. I fear it like the proverbial blind man who's afraid of the dark.” – The Fault in Our Stars, now in theatres!

Chapter Ten

Denise and I stayed up talking until three in the morning.  For once, it was our turn to make fun of the kids at school and how fake they were… how hard they try to make up for the things they lack.  And while they hide what’s wrong with them, they spend so much energy highlighting what’s wrong with me.  Sometimes the way people try so hard to look for faults and flaws, you would think that there’s some sort of grand prize attached to it. 

We had to wake up at eight because Chaise told me he would pick me up at nine.  Denise was not happy about this and she was still insisting that I join her and her cousins to spend the rest of the week at their lake house.

But again, I used Chaise as an excuse. 

Hunter didn’t join us for breakfast and I was glad.  I don’t know what went on between us last night.  I played it over and over in my head, which is the reason why I only had two hours of sleep instead of five.

For a while there, I was positive he would know who I was.  I wondered why he didn’t push me away or repelled me.  Instead, he took that chance to touch me.  I wished he touched my scars again.  I used to love it when he did that.  He was the first one to make me feel that my scars do not matter at all.  That I was beautiful even with them.  And I desperately wanted to know that he still felt the same way.

But now… every time he looks at me, he looked repulsed, abhorred, disgusted and angry that I couldn’t help thinking that he was just embarrassed and ashamed he ever fell in love with me in the first place. 

Maybe when you have nothing left it was easy to fall in love with the next person who showed you any appreciation or affection.  You mistake that feeling to be love… and that love to be extraordinary.  So you pursue it, go after it… do everything you could to hold on to it.  But once you get everything back, you realize that that there was no extraordinary about your feelings or that person after all.

But no matter how bad I feel, no matter how broken my heart was, or how much I wanted to go back to that garden with Hunter… I know I couldn’t have it any other way.  I was still thankful for that time that we had, the moments that we shared that are now reduced to mere memories.  Memories I know I would hold on to for the rest of my life.

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I realized even though it was painful, I was still happy that at least, Hunter got his sight back.  He will be able to do great things with his life.  He will be able to see the beauty of the world with his own eyes, even if he now chose to look at it without me.

Chaise was in front of Denise’s house by nine in the morning.

“Why didn’t you come in?”  I asked him when I got inside his car.  “You could meet Denise’s mom.  She’s really nice.”

Chaise shook his head.  “The guard dog has a ‘Do not enter’ sign written all over his forehead.”  He said in a sober voice.

I didn’t get what he meant but when I looked at him, I saw that he was looking at something in Denise’s house.  I turned and saw that Hunter was standing in his balcony again.  He was only wearing a pair of blue pajama pants.  He has a mug in his hand and he was looking at us with a bored expression on his face.

“Does he ever wear a shirt?”

I wanted to laugh.  I didn’t see Hunter wear a shirt since I came in last night, but I wonder if it was just to piss me off.  After all, I couldn’t help biting my lip in front of him when I saw him shirtless.  How embarrassing!  If I do that in front of Chaise, he would be over the moon.  But with Hunter… well, his ego must be over the moon now.