Struggle Of Love - Chapter 19 Vanished Hope

During the first year of the high school that we spent together, I had already had a phone. She did not. As we were almost always beside the other, our girl classmates used to text me or phone me to talk to her during the summer that followed the year. Calling her home landline was a big task for her little brother would lift the call and bring the hell down to hand it over. He would blabber every non word that he could form with his small mouth. He would demand you to talk to him over the phone until he was satisfied, which was surely more than an hour. I tried once, not feeling like going to her home. I had to talk to him and he would act like an adult that understood everything spoken. I had told him about oceans and starts.

May had told me that he would always guard the telephone, it being the only reachable phone for his height and so no one could reach it before him. The most painful thing was that he did not allow the loud speaker. Even her parents had faced the problem; the kid was troublesome enough for the one year old he had been. For some reason, the boys, apart from Ton and James, did not like the idea of contacting her through my phone. I think it came as a consensus after some minute incidents which May would never become aware of; I had the ability to show off as a scary person. It was one of those many other things that I tried to learn from Kai.

Whenever we had holidays, we would mostly be at my place rather than hers because the only other person there would be around was my elder brother who would not stop reading. It also helped us have some peace without her little brother around. He was always engrossed in some or the other book, it is his favourite hobby even now. Playing games, eating, walking outside, doing pointless things just to pass off the time was what summer was, though the heat used to be a bother many times. Those days more than half of my phone calls were for her until she got her own phone the next year. She had more friends than me, almost everyone from the class, but she was not at all close to them truly. I had not more than a single digit number of friends from the whole school. But unlike her, I was very close to everyone I regarded as a friend of mine. That was how it became a habit for her to check my phone first, for whom the call was.

I smile as I take my phone from her. Those little things that bring my hope back to life are needed. I am thankful that not everything has changed between us.

‘:(‘ -was what the message from Ao read. ‘Nah… will tell you when I’m back,’ I replied. Thank the heavens for him not mentioning May. I don’t know what would have happened if she saw her name on my phone, that too from someone she doesn’t know.

“I’m going in. Jess is crazy. And Sai, I see a point in you blaming James, but you might regret it later-” she said before I interrupted her. My heart suddenly felt heavy.

“What . . . ?” I trailed off; blood draining off my face making me pale and feel lifeless. She could not have just spoken to James about that. Or at the least, James could have saved that part where I accused him of exposing my feelings. Now what? She thinks I’m the bad guy! I swear to god, James, he actually told her that I was mean and also why. This is just the confirmation I needed. She knows. She knows of my love but she blatantly does not acknowledge them at all.