Chapter 4, a new beginning

Summer had come and gone once again in my life. I knew what that meant, freedom from the oppressions of freedom. Vacations were usually hard on me and made me go through severely mental traumas as I am not accustomed to being bored, but gladly school was about to start, I had lived through another summer. Well while I say school I really mean collage. I had passed my o levels with respectable grades; especially considering my last years' performance and my current subjects I thought it was a wonderful result.

Even my parents who had little hope in me were proud. I mean seriously, I can get any grade I like if I 'try' but I am too lazy to do so. The main excuse I give for this is that I do not need to prove my capabilities to anyone, especially not via an imperfect and quite horrendous system of education that has been enforced in most parts of the world, written exams. But the real reason is that I am just too lazy and I rarely get motivated to anything, but once I decide to do something, I usually do it. Plus I don't like it when people have expectation from me, not high expectations, but any expectations at all.

I decided I would come back to this school, my home since 3rd grade, perhaps it was fear of a new place; maybe it was greed, the fact that my sisters had been well known in my collage was going to play an advantage with me. I decided to stay and rejected (read did not apply to) any other collage that would have taken me. I think myself lucky too, because I had the best time of my life in collage. I bunked all day, played football most of the year, spent time at café looting people or just hung out with my friends, which according to me were some of the best bunch I ever collected.

Another reason why I counted myself lucky, was because I saw her. I had seen her many times before, but she was not particularly pretty, but still pleasing to the eyes. A clumsy air about her, strong confident and intelligent eyes behind glasses, brown her that appeared golden in sunlight extending from her head till half her back. She was a rare kind of beauty, or so I thought. That day I decided I would be friend her.

I was never comfortable around girls up until collage. I didn't know how to start a conversation, never had a girl friend (obviously, oh and pre-school doesn't count). But this task didn't feel daunting at all and in fact I managed to befriend her and her friends very easily. It was mainly due to another friend of mine, who knew her friend. But slow we all started to hang out together and though I used to have a little crush on her, I slowly began to fall for her. I fell for her hard, like a rock from a mountain on the windscreen of a car, hard.

I had my own issues to control of course, my constant mood swings; one day I would be the funniest and happiest guy in the world, the next I would be depressed thinking philosophical things. But the company of my friends always kept me entertained. I added her on facebook very early compared to the rest of the girls in the group. I guess the amount I talked to her was enough to make it appropriate. But due to my actions that kept changing, she perhaps didn't see me in the same light.

For one she flat out refused to give me her number after around 4 months of friendship and daily talking in collage. It was the first time I had ever asked a girl for it, it should have crushed me but it didn't, I was never one to give up easily. But soon she took my number from another friend and we started texting. At first it was slow, once a week, sometimes twice, but it was fun. Soon due to our simultaneous boredom perhaps, it grew to five times a week, then almost daily, until it became all the time every day.

Like I mentioned before I had fallen for her hard. I used to escape the embracement (which I now realize is not embarrassing at all, but rather smart as I initially excused) giving the excuse, that everyone at our age falls apart eventually, the falling apart is always accompanied by pain and so it's better to stay away from all this love stuff. Not only this but my grades also started to suffer, well I can't blame my love life on that, it was my own incompetency as my dad emphasized weekly.

But despite it all collage was fun, playing cards while hiding, slide tackling the seniors who became afraid of me, I think I am one of the few people who has had the honor of slide tackling a goal keeper while scoring a goal, all done legally. Anyway, even if I took classes I did nothing to learn from them.  A teacher once took me to the headmaster for bunking, they let me off with a warning, I bunked again the very next day, stupid decision, but I did it because I had made up my mind to do it.

I was still pretty popular, which was against my strategy, rather our strategy that myself and Hashir had come up with. Stay hidden and cause mayhem, it's easy to forget such people due to which we did not get caught. But since there were only about a hundred kids in my year I thought it better to allow one of us evil geniuses to be social. Hashir warned me against it too, but I fell in love, the most evil of sins between us two.

Another one of my dear friends who entertained me was Anwar; he used to come over to my place from the other end of the city just to meet me. He always had the most entertaining problems. His online dating problems, his inferiority complex and even his constantly changing plans for the future were always entertaining. It sometimes happened that he would start on a story and I would keep smiling throughout because I was messaging Kanza (the girl I liked) and he thought I found his story entertaining or even listened to him. But whenever he used to be like "so what do you think I should do?" I always had a good reply ready since I did hear the first five minutes of it.

He was one of my best friends and I often acted like his therapist. I even helped him get girls on the online sites, but they were usually long distance relationships. He helped me out to whenever I needed help and frankly I treated him like crap. My oldest best friend left collage and moved to Canada, but this story has nothing to do with it so I shall move on.

Back to my love life, despite my own great wit and my best friend advising me not to, I not only fell in love, I decided to ask her out. This task however was too scary and just imagining it made me almost scared to a state where I stopped all motion. At this time I was still unaware how much I liked her so, I gathered all my courage and while texting her I asked her, it was a crash, burn and spread the ash into thin air scenario. But I still wasn't hurt, in fact I laughed for five minutes after that conversation. I was so glad it was over that I decided not to even ask her again, or follow her.

Kanza let me down easy; I could act normal around her, no awkwardness. Life was still great. Even without any romance or feelings of being loved, I knew I would live on and maybe she will take me someday. Besides she did care for me, even if it was just as friends. We talked the whole day over texts I mean nonstop, I still thought I had a chance, but I was very wrong. A few weeks later it became apparent something between Kanza and Tauqeer (also one of my friends in the group) was up; I mean they would never say it but we could all tell they had started to be in a relationship. But my pride and over-confidence never let up and I kept on. One day I nearly let loose the monster inside me.

It happened at home time. The two of them were bunking again, the monster gnawing my insides due to jealousy, but I ignored it. It was the last period and she was going away for a while, perhaps forever, the thought annoyed me a bit but of course I ignored it. At home time she was nowhere to be seen, I thought she might have left without saying goodbye. I mean yea I wasn't her boy friend or anything, but still I counted her as one of my best friends and I thought she would at least say good bye.

But I searched for her in school, she couldn't be found in the usual places, I kept calling her but that too was a failure as she was not picking up. Finally she picked up the phone and I asked her where she was and I went up to her. Turns out she had gone out to the shop to eat ice cream with Tauqeer. She never let me buy her anything but she let him. She never went out for ice cream as friends with me but she did with him. She always excused herself from my friends (outside the groups) plans but she went out with him.

A huge explosion took place inside me. My eyes wide with terror, tears just a breath away, completely tensed body and she understood I was upset. What if she had gone forever without saying goodbye? and what of this madness with Tauqeer? She perhaps understood half of it, she apologized and said goodbye. Through gritted teeth and the extreme emotional turmoil of controlling the monster which was yearning to get out and launch itself on the world till nothing survived in one piece, I spoke "don't worry it's not your fault and bye" and I left without turning back.

She texted me, but I was my usual cheery self. It was easy to hide emotions behind a screen, quite like a cyber bully. That day I knew I had lost her. I handle rejections as well as I handle my studies, without a sweat. But this was jealousy; I couldn't believe I was chosen above someone else. I mean I know I am not the best looking guy, nor do I have much money to spend, I also can be unpredictable. Ok so apart from entertainment I am really no good to be anyone's boyfriend, guess that's not good enough. But the fact that it was Tauqeer? That sent my anger to uncontrollable proportions. I never really liked him, but above all else I thought he was a fake person.

Had it been any other guy in our group I would have applauded her, but this? This was unacceptable to my pride, not someone I didn't like! But it was her life, I decided to accept the fact and move on. The next day, she had told him that I liked her, utter stupidity, she didn't realize the consequences. The guy while in private with her taunted me about it. That's when I decided I would hate him eternally. I can control my feelings up until they burst out in the form of the demon, but he couldn't. Would never let me be alone with her, would hold hands with her, I mean common decency dictates you wait a couple weeks out of respect before being physical in front of the guy who used to like the girl. But I know how to play games too. Soon due to my taunts they stopped being physical in front of me at least.