Was It This Much? (25th Night of November)

The following night proved to be the most confusing night of my life. We were talking in an empty classroom when Mr. Rodger called me in his office. He was looking mad. He gazed at me with fury. Both of us got the idea that something had happened wrong. I excused her for a minute and visited the Principal. The moment I entered the office, the principal burst out at me.

"How dare you do this shit????!"

"What did I do?"

"What bullshit! How dare you play with the reputation of this school?"

      There was deep silence for an intriguing couple of minutes. I understood what he meant. I bowed down my head in shame. I had never expected him to shout at me like this.

"One of our faculty members has reported to me about what happened in the library a few days back." I felt something coming up on my mind. The picture of the book falling that day, presented in front of eyes. I could make out exactly what had happened.

"If you think you'll be doing everything according to your wishes, you may resign." The instance he said those words, I experienced a sharp pain in my heart. I stared at him as if I was asking for some relief. He showed not a trace of mercy.

"You may leave now!" I left the place at once.

     I came back to the classroom and informed her in a hurry, "Please leave quickly." She gave me a blank look but she asked no questions.

     I had got it. Something was wrong with him. I came back home with a dull unhappy face. My mom asked me thousand times if there's something wrong but I did not want to share anything with family so, I decided to stay quiet. Then, I thought a lot about what would have possibly happened in the Principal's office. Many thoughts came into my mind. The end result of so much thinking turned to out to be a fatal decision. I called him and asked him about what happened. He was sounding very upset.

"A faculty member had seen us together behind the bookshelf on 20th."

"What??!", "But how?!" 

"Yes... Mr. Rodger has asked me for resignation if I can't comply with the rules and regulations of the school."

       I was suffering from many emotions at the same time. I was always accurate with my reputation but knowing about its sudden exploitation was hard to take. I was both exaggerated and disturbed. Neither did I want to exploit the school rules nor did I want to harm our relationship. (There was a thought of degrading our reputation also.) The very first thought which came into my mind was to break up with him. For me, breaking up with him was the only last option left to get rid of all this shit. I was always straightforward in every matter. No matter who is standing in front of me, I always tell the truth, not knowing the consequences. In this case, also I did not think once about what would be the impact on him and said, "Let's break up!" He did not react well. The first thing he told me was why we have to break up for such a thing? I tried to explain to him from my point of view. But according to him, "Lovers can never find solutions by running away from them." 

    I never wanted to hurt anyone. I was sure that I would never hurt anyone in my life. But this time, my surety seemed confusing to me. I did not know what to do next. Unexpectedly, he did not take things that fast. He explained that taking such a decision would never let us out of the situation. We had to find a way to get out of that situation. But that would not be breaking up. He explained it to me so diligently that I could not deny what he said. His every word was truer than true. I loved to talk to him because he could easily change my mood in any situation. A few hours ago, I was feeling disturbed and upset, but now I am fine, and that's why I called him at night to talk to him. We had talked over the call for hours. We talked about what we should do next; what would be the solution to the problem if it was not breaking up.  

  3:35, 25th November: But fate had written something else for us. My mum caught me talking to him at night. I had never expected that to happen. She was furious at me, asking, "Who is at the call?" I said nothing; he was also mute. My mum snatched away my phone and checked the name of the contact. I had saved his number by some other name so, she got confused and asked me at once, "Who is the guy at the call?!" This time her voice was at the most top and, her anger was showing in her eyes. I did not know what to reply. She also asked him over the call: Who is he? But, still, he did not reply. He hanged up the call. My mum was asking me many times when I answered, "It was from Mr. Barton..."      She was looking confused about what was happening. She sat next to me and asked me, "What is the relationship between you two?" I told her clearly that we love each other. My mother did not take it that easily. She was looking furious than ever. She shook me and asked me with a harsh tone, "Are you mad? You know he is a teacher, right?"

   "Yes, mum, I know." 

  "Then also??!" 

  "He hung up the call! He does not have the guts to love you!"  

"No, he loves me and, if I call him back, he will never reject it!"

  "Then call him..."  

"Fine!" Without thinking twice, I called him up. He took more time than it takes, usually. There was a question on my mind which disturbed me every time.  'Does he truly love me?'  

    Fortunately, he picked up the call. I told him that my mum wanted to talk to him and passed on the phone to my mum. 

She had talked to him politely, asking the same question, "Do you love her?"

  As an Indian, my mum is a very typical and conservative woman. She always remains suspicious about everything. She had a terrible suspicion that maybe we had had sex.     She restricted him at once, "Never touch my daughter. I would never allow a physical relationship." He sounded nervous. I don't know what he had said. But after hanging up, my mother asked me suspiciously, "Did you have sex with Mr. Barnes." I remained silent and confused both at the same time. I did not know what to reply. I had never lied to my mum in my whole life and, I never wanted to. If she had not asked, I would never have told her what happened between us. When she doubted me and asked me the same question, again and again, I felt frustrated.  "Yes, we had had sex!"  

   And my confession was the end of all my emotions and my independence. My mum had a terrible reaction to this matter. According to her, I should have died when I was born before she would have seen this day. This thought of my mum stabbed hard at my heart. I did not feel any trace of guilt. Instead, I was proud of what I did. But my mother was not looking normal. She could never accept what I did.    But for me, if Americans can do this and their parents can take that easily, why cannot we.

     I never wanted to let my father know about this. I had requested my mum to keep this matter to ourselves. She accepted my request but, she had something else running on her mind. She informs him about everything the next morning. Both of them cried a lot. (Still don't know why?) But neither did they punish me for that nor did they involve the school in our matters. 

   I am so thankful to them for doing that. If my parents had involved the school, I would not have been this proud of telling them about the so-called matter. When my mum saw that I was a hundred percent confident about my love, she wanted to manipulate my decision. First of all, my parents do not like Raydon at all. According to them, he had nothing in comparison to me. My parents had decided my future as they wanted. They had thought that I would be a good virgin girl who will marry soon a good handsome boy who will get fair some salary. They had never thought about my part; they had never thought about what I think. They had never thought about what I want. They always thought about themselves and what that they want. I know parents have expectations because they brought up their child with so much effort. But there is something we can never change. We can never change the perspectives of others for their own life. Everyone has his rights in his life.  

     When nothing worked, my mum called him up in the morning and asked him, "You have to marry my daughter as soon as possible if you love her." 

   I was against my mother's decision because I have so much in my mind. My mother could not understand that love and living life are two different sides of the same coin. She had mixed up the facts. 

Okay, I want to marry him. But I cannot do that right now. What's my age? My age is only eighteen. I have so much to see in my life. I have so much left to do in my life. How can I just get married and make it all a dreadless dream? 

      Having sex and getting married is not the same thing. Having sex is one of the ways of expressing emotions. I was ready for that. But getting married needs a strong mindset, and there are a lot of consequences of getting married. I had never prepared myself for that. I told my mum that I could leave the guy but, I could not spoil my life just for having sex. Raydon also did not want to take things that fast. He did not want to spoil my life with a sudden decision but he did not want to leave me. He begged my mum for second chances but my mum was cruel enough to turn his begging down. According to my mum, Raydon did not love me because he had denied to marry me without my acceptance.