Twenty-One

After his heart seemed to have broken into a thousand pieces, not having hope of everything mending, he never stop to bleed inwardly. His soul felt wafer thin while his body trembled and chilled.

He really wanted to kill that void feeling in him and embrace the fact that he had lost her forever. He wouldn't ever get to see her. He had given up hope that he would ever find her and so he had to walk along with fate because that was his fate.

Yet even this magnitude of grief seemed to have passed. And while it does, he learnt more about pain than he ever wanted to know. Then we remember it. Then he would use it as the fuel he needed to make his world of less suffering.

Or, at least, that is what he did, and he saw a lot of folk doing the same thing in many different ways. Broken hearted is a tough roll of the dice, but if that raw pain is transformed into his soul-roar.

Justin searched but he couldn't find Crystal. He had written his high school exams and has gotten easy admission into college.

He knew he was very sick....he knew there was only one cure for this sickness that seemingly want to swallow him with full force.

But the antidote will never be found.....because she has disappeared....into thin air.

Sometimes he felt her presence, sometimes he sniffed her scent.

Sometimes he seemed to have heard her voice, and other times it felt he had caught sight of her.

He couldn't still believe he won't ever see her again. It took him a lot to take in.

He didn't care about the women or girls he dated nor did he care about their feelings. He had forgotten how to feel.....he had became as hard....so hard that nothing could penetrate into his steel heart.

But yet he didn't let his studies suffer. He still was the intelligent but handsome man he had always been. He had made a friend named Brandon while he was still in his first year.

Actually they were room mates. Brandon was going to his fourth year in political science. They had met during o

And they have been good friends since then.

Two years passed and Justin was ready to go back to school for his third year. It had been tough the previous session, judging by the numerous topics, assignments and classes he had to cover.

But luckily he didn't get any carry over courses. He was already ready for the journey back to England, wondering how this session was going to look like.

Coming out of his car as soon as he had reached the school, his hands went to his pockets as he sighed. Taking his bags and moving to his hostel, he felt he needed some time alone....some release.

"Hey man, nice to see you" Brandon said as soon as he had seen Justin enter.

"You are here already?"

"As always of course. How you doing man?" Brandon asked as he stood up from his bunker, shaking Justin's hand as he smiled.

"The same as before, nothing has changed. I need to free my head for awhile. Where are the rest?"

"Jude stepped out and the rest two ain't around. I understand, you go out for awhile, you really don't look so good. I'll help you keep your things" Brandon said, patting his back.

"Thanks bro"

"Its nothing"

A minute later he was out of the hostel, seeking release. He needed some air.

Finding an empty classroom, he took out a stick of cigarette and lit it with a lighter. The cigarette was as those belching cars, feeling so entitled to pollute. It as if the purchase brought some strange notion of dominance - that they could then knowingly be objectionable, to bring chemicals into the environment, and the right of being a consumer trumped the rights of others to breathe clean air.

He wasn't really a smoker but when it came to clearing his head, it helped a lot.

He inhaled that grey stench, the odour that foretold of tar-infested lungs and maybe if possible, his future death-bed. There was something rotten in his eyes as he took each drag, as if he perversely lured on that morbid end to punish those who had caused him pain,

The mother who herself had suffered so much abuse all her days and the father whose brain was addled from corporal punishments and lack of affection. He didn't know how it all happened but suddenly, his father turned into a wild animal, always abusing his mother, looking for everything possible way to inflict pain on her.

He didn't understand how, when or what had happened to cause his father to be like this. Everything has been falling apart right from that day he found out she had left.....

That she was....gone.

He at times tried to intervene. He couldn't do much because he went to school. The only times he could help his mother out was when he was at home but it still didn't stop his father from abusing his mother.

The reason he didn't know.

But when he had tried once again to separate them during this last holiday, his father turned the anger to him instead and he got the beating of his life that day.

This made him to convince his mother to move out of the house for awhile because mere looking at her, it would be hard to believe she would be okay by the time he came back for the next holiday.

So he made her travel abroad to South Africa. At least she was safer there than in that house. He had to sort things out and find the reason behind his father's recent behaviour.

He knew his father was sometimes evil but certainly not a monster.

Within moments its chemicals invaded everything he were, from a sickly yellow film over his skin to the air in his lungs. The cigarette smoke had this entitlement, to be closer to him than some subway creep breathing in his face, touching as if random yet calculated.

The smell of the smoke is one thing, transient through unpleasant. It is the carcinogenic quality that sometimes bother him.

When you love someone you need them to take care of themselves, to show you that they plan on sticking around.

But she was not there to make him feel better and so he resulted to this.....this life. There was nothing he wanted more but right now, he needed time.

He needed space.

For two whole years he had been trapped in his own turmoil, for two whole years his heart ached. For two long years.....

He had ached to see her.

He sighed as he tapped his head with his left index finger. His head seemed to ache a lot. He got up and threw the cigarette away. Just like other times, it didn't help much. He guessed now that he had to results to drinking.

At least he would get rid of this void in his heart for a period of time. With the thought of drinking himself to stupor, he made his way out of the class, walking towards the gate.

Students were moving to and fro with their luggages and the entrance wasn't that all crowded. He walked but when he got to a tree he stopped.

His eyes widened in surprise, not knowing if right now he was hallucinating or not. He put his hands on the tree as he bought to get a clearer view.

She was even more beautiful that he remembered. No....no....no it can't be.

"Crystal?" His eyes followed her body as she walked into the school. He seemed rooted to the spot, he didn't know what to do.

After two long years he had finally seen her and this time, there was no way he was going to lose her. With his hands in his pockets he followed her, not letting her out of his sight.

He won't let her out of his sight ever again.

*

Crystal sighed as she dropped her bags on the ground, trying hard to find where her hostel was located. It was hard to figure out despite the directions the gateman had given.

She looked around, scratching her hair in utter frustration. She looked around, wanting to ask someone.

"He..hello there. Please i am looking for the Honours hall. Please could you direct me?" She asked a girl who also carried a traveling bag as well.

"That is my hostel. Come on, we could go together" She said as she smiled.

"I'm Laura" The girl said, looking at Crystal who looked at her in confusion.

Why was she telling her her name?

Laura looked back towards her direction.

"Won't you tell me your name?"

"Yeah right...I'm Crystal"

"Nice name Crystal. Are you a fresher?"

"Yes...yes. It is my first time here"

"I could tell. You seem so innocent so it was easy. I'm in my second year studying music"

"Oh you think so?"

"What?"

"You said i am innocent"

"Don't you think you are?"

"I don't know but i want to know why you think so?"

"I don't even know how to explain it to you. But trust me, you will understand as time goes on"

"Hmm"

"What course are you going for?"

"Economics"

"Nice course though. I like you. So we're friends now?"

"I don't....i don't know"

"It ain't bad to have a friend. You see why i say you are innocent?"

"Okay then, we are friends"

"Thanks"

Laura led Crystal to the hostel and also helped her locate her room. She had seen three girls already in the room when she had entered. No one bothered to speak to her and they even left some minutes after she had entered the room.

It didn't matter to her at all because she liked to be alone.

She arranged her things and made her corner as homey as possible. It didn't take long for sleep to come. She was tired.

She was oblivious of the man standing in front of the door, wanting to knock but finding it hard to. He wanted some badly to see her and know if she was okay.

He held his forehead in frustration as he stared at the door.

Now he realised how much he had missed her.

How badly he wanted to see her.

Taking a deep breath, he decided to enter. He opened the door slightly, and it didn't take long for him to spot her sleeping on a bunker bed.

She was sleeping.

He entered, walking as silent as possible so he won't wake her. He walked to her and looked at her face.

It took him so much not to touch her.

But that didn't stop him from kissing her forehead. Finally he had found her.

And there was no way he was losing her this time.

He turned and walked out of the room, silently closing the door behind him. Putting his hands in his pockets, he made his way out of the hostel, spotting Laura who seemed to have been coming back from somewhere.

"Hi cousin" Laura greeted as she smirked.

But Justin didn't acknowledge her greeting as he came closer to her, his eyes on hers.

"Make sure you take good care of her Laura. I dont want to hear she is hurt or else...."

"Wait....what? Who are you talking about?"

"I am talking about Crystal. As i said, take care of her and if there is anything she needs, do not hesitate to tell me"

"But...."

"I mean it"