Before Time (The Time Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

Impassioned:
Onaiza, are you feeling alright?

ME:
Yes, I’m fine.

Impassioned:
Sure?

ME:
Yes, I’m sure. Why are you so concerned?

Impassioned:
Because you’re acting like a lunatic.

ME:
really?

Impassioned:
:/

ME:
*raises an eyebrow*

Impassioned:
I think I should go away from keyboard; you will not be the first girl to disappoint me, there were so many. So chill.

ME:
Disappoint you? It was you who was rude to me.

Impassioned:
I was? Where?

ME:
Just think.

Impassioned:
Tell me

ME:
I don’t want to mention it now. Just leave it, you go ahead and sleep.

Impassioned:
If my coming closer to you means that these kind of childish complications will be born, I know really well how to keep my distance.

*away*

ME:
What kind of childish complications? For example? I was just singing songs, and there is no problem.

But as was becoming our usual, he had left without telling me so. I switched to the main channel stream. His nick was still online, but he wasn’t there. Maybe he had minimized the window and wasn’t checking his messages.

Three hours later, I still couldn’t understand what he had said about going away.

ME:
You have to explain what you meant when you said this. “If my coming closer to you means that these kind of childish complication will be born, I know really well how to keep my distance.”

Impassioned:
I’m not in a good mood; leave me alone.

I didn’t respond to him. It felt like I was forcing myself on him, and I didn’t want that. If he wanted to be left alone, so be it. I spent all night chatting on another channel and having a little fun. I forgot about his bad mood and the way he talked to me. It was a first for me, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Chapter 12

I spent the next day with my friends, as planned. We had planned a trip to Murree, and so we left early in the morning, around ten a.m. We stopped at a café in the outskirts of Murree in the afternoon. It had a bluish-black interior, but the view of the beautiful mountains from the terrace was breathtaking. We opted to sit outside, as we wanted to enjoy the view while we sipped our wonderfully delicious coffees. There were trees and mountains as far as we could see, with small houses scattered along the mountains. A mist rose in the valleys beneath us, and it was quite cold.

I wrapped my black shawl tightly around me as I looked at the view ahead. I loved the cold, but I felt it more than others. I watched as a sparrow rose from the trees and flew closer to us, watching with its intelligent amber eyes. I picked up a bit of chicken strip, which we had ordered as an appetizer, and threw it towards her. She looked at it for a second, then picked it up in its beak and flew away.

I smiled. There was no artifice in these parts; not among the beauty or the people.

“What has you smiling like that?” Sarah asked as she came to sit down beside me.

“I was just watching the beauty of these mountains and feeling the peacefulness here.”

“Onaiza!!” She sighed my name. “Don’t tell me you are going to start your cryptic remarks here, again?”

I shook my head and gave her a small smile. She understood me pretty well.

“So, let’s go to the Kashmir point, because the others want to ride horses, and then we’ll be on our way back. It’s almost seven already, and we have wasted all day lurking in this blue lagoon.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was saying,” Anika piped up.

“Let’s move then,” I said, standing up.

Our next destination was the Kashmir point, which was only fifteen minutes’ drive from there. Amidst songs and laughter, we clambered out of the car. The air was so fresh up here that I inhaled deeply and let it spread all through me. A few of my friends wanted to ride horses, so we divided. I never liked riding, as I have always been too cowardly to try to get on a horse.

That reminded me of an old incident from the third grade, when we took a school trip to a neighboring farm. There was a funfair, which our school had organized. Our teachers had collected money for all the children who would be riding, and my mom had sent mine too. When the time came to ride the horse, I mounted, then screamed when the horse started moving. It felt like I was going to fall off and break my neck. I became the laughingstock of all the children in my class.

Laughing at the memory, I turned towards the small shops that littered around the road. I eyed the stalls with wonder. There were villagers selling garlands made up of wild flowers and ferns. I stopped and got two garlands for Sarah and myself. We wore our garlands and walked around, munching on Lays and inhaling the sweet scent that filled our nostrils.

“How peaceful is this place, even though there are so many people going about their business? I love it here.”

“I agree. We had been planning for this trip for a long, long time, and it was worth a visit, but I have noticed something.”

“What?” I asked, smiling at her.

“You seem distracted. Like you are physically here, but mentally, you are somewhere else. Want to share with me?” She looked at me closely.

“No! I’m not distracted. You know I’m always quiet, but I think this place has done something to my mood. I like the serenity and quietness of peaceful places.”

“I know you very well, Onaiza. Although what you say is true, there is something else. I’ll wait ‘til you are ready to tell me,” she said, smiling with understanding. I looked away from her. I couldn’t tell her what was wrong because I, myself, didn’t know what was really wrong.

“Sure.”

We walked a little while until the others returned from their riding, then headed back home. We reached around ten p.m. I was tired to the bones but I just wanted to talk to him first. I wanted to apologize for my rude behavior, but would he be online? I wasn’t sure. When I logged in, he was there, but he didn’t even deign to message or reply. I quit. I really needed to sleep, for the trip had tired me a lot. I changed into my favorite trousers and t-shirt and jumped into bed. That night I dreamt of mountains and greenery; I called for him, but I got no response.

Two days passed, and we didn’t chat at all. He was online, but he didn’t reply. I didn’t want to be a clingy, whiny teenager, so I gave him the space that he needed. I knew that he was angry at me, so I just sent him one message. I didn’t want our friendship, with which I was becoming comfortable, to end like this.

ME:
There?

Impassioned:
I’m not in a good mood, please go away.

ME:
It doesn’t matter if you are in a good mood or not. I’m not going to message you again. I just want to say goodbye.

Impassioned:
Where there are expectations, there are always disappointments. This was my rule. I broke my own rule, and expected, therefore, to suffer.

ME:
What did you expect? I went through our conversations over and over again, but I still don’t understand what I did wrong.

Impassioned:
It’s not your mistake? Then why do you care? Enjoy yourself and let me go to hell.

ME:
Why should I?

Impassioned:
Please, Onaiza, you should leave. I don’t want to discuss this anymore. I’m not trying to stop you from anything. Please leave me alone.

ME:
Alright! You want me to go, then I’m going, but if I unknowingly hurt you, then I’m sorry.

Impassioned:
Don’t act childish again.

ME:
I didn’t do anything childish before, I told you. If you’ve developed a misunderstanding with me, you should clear it. It’s my habit that when I’m bored, I write song lyrics on the main channel stream. You misunderstood it.

Impassioned:
I just said, don’t act childish again!

ME:
Okay.

Impassioned:
It has nothing to do with the channel.

ME:
ENOUGH NOW! I was starting to trust you.

Impassioned:
SO WAS I!

ME:
I DON’T THINK SO! YOU JUST HEARD ME, AND THEN IN THE END, YOU DECIDED THAT I’M NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BE YOUR FRIEND! THAT’S ALL.

Impassioned:
Fine! You want to go? Then go. Leave me alone, and never come back to me. Let people think what they want; I don’t care. I never asked you to leave the channel.

ME:
Just look at yourself. You can’t even openly tell me what has you so angry. You’ve had a misunderstanding, which you never cleared up. What’s worse is that I have been thinking and thinking for the last two days about what I have done to deserve such treatment from you.

Impassioned:
This is the reason why I never interacted with any girl on mIRC. Pity I’m suffering, because I’m responsible for this.

ME:
What?

So, he thought that he had made a mistake, talking to me. What an asshole. He could do whatever he wanted, and I wouldn’t stay one moment longer. I deleted my operatorship from the channel where we sat together.

Impassioned:
You deleted yourself! I wanted you to leave, so why are you still in my private stream? Please leave.

ME:
Okay! Bye.

I closed his private window and left the channel, looking at the screen disinterestedly.
What have I done?
I tried to think again and again about what had happened over the last few days, but I didn’t understand what I’d done. I knew he wasn’t like other people, but I thought we had an understanding. He knew how my mind worked.

Deep down, I felt disheartened, rejected, and lost. Maybe, he saw me what I really was: a plus-sized girl with no apparent beauty. After all, who would want to be associated with a girl like that? After all his talks about not being after faces and figures, physical beauty came in between us. No matter how hard you try to tell others that it doesn’t matter what they look like, that there is more to you than just apparent beauty, people only want beauty. I understood that pretty well, and perhaps that was the reason he had decided to distance himself.

I messaged him again, because I was so used to talking to him whenever I joined mIRC, but he didn’t reply. He had become an addiction for me. As days passed, I realized that my theory about his attitude was quite right. After all, in this age, who cares about internal beauty?

Nobody.

If that was the reason, he should’ve been straightforward about it. I planned to do just that, and I didn’t care about the consequences. I logged in to the channel and there was he, online.

ME:
You are no special person; you are like others as well. You saw my face and then, you rejected me. I am so stupid. I thought I had a true friend, who didn’t care about how I looked physically, but I was so wrong. I have never apologized to people like this because I thought that they didn’t deserve it, but even I don’t deserve such treatment from you. I was so wrong about everything; I deliberately hurt myself by trusting you.