Category : Stories

Sub Category : Drama

Being happy is a very personal thing and it really has nothing to do with anyone else.

I remember the very first time I stopped believing in God. It was a miserable, cold, rainy night. I was 16 years old at the time and I was madly in love. He'd been my first love. I'd given myself to this boy. He posessed my heart, my soul and yes, my body too. He was 18 years old.

I adored him, I craved him, I obsessed over him, I was lost in him. Two years of my life became a haze. All it encompassed was him. I don't remember much else, except, that every waking moment was spent thinking about him, talking about him, fantasizing about him, being around him, being anything and everything for him!

My nights were filled with restless dreams, dreams of losing him! I'd wake up with a shout, surrounded in the darkness of my bedroom. The nightmare already beginning to fade into the blackness, but I'd be bathed in cold sweat, my hair sticking to my scalp. Relief as warm as a comforting blanket would then cover me because the realization that it'd only been a dream was instantly calming. He was still alive, he was still here, he was still mine.

I told him once about this irrational fear I had. He'd laugh, pull me close and tell me he's never going to leave me. He'd whisper against my neck, promising that even if death does come knocking at his door, he'd defy the laws of the universe and would come back to be with me forever. I'd laugh and hold him, burying my face in his chest, closing my eyes, breathing in his scent, saving it to memory. I'd savor the feel of his body against mine, so warm, so firm yet so soft. 

One rainy night, he came to see me. Both of us shrouded in the secrecy of our love, him sneaking into my bedroom while my parents slept peacefully in the other room, oblivious to the intruder in their house, this intruder who completely posessed my soul. He was completely soaked from the rain. My bedroom was sheathed in a white glow from the light outside. He stood before me like a glowing angel. He smiled and took off his soaked T-shirt. My breath caught in my throat. He was beautiful. His thin silver chain framed his neck in perfection. His light brown hair dripping wet and the droplets of water cascaded onto his shoulders, dancing their way down his hairless chest. He was the handsomest being I'd ever laid eyes on and he belonged to me.

He walked up to me, his lips inches from mine. I was mesmerized by the huskiness of his deep voice and I knew in that instant, he was my cryptonite. He was my greatest weakness, he was my favorite evil sin!

He made love to me that night, quietly, passionately. I remember the moment like it was yesterday. The feel of his lean body against mine, the look on his face as he took me to places I could never describe. I remember how perfectly my legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him in as deep as I could. He'd stare into my soul as my body found a rhythm with his, our bodies entwined together in complete and utter magic. I remember him filling me with his sweet essence, claiming me as his.

I'd succumbed to him so readily, never thinking I had a choice. I was always a prisoner to his seduction, a captive to his raging passion. The day he waltzed into my life was the day I stopped having the freedom of choice.

The cold, hard truth was that he was my everything! But I wasn't his. He was my reason for living, love only developed a meaning when I met him. He didn't love me back. He loved what he was getting from me, because I was so ripe, so innocent, so gullible, so fresh, so giving! He loved the devil that awakened when he lit the fire. He was consumed by the raging storm that erupted at his whim. He was captivated by the veil of innocence that he so easily tore away whenever he chose. I was his addiction, his ecstacy drug! But he was my life support, he was the blood in my veins, he was the beat of my heart, he was my oxygen. I lived him, breathed him. I was so desperate for him that I accepted him any way I could have him. I knew he didn't love me, I knew I wasn't his only one. I didn't care. I couldn't live without him, and so I didn't care. Denial is a beautiful thing. It's deceptively sweet, it's conniving smile is so captivating, it's the perfect mirage. I lived in denial because the mirage was my security. It was all I had, if it faded, I'd be hurled into chaos like the wild dance of leaves caught in a middle of a whirlwind.

Then, one day, my nightmares became my reality. He was on his way to me, I waited, but he never arrived. It was a cold, gloomy, rainy Monday afternoon. He'd been on his motorbike. He never wore a helmet. He didn't see the woman as she crossed his path until it was too late. He swerved, he didn't make it. He was the last thing she saw. He lay on the cold, wet road, trying to breathe air into his punctured lungs. He tried to hang on. people came, he was rushed to hospital, hanging on by a thread...

I got a phone call, I went cold, and shook my head violently in denial. I couldn't imagine life without him and so that simple notion was confirmation that he'd survive. I stepped outside, sat down on the cold concrete floor, looking at the inky blankess, watching the rain as it fell, listening to the pitter patter sounds as it hit the concrete in spades. I looked up to the heavens, it was pure blackness, eerie, terrifying. I felt my heart bang against my ribcage, the sound reverberating in my ears, my eardrums doing their best to absorb the harshness of its cruel pounding. I pleaded to God, with every ounce of my being to please save him. I begged God to spare the only reason I had for living. I swore my life for his. I made a pact with God, that if he saved my love, I'd do anything, become anything, dedicate my existence to his service. I needed him to answer this prayer, the only prayer I've ever sincerely made. As I sat on that ice cold floor, I heard the distant hum of a cell phone ringing. I raced inside, I answered...

I don't remember much after that moment. The mind blurred everything after that. It needed to, to protect me. All I remember was knowing in that moment, God was a sham. He wasn't real. The one prayer in all the world that meant everything to me had been ignored. How could a being greater than myself not listen to the sincerest prayer I'd ever made. That night God became non existent to me. And the result? I was left an empty, hollow shell, roaming this dimension with no purpose, no life, no light. I became a cynic. I mocked love, I laughed at spirituality, I felt sorry for the believers. I began to see life as a cruel joke, and I had been duped. 

I cried for days, weeks, months...I became a recluse. My bedroom became my entire world. Its walls my only reality. I'd drift into endless days of sleep. I'd wake, see where I was and the tears would flow like clockwork and drown me. 

I guess the mind has a wonderful way of dealing with trauma. Mine remembered his promise and he came to me every night in my dreams. While I slept, he'd be with me, everything was perfect again and I had him by my side. I became addicted to sleeping, knowing that he would come to me. I needed that, I needed him. Being awake felt like such a waste of time. I would feel like life was worthless, meaningless. I wanted to be neither here nor there. The world and the people in it angered me! How could it continue to flourish when my everything was gone. How cruel is this universe, it tortured me with its very existence. I hated being here, I hated this empty, hard, hollow shell in which I'm trapped. I can't follow him because this shell holds me prisoner!

But I could go to sleep and he'd be waiting, always waiting, only for me...

Eventually he told me he couldn't come to see me anymore, he told me to live again, it was time. He made me promise to live life to the fullest for him and I hugged him close and then he was gone. I didn't dream about him after that night and I did what I promised. I went out and began to live again...For him...For me...