She always knew there was much more to everything that she saw. Something else was there which he was hiding from her. He always used to tell that he wasn’t able to get proper sleep. His eyes were often red. Initially, she thought that it was because he missed his parents and needed some emotional comfort. She was soon to find that she was wrong. In fact, the situation was much more complex and needed much more attention.
William was a drug addict. He used to have drugs ever since he was a small child. Firstly, he did that to forget all the physical and mental pain that he had. He used to steal money from his house and bought drugs from someone in his locality. The consumption of drugs made him senseless and he enjoyed that, when he had no thoughts of who he was and why he was living such a dreadful life. However, his mother (the one who adopted him), if one likes to call her a mother, came to know about that. And that was the most horrific hour of his life. She beat him with whatever she found in the house. He was then sent to a drugs rehabilitation centre but he never changed. Even after coming back from the rehab, he continued taking drugs, so secretly that no one else came to know about it.
Emily had accidentally found the letter from the rehab centre and came to know about his problems. She got very worried and wanted to help him but wasn’t able to think of a way to make him stop doing that. After much thinking, she decided to talk about it to him.
“You never told me what you were doing that night in the college?” she asked one day. She knew that he went to some place near their college to get his drugs.
“Which night?”
“How many nights do you spend in the college? Obviously I am asking about that night when I got locked in the room.”
“Oh! That night. Nothing in particular. I often go to the college at night.”
“And why is that?”
“To see if there is any beautiful girl who has got locked in the classroom and needs my help.”
“And how many girls have you helped?”
“Don’t remember. Actually I am pretty poor at remembering people, whom I meet, especially girls.”
“And which of your girlfriends gave you this love-letter?” she asked him showing the letter from the rehab centre.
“Where did you get that from? Give it back to me,” he shouted. “Are you spying on me because if you are, let me tell you frankly that I don’t like too much intervention from anyone in my life.”
“Why not? Well.. yeah!! Obviously it’s your life and you have every right to play with it. But let me tell you one thing very clearly. If you think that there is just one life that you are ruining, then you are wrong.”
There was a moment of silence. But a lot was said in that silence.
“Do you really think that my parents could be alive today? Will they be thinking of me as I often do?”
He had said what he thought he would never tell. He never understood why that day he had opened his heart before her and told her all the things that he had hidden from everyone else and even feared to talk about that to himself.
She kept sitting there, quietly listening to him without saying one word. She knew that this was the man that she would always be in love with. A tear drop fell from her eye and she cleverly wiped it before he could see it.
“Please help me, Em! I don’t want to have drugs but at nights, when I am alone, all these thoughts fill my mind and I am unable to find peace. Then I use drugs which makes me forget all this. I don’t want to have it but I am compelled to do so. Help me, please!”
“You have to leave it, Will. Be strong and that is the only way you will be able to come out of this trap. At least, give it a try, for my sake. That night you helped me, you saved me. Now you need to help yourself, save yourself from this evil and I know you can do it. Just remember that the weapon which you used to shield yourself from any danger is now hurting you and it is high-time you get rid of it. You know what, they say that where there’s a will, there’s a way. And I am sure this Will will find its way out of this problem.”
And she had been so true. Her belief, determination gave him the strength to get rid of the one thing that was making him weak, the one thing that was finishing him from within, very slowly though. She had won a major victory.
One day she asked him, “Do you love me?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
He could understand from her face the disappointment that she was trying to hide but he kept quiet. He thought that it was not the right time to convey his feelings to her and hoped that she would understand.
However things began to change soon after. She behaved in a very different manner. Her behavior, if not rude, wasn’t like it used to be before. She wouldn’t talk to him nicely, tried to avoid him. One day when he asked her the reason for this sudden change of behavior, she replied, “I haven’t changed though I have found that I should start living for myself and not waste my time thinking about everyone around me because in the end, the heart will be broken and I will die before that happens.”
“But I didn’t break your heart.”
“You didn’t?” she gave that surprised look and then said, “Will, forget the past; forget me because it is of no use. I don’t know about you but when I think of you, I feel a little pain and I hurt myself every time by doing that. It’s better to take our own paths which do not intersect paths of neither of us,” saying this she went away, leaving him to think what wrong had he done or where did his fault lie.
No comments:
Post a Comment