Before Time (The Time Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

Impassioned:
Maybe the reason you’re fresh is that actually you’re not fresh and you’re trying to feel fresh by willpower.

You’d have to give it to him to twist a normal fact into something that was impossible. It was so him.

ME:
I’m fresh, really. I’ve got energy.

Impassioned:
Amazing.

Suddenly, then I heard someone moving in my washroom. I tried to see who it was from the mirror that was in front of the washroom door, but I couldn’t.

ME:
You know what, I think there’s a ghost in my washroom. Let me check.

Impassioned:
Don’t scare me

I stood up and walked to the washroom. It was daytime
; why would a ghost be trying to scare me in daytime
? I thought. I opened the washroom door, but there was nobody. Maybe it was my maid upstairs making all the racket.

ME:
Nobody was there.

Impassioned:
You heard a sound?

ME:
Yeah, but maybe it was someone outside my room.

Impassioned:

Belatedly, I realized perhaps I had scared him really.

ME:
I talk too much.

Impassioned:
No! Not really! Damn, my Skype is not working. Do you have Skype?

ME:
Yes I do.

Impassioned:
Is it working?

I checked my Skype and it was working.

ME:
Yes it is.

Impassioned:
hmmm…

ME:
Restart your application, it will work. Sometimes it just stops working.

Impassioned:
Connected. What’s your ID?

I gave him my Skype ID. We had reached an understanding where there was no reason to hide anything from each other anymore.

ME:
Close your eyes. Don’t see my Skype display picture.

Impassioned:
:)

ME:
It’s gross.

Impassioned:
I think you should seriously think about NOT degrading yourself, AT LEAST in front of me.

ME:
I’m not DEGRADING myself.

Impassioned:
Are you calling yourself an elephant or a gorilla?

ME:
That’s the truth.

Impassioned:
Okay! Even if it is the truth, don’t reveal all the truths. I already know many truths in life.

ME:
One more truth won’t hurt.

Impassioned:
Look at my nose, it’s like a bloody parrot’s beak. So what?

I laughed at that. I quickly found the link I had of his picture and revisited the webpage where it was hosted. I giggled loudly.

ME:
It’s not. Who said so?

All the while, I was giggling. I just couldn’t help myself.

Impassioned:
She said. At least she was fair to me.

ME:
No, it’s not :)

Impassioned:
Why the hell would someone want to have sex with you if you are an elephant or gorilla or gross? Were they so desperate?

Arghhh! I wanted to scream and run away. He was back to that topic again. What the hell was his problem? Couldn’t he talk normally about anything else now? I wanted to smash his head, make him see reality.
Crazy!
I muttered.

ME:
You’re providing me with logical statements which make me change my thinking, and lately, I’ve been quite positive about myself.

Well, that was true. His words were getting under my skin and I was really trying to see myself through his eyes. It was yesterday I was standing in front of the mirror and telling myself that I wasn’t that ugly.

Impassioned:
No, I swear! I’m not altering the reality. You can ask them the same question as well.

ME:
Sure, someday when I meet my ex again.

Impassioned:
Either they were desperate OR you were everything, NOT what you say you are. They wanted you because you were a cultured girl, classic, a rare breed. I’m a guy as well; I know their psyches.

ME:
Rare? What does your mind say?

Impassioned:
About?

ME:
About this?

Impassioned:
I have seen you from head to foot, and if you ask me about what a rare breed is, then just for a while, consider this. Your blood is pure and you have a proper family upbringing. Leave the looks; your skin is soft, your hands and feet show that you’ve been properly taken care of since birth. Who would leave such a girl if she offers herself? It’s a rare breed; not every girl is like that.

What I thought was that maybe he was consorting with dirty girls.

ME:
I’m speechless.

Impassioned:
Remember! It doesn’t matter how much I try to impress you with big words. The truth is and always will be that if you don’t make yourself important, you can’t expect people to do that.

ME:
How would I do that? After being insulted again and again?

Impassioned:
Aim and ignore. You need to know your own worth before people tell you your worth. By keeping secrets to yourself, by bearing every pain yourself and never sharing anything with anyone, the pain will give you strength. Another thing; if I wanted to have sex with you, I wouldn’t waste my time in impressing you and would ask you straight out. Either it’s a yes or a no, but I believe that I would never have it until there are no emotions attached. Sex is the only benefit a man can have from a girl. Since I don’t need that benefit, it proves that there is no need to hide the truth.

I knew my worth. It was zilch. Sharing was caring, wasn’t that what was taught to us since our grade school? It was good to share and be expressive because it went well with our upbringing, and here he was telling me to keep my thoughts and ideas to myself.
He’s crazy, I guess. I was right about him; he really needs help, and here I am, Impassioned, to help you.

ME:
Of course! You are quite right. I would never think that you would lower yourself to such standards just for a piece of me. As far as words are concerned, they don’t matter much; what matters is the person behind the words.

Ten minutes passed, and he didn’t reply to what I had said.

ME:
There?

Impassioned:
Official work! Be right back.

ME:
Sure.

He replied twenty minutes later, while I’d wandered off to teach my brother, Ahsan, physics. He was four years younger than me and doing in O-levels so he had come to ask me a question that he didn’t understand.

Impassioned:
Always remember that it doesn’t matter how close some people are to you. Secrets remain secrets only until they’re told. After that, it’s just news that can leak out from anywhere. There’s always a point in life in which you can stop and turn back, but if you make yourself so vulnerable to others, then there is no way you can turn back.

ME:
Yes, point noted :) I’ve gone through that once; I will never go through that again.

Impassioned:
No matter what, mistakes can be rectified. Just try to rectify them.

ME:
My mistakes can’t.

Impassioned:
At least you can try. By the way, it’s not easy to keep your burden on your heart. It takes courage to do that.

And he thinks I’m not courageous. What an idiot
, I thought.

ME:
I agree to what you say but about the mistakes; I’ve lost all hope.

Impassioned:
Do you even know what your mistakes are?

ME:
Yes, I know.

Impassioned:
Do you mind telling me?

ME:
Why do I suddenly feel animosity from your end?

Impassioned:
Never :) I’m just trying to know.

ME:
I felt it. Well, first of all, I had a boyfriend, which was the biggest mistake of my life. With my history, I should never have made a boyfriend and then let things get out of hand.

Impassioned:
Alright.

ME:
Secondly, I shouldn’t have slept with anyone. I know that now.

Impassioned:
What makes you think we can’t rectify such mistakes?

ME:
You know, what’s gone doesn’t come back. A guy who talks about sex nauseates me and grosses me out. It’s like I repel such people.

I stared at the screen angrily.
There you go, I told you now. I don’t want a repeat of this topic again, please have some pity on me and drop it if you are intelligent.

Impassioned:
One problem is physical and second is psychological. Is there anything else?

ME:
Yes, my heart has turned cold.

Impassioned:
Another psychological problem.

ME:
You’re turning into my psychiatrist.

Impassioned:
Just stating the obvious.

ME:
How sweet of you.

Impassioned:
Princess, physical harms can’t be undone, that’s true, but there is one word that has the solution to all your psychological and physical problems. Can you guess that one word?

ME:
Try?

Impassioned:
“TIME”.

Before I could write anything else, he wrote more.

Impassioned:
Before you even think how, let me explain, can I?

ME:
Sure, go ahead. You have my undivided attention.

Impassioned:
Four years ago, when the crash happened, I went blank. I didn’t shave or cut my hair for six months. I resigned from my job, lost my self-control as well as my friends, and became a psycho. Six months is not a short period. For six months, I blocked my mind, my heart, and my ears from every word or advice that people came to me with so that I could return to life. After six months, I realized that I didn’t believe any of the realities that people told me because I didn’t want to. When I opened a little bit of my heart and mind, then I started understanding things, like, “You cannot die with the dead”.

You should believe what you write, mister. You don’t believe that. It’s just a sentence with no importance to you.
I tapped my fingers on the desk.

ME:
Of course; you have to live your life, however it is.