Chapter 8: 'I believed we would be together forever…'
Cloe
knocked on Ved's door the next day; they had both agreed to meet
each other there. She was a little bit early, but didn't care; she
just wanted to see him, because although they weren't like a
couple, it didn't mean that she couldn't have feelings for
him.
She knocked again, louder this time, for Ved didn't seem to
have heard it the first place.
"Yeah, yeah, coming." She heard him walking and suddenly he stood in front of her. His hair was dripping wet, and it seemed like he had quickly put some jeans and a shirt on, because his shirt was inside out, and one leg of his jeans was just an inch above his knee.
"Bad time?" She joked; Ved's hand went through his hair and smirked at her.
"Yeah, you are early; I was just taking a quick shower." He explained.
"I can see that. I'll tell you what. I'll just watch some television while you dress yourself properly." She grinned and walked right past him into his room.
Ved looked down at his clothes and saw what or how he was wearing his clothes. He laughed at his own stupid ness and walked back into his room where he saw Cloe looking around. She looked different to him, she looked somehow happier and he wondered if maybe he was the cause of it. He just stared at her, in his own deep thoughts and didn't realize it when he suddenly saw her standing next to his nightstand with a picture of a little girl.
"Who is this?" She asked and snapped him back to
reality.
He saw the picture she was holding in her hand and walked
to her and grabbed the picture out of her hand, placing it neatly
back on it's original place.
"DON'T. TOUCH. THAT." He
shot at her.
Cloe just stood there dazed at what just had
happened.
"I'm sorry." She apologized softly, but
didn't really know why she had said it, because after all she
couldn't have known that he would be so angry.
Ved's face
softened at her words and his hand was back up in his hair which was
still wet.
"I am going to change, I'll be right back." Cloe just nodded, too surprised to say anything. She sat back on his bed, letting everything sink in. Her eyes were drawn back to the picture of the girl. She had big blue beautiful eyes, and she had curly brown hair which fell just over her shoulders. She couldn't have been older than 6 years.
She decided to let the topic rest and stared at his wall which was pitch black, but covered with small text, written with white chalk.
She stood up and watched
it intensely, reading everything. The text came out to be short
quotes and poems. Cloe decided that she liked it and turned around to
face the wall where his bed was standing against.
She hadn't
noticed until now, a large painting of a boy and a girl, which Cloe
recognized as the same girl in the picture. She wondered if Ved had
made it and who the small little boy could be.
Her hand stroke
over the many colors which were used in it, it was then that she
noticed something written in small black letters.
'I
believed we would be together forever…'
Her
eyes shot back up to the painting of the boy, blue eyes, with just a
little bit grey in it, they looked so familiar to her…just
like…
"Do you like it?" She heard Ved say behind her.
"It's beautiful, are you, err, did you paint it?" She finally choked out. She was still staring intensely at the wall, her back facing him.
"Yes I did, and yes, that's me in the
painting." He said.
She turned around and met his eyes, which
did look a lot like his.
"I didn't want to…"She began.
"You wanted to ask, I guess its ok. I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier." He apologized.
"Forget it." Cloe smiled. "Can I ask…who is that girl with you in the painting? You have written: I believed we would be together forever' was she like your girlfriend or something?" She asked careful, not wanting for him to explode once again.
"No, no, she was not my girlfriend. She was my err, she was my twin sister." His eyes left Cloe's and he sat back on his bed.
"Was?" Her eyes fell back on the painting, she had to admit, she did look like him.
"She died when we were 8 years old; she had a tumor in her head." He stared blankly in front of him, although tears were forming in his eyes.
"I'm sorry Ved, I shouldn't have asked." She said when she saw the tears in his eyes.
"It's ok. I don't mind telling." He wiped the tears out of his eyes and stared at the picture on his night stand.
"What was her name?" Cloe's eyes were also fixated on the picture as she sat next to him on the bed, one hand on Ved's knee to let him know that she was there for him.
"Her name is Leila, we were really
close…one day we were playing outside and she complained about a
headache, she kept telling me that she wanted to go home.
I
noticed her becoming very pale and brought her to our neighbour, who
was baby sitting us that day.
Our neighbour didn't trust it and
brought her to the emergency room.
The doctors there didn't
trust it either and kept her there one night for observation. The
next day everything seemed fine again and the doctor told us she
could go back home and that it probably was something like a virus.
Everything was fine for a week, it really seemed like it was a virus,
but then she got it again, but this time she threw up a lot of times
and my parents brought her again to the emergency room. The doctors
agreed to make a scan of her head. I was with her all the time, not
wanting to leave her alone. The next day the doctor came in and said
that he had some bad news for us." He stopped and swallowed hard.
Cloe saw that he had a hard time telling her all this.
"It's
ok Ved; you don't have to tell it to me all this minute." She
said, softly stroking his hand.
But he ignored her and went
on.
"Then for one whole year this little girl, my sister, my
best friend went through hell and back again. She had all these chemo
and she was sick a lot of times. In the end she told me she was so
tired…she told me she had a dream about a bird and she sat on its
back and they flew off to the sky. She told me it was really
beautiful and she wanted to go there. I never realized then what the
dream had really meant. When she died I became a very quiet boy, most
of the time I was home and played alone, my friends wanted to play
with me, but I just told them off.
My parents both changed since
then, my father started to work harder which pissed my mother off, so
they divorced. Maybe that's the one thing good about it all." He
laughed hoarsely and wiped the tears out of his eyes. Cloe took his
hand in hers and squeezed it softly.
"I had no idea…" She whispered.
"I just miss her…I miss my sister…my best friend…even though we were so little I can still remember her so clearly. She was always so cheerful and bright, happy about the most stupid things…" he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Cloe.
"But she's gone, and she's not coming back right?"
She nodded and they both sat in silence, both staring at the picture of Leila.
