FSG Belongs To ELJames

Cpov

I'm clutching the portfolio of Anastasia's background check I asked for in my hand which Taylor gave me this morning.

She doesn't ask me any questions just keeps driving. We are far away from the south to the north. A direct opposite.

I know not what stirred in Anastasia this morning. She approached and asked me to come with her without delay, I being free, followed.

I kept thinking the entire night, processing what was said by Mrs. Steele. There is so much for me to know about her. Those gaps are still empty. As to why, why Alice doesn't cares why or what happend to her parents? Why Ana would lie to her own sister, even if it is half truth? Why? Why-

The car halts with a heavy start and I push forward, weren't it for the seat belt to take me back in, I would have got a hit on my head.

"Sorry." She mutters. "Its been a while."

I release the breath I don't know I was holding. "Yeah."

Before I can say anything she's out and I follow.

Before us is an old house. Wooden. Covered in ivy. Except the dust and broken artifacts whichs surrounds it, this house is pretty beautiful.

I wait for her to say something. And when says, I'm left speechless. "I used to live here with my parents."

"Why did you left?" I ask on the cue.

Instead of answering me she enters the house and I follow the suit.

Inside, what I thought would find it is exact opposite.

There are no cobwebs or heavy dust. Its quiet clean around except for the thin layer of dust, as if some one has been here recently.

"I come here, whenever I'm in town." Anastasia says, tracing the edge of the stairway railings, guessing my unasked query.

She takes me into the living room, where nothing fine of appreciative left just empty wooden furniture.

There is picture on the wall with a women, probably in her late thirties and a man in early forties and a girl of eleven or twelve. They are smiling, no. Laughing. About something. As I move forward. I can see more conspicuously. Its the lawn of the house. When everything was alive. And the girl, her brown hair, dangling in two plates, face spread into a huge grin showing white teeths. And her eyes, her eyes, what I fell for, the first time I saw it, sparkling in utter jollies.

Wao!

I turn and see her eyes focused ahead and follow the line of sight.

A blackened room as if burned. The walls and ceiling embedded in dark, blackness of the fire which burned everything to ashes.

There's is sink inside. The half tattered cabinets. Its was a kitchen! What happened here?

As if by sensing my questions she pushes past me and says, "My mother killed herself." She pauses. "In there." And points to the kitchen. "Burned herself. While I was crying, screaming for her to stop, to come to me, but she didn't. She left." She staggers froward and I catch her.

"Ana."

She meets my eyes. Her eyes pooling with tears. "She left me, Christian. She left us." She sobs. And I let her.

*

We are sitting on the porch. Back to back touching as she begins.

"At first, they would have, quiet. Silent, atguments inside their room. Then, in front of me. Literally screaming. My mother thought, my father was having an affair. They separated. Though, he wanted her back. He always loved her. She didn't let him. It was Christmas eve. They had a huge fight. He stormed off. The entire night mom cried. Then, I saw her as she burned herself. I cried. I asked her to come out. She didn't. In the morning police found me under the couch. I was in shock. When I recovered, they said, my father's corpse was found in the river on the morning of Christmas." The whole story she narrates in a straigth tone.

"Ana." I turn and fold my arms around her. She leans into me. "They didn't killed themsleves. They killed each other. With their love, hatred, fights. They didn't even think of us. They were selfish." She turns and placing her arms around my neck and weeps.

*

"You do have license, right?" She ask as I stir the wheel and enter her street.

"I drive well." I mutter.

"Ah! So precises." She mumbles and staress outside of the window.

"What about Him?" I pull infront of Steele Residence.

"Some one I'm trying to forget." She says and jumps out.

Leaping out myself I follow her and grab her arm pulling her to me.

"Haven't forgotten yet?"

Answer irks me! Why hasn't she forgotten him yet? Still trying? Why?

"How does it matter to you, Christian?"

Instead of answering to that I say what I've been from days. "Come back with me, home." I emphasis the 'home' word trying to wake some emotions in her towards it.

"Why, Christian? Why are you even here?"

"Because we are..."

"No! We are not!"

These simple four words stabs me deep inside my chest. She tries to remove my hand from around her but I dont let go. I want it. Her in my arms outside her porch in wintery day. I want to relive this moment. Again and again and again, until the entire universe reaches its end. But her words, they have already cracked me.

"Do you love me?" Her question strikes me.

"I...I..." I stutter, I don't know what to say.

My silence brings a smile on her face. Beautiful and honest. "You don't." She wispers.

Perhaps I don't. Perhaps I do. The feeling of having her is as much as appealing as overwhelming. I want to say, yes, I love you, but something is stopping me. Something doesn't feels right. And I know its me. I myself am not befitting to furnish myself in front of her as someone to love, well, thats what I think.

"Or pehaps you don't know. Its good you dont know." She says and walks out my embrace, I let her go.

*

I'm pondering over whatever Anastaisa said when I hear Mrs. Steele clear her throat.

"Oh. I didn't know you are there."

She smiles and sits beside on the swing.

"You appeared busy with your thoughts."

I chuckle. Yeah, I was. And then, should I talk to her?

I face her. "Anastasia took me to her parents house."

This statement doesn't seemed to surprised, she merrily smiles. "I know she did." As I tilt my head she adds. "She told me so." Of course.

"Curious about something?" She aksing, sipping her tea.

I heave a sigh. "Yes."

"Which is?"

I don't the best way to palce my question. Among three of them, she is the only one who can help me.

So I ask frankly. "Why hasn't she forgotten Ed yet."

Again. Amuse smile overflows her face. She puts a hand on my shoulder. "First love, dear. First love." So what? I want to say. So what?

She continues. "As I told you, she respects Eds honesty and knows if she had given him another chance, he wouldn't let her down." The thought of Anastasia giving him a chance and not me deepens the stab.

Mrs. Steele sighs. "But she didn't. Like every love story, there is villain and in hers it was Eds mother. She didn't liked Ani from the biggining. And when she found out about her parents, there was theory, like father like daughter, what guarantees that Ani won't wreck the marriage and provoked Ed against her. She didn't though and turned out he being the one to wreck the marriage. That poor boy was stuck between two women. Ani wasn't reciprocating. His mother provoking him. Where should he go? He went to another women. It was mistake, shouldn't have happened. I know Ed is a nice person, but...he didn't stopped the fall. Some mistakes cannot be undone. And terrible thing is that, Ani blames herself for whatever happened. For not trying with Ed. For not trying hard enough to save her mother. She blames herself. And yeah, technically, both of them did wrong in some ways. " She looks at me. "But first love, it can't be forgotten so easily. She won't forgive Ed, ofcourse. And, its been a long since then. After her parents she went into depression but then, for Ali, she recovered. After Ed, the second depression, blaming mosty herself, again Ali, she recovered. If its happens again, I don't think there is anyone, she would recover for." She gives me a long look. Kind of warning, I feel, and she is right to do so. Then, abrubtly she stands. "Anyway. Don't stress yourself. She is your wife, remember. She's into you, I can see that and I'll prove it." With that she's gone.

*

As I watch the barely light dieing away among the coulds I reasile, how difficult it must have been for her.

Three years ago when I found out about Jane's death and all the guilt which burned me and is still eating on me, and while I was thinking, no one in the world suffer the way I have. But, how wrong was I. And in this moment grandpa's words comes back to me, when I thought I knew enough to judge, I never was, there were and is always more than me, no one can count the amount of pain suffered by anyone in the world.

Anastasia suffered. She still does. She blames herself. Just like me. Is my pain same as her? Can both me balanced equal? Perhaps not. I grief on one lose. She, on so many.

Her parents left her. The man she loved broke her. And she balmes herself. Why? What had she done? On what basis is she being blamed on? What reasons she gives herself to all these? Or are all these born out of grief?

What goes in her mind, I cannot tell. She didn't deserved all those, that I can say but the reasilation lights on the fact; she is not the only one, neither am I.

*

Well, well, that was someting, wasn't it?

Anyway, thank you for reading.

Pleass review.

Beverly(Terrible Writer)