Falling into the Chaos

Six: Deflect. Deflect. Fuck!!! Run away.

Aditya

THE FIRST TIME I saw Zoya Siddiqui , I was driving my mother’s beat-up old SUV on my way to school for the first day of junior year.
I had a daily countdown to graduation going and that day was a turning point.

It was the start of the last half of the horror show that was my high school experience. I was close enough to the end to see life after this town and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab it.

She waited on the corner of Old  Hill Road, long honey-gold hair falling down her back and clothes that looked very, very expensive.

She looked like she damn near owned the world.
She was beautiful in a way that overwhelmed me, though it wasn’t just her face or her body.

She was a sunbeam through a storm cloud.

Even to this day, I couldn’t explain why I pulled over but I knew I had to stop for her.

It struck me like a physical necessity.

I rolled down my window and asked if she wanted a ride to school rather than waiting on the bus.

I knew who's granddaughter she was because everyone knew everyone’s business in the farm community, and my parents had been loudly curious about the circumstances that brought this girl to our neighbor’s home. I was curious too.

I worshipped her from the minute she slid in beside me, smelling like heaven and looking at me with those cat eyes.

I believed then that she saw me, the real me. She didn’t do anything miraculous and that was helpful because I didn’t think I could tolerate any miracle beyond being with a beautiful girl who chose to ride with me.

She captivated everyone like that.

The first school day was barely through before Zoya had been inducted into the popular crowd and the guys who always got the girls had called dibs.

But I picked her up every morning and I drove her home when she wasn’t busy with the cool kids, and she sat with me, gorgeous and made of mysteries and momentarily mine, and I let myself believe that meant something.

I let myself love her, and a significant portion of me died when I was faced with the reality that it was entirely one-sided.

And then, half a lifetime later, I offered to marry her and blamed it on wanting her land, of all the asinine things.

I had too many businesses to run and an endless stream of other people’s problems to handle.

Plus a child pirate and all the complications that came baked in with that.

I couldn’t rush in and save the day for Zoya.

Not when Cheeku was my primary concern.

So, in that sense, Zoya laughing off my offer was for the best.

It didn’t bother me. There would be nothing worse than a hollow marriage to Zoya.
I didn’t care.

But what the hell had happened with her last relationship? What had gone wrong there?
And why had it been necessary for her to pick up and move here to recover from it?