Untamed (New York Unraveled #1)

Chapter Eight.

NATHAN.

I had met Ashley in sophomore year. She was the most vibrant person I'd ever seen, with energy and life pouring out of her. Her laugh was so infectious, it was impossible to stay sad around her.
She made me feel happy. She made me like who I was after I was stripped of my family's money. It was easy to fall in love with her, and that I did. She fell for me too and when she told me she loved me in her cheerful voice, I could've sworn it was the best day of my life.
But as fate may have it, young love comes to an end. We were twenty two. She had just completed a degree in mass communication. I was still doing my masters in business. One day, she called me in a secluded coffee shop and chose an even more secluded corner for us. I should have known there was something wrong right that instant.
She held my hand and told me that she had been offered the job of a side anchor in a company shooting documentaries on lifestyle journalism. Her first stop was Venice and she would be leaving in a week Venice was the first place but there were many to follow.
Even then she knew that she would never come back to New York, to me, to the life we had dreamt of living together. And obviously I couldn't go with her. It was impossible, the first and foremost reason being the fact that my education was yet not complete.
She was a free bird and birds are meant to fly in the sky, not be trapped in a cage. And staying at one place was a cage for her. She wanted to fly to different places. She wanted to travel. She wanted to live a thousand lives within one.
Ultimately, her personal dream was important than our shared one and she left me alone. Since then, I'd never been able to fall in love with anybody. I dated a lot of girls, hooked up with more, but I never had the motivation to try with anybody.
Until Karen.
And she turned out to be the sister of the only girl I'd ever fallen for before her.
"Karen. Talk to me," I pleaded her. I needed to know what was going on in her mind. I needed to know she wouldn't leave me just because her sister had been there once.
"What do I say?" She smiled incredulously. "Is that why you like me? Do you see a hint of my sister in me? Do I remind you of her?"
Truthfully, I'd never really thought about it. I'd never really thought about Ashley since Karen had come into my life. But they were as different as could be.
"You're nothing like her," I said.
"Does that bother you?" She didn't sound rude. She just sounded anxious. And mostly like she couldn't believe any of it was happening.
"No. Not at all. I like you for who you are. And I don't want even a single thing to change," I said. I tried to grasp her arm but she stepped back.
"Are you still in love with her?" she asked. There was a pain in her eyes that was breaking me apart.
"No, Karen, I'm not. Can you please stop this insanity?" I asked in a volume a little louder than it should have been.
She flinched. She had already worn a jeans below my shirt. She tucked her mobile phone in her back pocket and stormed out. The last words she had muttered were, "Great. One good thing in my life and she managed to ruin that too."
I ran out to stop her but there was another woman standing in the living room who blocked my way. "Mother, please, I'll be back in one minute," I begged her but by then Karen was already out of the door.
Mother pointed to the door with a livid finger. "That," she spat out, "is why you shirked off last night's dinner with your family?"
"That," I mocked her, "is my girlfriend, who I may have lost because you wouldn't give me one minute out of your precious time to spend on someone other than you."
She swung back her hand and slapped me right across the cheek. I covered the sting with my hand. "Learn how to talk to elders," she said coldly and went away.
That's what she had come for? Scolding me, slapping me and then going away? It was surprising to what lengths the woman would go just to make her son feel guilty.
I debated on whether to run to her place or wait for her to come to me on my own. But my dilemma ended when she texted me to go to work and that she would meet me there itself.
I released a sigh of relief. If she wanted to see me, I would convince her somehow. I would tell her how much she matters to me and how I didn't give a damn about her sister. Granted, it may be kind of tough to explain why I kept a picture of her in my closet but I would. She would understand.
I buttoned up a coat and threw the picture out, trashing the last evidence that we had ever been together, and got into my car, taking my Jaguar this time because I wanted to drive and I wanted to drive fast. The wind lashed at my face and awakened me a little, giving me a good reality check and a clear mind.
I would convince her. I didn't care what lengths I had to go to for that.
And that was the moment when I realized I was in love with her.