Moving On

Moving On (8)

Chapter Eight

Dear Diary,

Today, I finally realized that Vincent had been right all along. I do need help. All these days, I just never acknowledged it, but today, after Vincent said the exact same words that I had once said to Cedric, I realized that, hey, what the hell, I’m exactly like my ex-boyfriend.

I don’t know how or why I suddenly came upon this realization. What I mean to say is that it’s been right in front of me, like a deer walking across the road, all these months. To make the comparison more extensive, the deer never got to acknowledge the car until today. I know I make weird comparisons. Heck, I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be in that metaphor. The deer? The car? I don’t know.

Anyway, moving on to more important issues, I’ve been saying for a while that the past six months have been horrible but I’m just starting to grasp the situation and understand that it wasn’t my fault. I lied.

It wasn’t until today that I understood where my problem stands in my life. Till now, I had just thought it was a small itch in the back of my memory that I kept wanting to scratch (again with the horrible comparisons!), but now I know that it’s much, much more than that. Heck, I’m giving more importance to my ‘problem’ than I am to myself.

When was the last time I had done something for myself? When was the last time I had gone to a parlour, got a manicure and a pedicure, and had someone give me a massage? When was the last time I had felt fully and completely relaxed? I don’t know.

Vincent thinks that’s a big problem. And that’s why after our ‘argument,’ Vincent dragged me to the nearest parlour and had me do all of those things. In fact, he said he would get the same treatments just to make me feel better. How nice.

He was right, though. The time I spent in the parlour allowed me to feel extremely relaxed, to finally think about my situation. Not the problematic parts, but more how to fix it. Vincent promised to help me out, though I don’t know what exactly he has on mind.

He said he’d have to start all over again. That he had moved way too fast in the beginning. The date with his brother was supposed to happen way later, according to a six-week plan he had apparently designed. He had rushed it because he thought I wouldn’t be willing to start from the beginning had I known his intentions. He was right.

Right now, we were at the mall. I know I said I hated shopping and that I preferred sweats and baggy t-shirts, but when I was dating Cedric, it was different. I loved dressing up, but now I realize that I had done it mostly for him.

Vincent said I should learn to dress up for myself, so that I could feel confident about how I looked. He said that made up a part of my self-respect. So I promised him we could go shopping.

So here we are. Well, not we. Just me. I did promise that I’d go shopping with him, but I didn’t necessarily say I would never ditch him. We had been through about seven stores, and trust me when I say it wasn’t window shopping. We had literally searched every part of every store for clothes.

Usually it would be easy to find one or two articles of clothing that are nice, but when it comes to shopping, I’m horribly picky. Nothing I had seen in any of the seven stores had impressed me.

Vincent remained with a smile on his face, even though he was probably cursing both himself and me for enduring in this type of torture. I, on the other hand, could not take any more of his optimism and decided to run.

He’s probably out there somewhere, searching for the likes of me, ready to murder me for ditching him like that. But I don’t care. I am happy right here, on this bench, behind this beautiful waterfall, doing my favourite hobby – writing.

A hand shut my diary and I looked up, ready to glare at the perpetrator. My glare turned into shock and alarm. Vincent was staring at me with daggers in his eyes. I avoided his stare and instead looked around, trying to find a way to escape.

Vincent grabbed my wrist and made me stand up. “Don’t even think about it,” He said, then started to drag me to the nearest store.

Panic and horror started to settle in as I realized I needed to do something if I didn’t want to get caught trying on fifteen dresses every twenty minutes from now on.

So I screamed the first thing that came to mind. “HELP! THIS MAN IS TRYING TO KIDNAP ME! HE’S GONNA RAPE ME! HELP! HELP!”

Don’t blame me. I panicked.

Vincent, still holding on to my wrist, started to run into the nearest shop, dragging me along from the force. I didn’t have a chance to scream anymore as the adrenaline rush took over my body and before I knew it we were away from the people and inside the store, which I soon recognized was Sirens.

Vincent stopped, let go of my wrist and turned around to glare at me. “Really?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What?” I asked defensively. “I panicked, okay?”

Vincent gave me a look. “So that’s what you do when you panic? You yell ‘rape?’”

I rolled my eyes and ignored his statement, choosing instead to look around the store, since it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to escape Vincent’s wrath anytime soon.

Suddenly I caught someone’s eye and instantly turned around. Vincent must have been watching my every move because he knew right away that something was wrong.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, glancing towards what I had turned away from.

I pinched his arm and he gasped from the pain. “Don’t look, you idiot!” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth, to be as quiet as possible.

Vincent turned to face me as I pulled my hair out of my ponytail and arranged it around my face. Instead of pushing my bangs back like I usually did, I pushed them into my eyes to seem as unrecognizable as possible. Vincent just watched my actions with a weird look on his face.

Suddenly, he picked up my wrist and when I glanced at him to see why he did, he had a bright smile on his face. Through his wide grin, he muttered, “Don’t panic and don’t look suddenly, but a girl and a guy are approaching us.” Then he let go of my wrist.

I frowned, knowing I had gotten caught, and that I would probably land myself in a whole bunch of poop now. Unfortunately, I had no choice to run away, because then they would definitely know I was trying to avoid them. My life sucks. Once again, karma is being a big, fat meanie to me.

I groaned very quietly, and suddenly an idea popped into my head. I grabbed Vincent’s hand and intertwined our fingers together. It was the oldest trick in the book, but come on, I kind of didn’t have a better option at the moment.

When Vincent gave me a slightly weird look, even through his wide grin, I fake-smiled and through my teeth, I muttered, “Just go with it.”

Thank God Vincent was something similar to a born actor, otherwise I would have had to deal with very dire consequences.

“Alia, is that you?” A girl’s voice came from behind me.

I grimaced one final time, and making sure Vincent was watching, I mouthed, “It’s show time, baby.”

I took one final glance at Vincent, whose grin had widened significantly from my statement and then I turned around.