Breaking our bonds

Chapter five

"I can't believe this," I said. The heavy thud of the anger that conquered me was deafening. It turned my pale face a dark shade of crimson. I reread the contents of that piece of paper, resisting the urge to rip it's white surface apart. Why would I? This paper was just a mere messenger. It was Ian.

As I reread the sentences that were scrawled in his neat handwriting, confusion filled my heart. 'I loved you before you loved yourself'. Timothy told me that Ian loved me ever since we were eight-year-olds. Surely I learnt to love myself before I turned eight. I learnt to love myself as soon as I stopped crying in some soft pink crib.

My confusion over this point lasted a little over a minute. At that moment a large shadow fell upon me.

" Elizabeth, I would never follow you, " Ian said, trying to take my hand in his soft one.

"Oh really, I see a tall figure lurking in the shadows while I was talking to Joan, I see you outside my house a few moments later not even attempting to deny that you stalked me and now I find a paper covered in your handwriting."

He took the paper from me and as he did his mouth fell open. His eyes grew larger as he read every sentence. His hands trembled every second. His eyes were moments close to watering.

Despite all that Ian has done, my heart urged me to hug him. As I flung my arms around him, the scent of clean soap and detergent. The scent of friendship and long chats and warmth.

" Oh Elizabeth, I never thought I'd get a hug like that from you."

My eyes burned in agony. Whatever I thought in Caroline's room was not true. I was not dead. I was not dead because my heart still beats inside of me.

"I don't care about the past. I don't. If you did steal my journal and follow me, I forgive you. I honestly do."

" I love you. You know I do, don't you?", he said, as his eyes met mine. I could have sworn I saw little shimmering drops of water fall of them.

"I do, and I'm so sorry Ian..." I said yet he didn't let me continue.

" I did go to that lane last night," he said. "But that was never to follow you."

" Huh, then why were you there?"

"Because_because I wanted to stop the girl who wrote that message on your diary."

His eyes watered now. I could see tears stream to the corners of his mouth. 

" Ian, it's okay, I believe you", I said running my fingers through his thick hair.

"You said my stalker was a she? A girl? Well, it would have to be a really tall girl."

" Can't you think of someone like that. Someone who has stuck to you, perhaps all your life."

I thought of the only girl who matched this description. Someone whose bones stretched them to a massive height and who knew me well. Rachel.

"No, no she wouldn't, " I said unable to speak any more.

" I tried to stop her Lizzy. That's what I was doing outside your house that day. I love you, you know I do. I just don't want to see her get hurt."

Anger surged through me like the rapids. "I'll rip her apart."

" I don't suggest you do that Elizabeth. I mean she's family isn't she".

"She isn't family. Joan is my family, Caroline is my family. Rachel can never be my family, not after everything she has done to me."

" But Elizabeth..." Ian began, yet he couldn't complete his sentence. Mr Cameron; our last period English teacher was standing beside us.

"That's enough you two," he said as his blue eyes scanned us in suspicion. " The second bell rang two minutes ago."

"Sorry we didn't hear it," Ian said and Mr Cameron just rolled his eyes and went, " What are you doing here, Rachel?"

I flipped my head around to see my former best friend standing a few feet behind me. She did not look good. Her silvery tears did an unusual merge with her brown mascara, so she now had brown lines that ran down her eyes. Her eyes were scarlet. They had watered and been rubbed. She didn't even look like the cheerful girl I knew.

"Elizabeth, no I never did any of this stuff. I-" she said before Mr Cameron decided to raise his shrill voice at all three of us.

"Really? Despite all the melodrama that goes on in your life, I still think that Shakespeare achieved much more the field of drama than you ever will."

"Mr Cameron," I said. "Can we have one more minute?"

" No, you can't even have a second. If your sister Caroline, who is a million times cleverer,  more capable and polite than you are, asked me for a few more minutes, I would have never have refused her. You, however, are just a whiner. Now get inside."

I got inside, feeling the same anger flow through me. 'Cleverer and more capable than I was', I thought. Caroline's prizes were lined up on our shelves right next to her pictures and her cinnamon scented bottles of perfume.

She was neat and I was messy. She was a statuesque beauty and I was a five feet tall midget. Yet, cleverer and more capable were strong words.

I knew that normally I would have vented it all out to Rachel until my mouth felt sore. Yet Rachel was the reason my heart shattered. So I went to the only place that I could call home. I went right to Joan.

The alleyway was even more destitute than I remembered it. A putrid scent terrorized the air.

"Joan," I said, holding my nose as I went.

" Isn't it funny when a white girl hold her nose?" said a loud voice behind me. "What did you expect? This place to smell of roses?"

" God no, I'm sorry, " I said looking at the woman whose smile lit up my world. Even in this dinghy alley, she looked as beautiful as she ever would be if she lived in a palace.

"How have you been?" she asked and I told her all. My miseries about Ian and Rachel and the pain of betrayal slid through my mouth. My parents used to say that same-sex relationships are unnatural. Then why did it feel so good? Why did it feel like Joan's arms were a safer home than the wooden walls my parents put around us? I suspect that even the smart, capable Caroline wouldn't have the answers to that.

" Babe, I don't think you should jump to conclusions. Ian wasn't necessarily talking about Rachel, you know?"

I was shocked. Ian said that this stalker was a girl who knew me since an early age. I saw my stalker as a tall figure. Caroline told me that my friends weren't exactly loyal. Besides, my intuition told me it was Rachel. And for once, I trust it.