Destiny Love

Chapter 9

I ran out the back entrance, out the door and stopped the first taxi I could see. I gave them the address to Andrew’s home. In the taxi I could finally breathe again. It would be hard on both Gawis and me but it was the only way. The only way to happiness.

We checked in Royal Hotel a few hours later. I had explained the whole story to Andrew and finally convinced him to help me. “That was so unbelievably mean!” He had said. “I know, but he should have no hope left.” I had responded. But that comment was nagging on me. Still, his feelings were not important right now. Or actually, they were very important, but in a different way. The whole goal of what I was doing was to get Gawis depressed, sad and angry, to show his country that he could not live without me. I knew it sounded selfish and I was not happy about what I was doing but I knew I had to. I knew I could not live without him and I hoped he felt the same way too.
We checked in under Andrew’s name and we had a big bag of books with us, which I had managed to get before we left to the hotel. They were Toritian law books and I hoped to find a loophole in the law. At the same time I would write a speech to convince the people of Torito to let me marry Gawis. I had never been too good at writing, or reading speeches but I desperately needed this one to be successful.

I sat on the bed and blew the dust off the cover of the first book. It was big, heavy, and it had a dark brown cover. It looked freakishly boring but I would look through books like these for the rest of my life if I could be together with Gawis. I started reading the first page and when my thoughts flew off to some other place, I forced myself to concentrate on the words again.
“I need a dictionary.” I complained to Andrew, “I don’t understand half of these words and the other half I can’t read because they are either too vague or smudged.”
“Do it for Gawis.” Andrew answered. That was all he needed to say because I plunged back into the book and started reading vigorously. Page after page of boring laws, half of them didn’t make sense to me. I was again surprised at the stupidity of some of them but then again, I had not read the Penn law books either. Who knew what was in those books, maybe even more rubbish than in these.

I needed some time alone so decided to go for a walk. It was already quite dark but I didn’t care about my safety at the moment. It was cold and misty on the road and I regretted not having brought a shawl. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and thought that if I walked a bit faster, it would keep me warm. Since I had met Gawis, this was the longest that I had not contacted him and I missed him terribly. At the same time I was worried about my speech. It wasn’t going well and I knew it wasn’t persuasive enough. Without realizing it I had been climbing up a hill and when I looked up I saw a tiny building. It looked like a church but I wasn’t sure. Curiosity won over fear as I climbed the rest of the hill upwards. It was a church. It was small and looked cozy. Some of the big windows were stained glass while the others were just normal. I walked up to it slowly and when I came close I saw that the door was open. I walked in slowly and saw that it was empty. I sat down on one of the pews and couldn’t help but cry. I hadn’t cried since I had left him but now my emotions were taking over. Together with my sobs I prayed. I prayed for all the things that could go wrong in the rest of my life but most of all I asked God if I could please marry Gawis. At the same time, I suddenly got an idea. I ran out of the church, down the hill and in the hotel. I rushed up the stairs, not bothered to wait for the man-powered elevator. I took the steps two at a time and burst into the room. Andrew looked up surprised.
“Andrew, I have a perfect idea!”

I stood in a little room, waiting for the parliament to be seated. I nervously straightened out my clothes while doubting if writing a poem had been a good decision. What if they did not like modern things? What if some of the things I had said were too open? What if- I couldn’t finish that thought because Lila came bursting into the room.
“They’re ready.” He said excitedly. I smiled nervously, checked if my speech cards were in order and walked out of the room.
When the meeting room door was opened for me, the room quieted down immediately. There were around 100 people in the room and they were seated neatly at rows of tables. The room looked exactly the way a parliament had to, big and boring. All the men were dressed in formal suits something similar to what I was wearing. I looked around for Gawis but before I could find him, I reminded myself that I better not. It would break my concentration. I walked up to the microphone and took a deep breath to steady my heart and my shaking hands before I began.