It's Complicated(yatendra singh) “Please don’t go!” she woke up screaming. She moved to the bathroom wiping off her tears. She had removed all the mirrors from her luxurious house; she was more like a living dead body now. Due to something tragic that happened in her past she was suffering in her present. She had tried every possible thing to forget him and his memories, because memories which once were pleasing were now acting as the source of her pain and this pain was immutable.

Though she now was no more attentive about her physical appearance, she was still a beauty and still her long black hair to her waist could make anyone crazy. Her face looked like a mirror of what had been going through her all the past months, like her pain trying to cover her beautiful white face. Her eyes were still beautiful, but as a matter of fact they were usually wet now. Sometimes she would watch her high school group photographs or throw herself into music to cut her pain a bit , also painting was her regular activity now. Today she had painted a young boy kissing his girl friend.

Sarah totally had a different life earlier. She was one of the most popular of the junior high school. She was beautiful and garrulous, as most of the beautiful girls are. Apart from this she represented her high school basketball team, and always achieved an A in all her subjects. So this sudden change in her was totally unacceptable to all her family and friends and thus every time they discussed her the session ended up in a lachrymose manner.

At high school:

Sarah grabbed everyone’s attention as she walked into the classroom and before the next class she had almost half a dozen friends on her very first day to her new school. She was from far west. She was loquacious but sagacious, though she had too many friends, but she always avoided bad company. Within a few weeks she was equally popular among girls as she was among boys, because of her basketball skills.

Every single boy from the school wanted to be friend with her, but she always ignored most of the proposals. She had an amazing passion for indoor games too; she was very much frequent to the students club where she used to spend her free hours on pool and table tennis.

One day at student club:

While playing pool, “Excuse me please, can I get my snooker cue back?” someone requested from behind. Sarah turned back and saw it was a hunk standing behind her. “I am sorry, I didn’t get you,” she puzzled. “Actually it’s my snooker stick, the one with which you are playing,” he elaborated. “Oh, I am sorry, my mistake.” She returned the stick embarrassingly. “Awe, it’s okay”.

After some minutes: “Ah, excuse me Mr.…” she approached his snooker table.
“You can call me Jimmy.”
“Oh, I am Sarah, actually I was watching your game, you are great at it and I am not, so can you teach me some?”
“Yeah, but not now.” he replied while playing a shot.
“OK, see ya next time.” Sarah turned back to her pool table. She was a little upset because Jimmy was a little rude with her and she might never have known anyone who was rude with her. She gave it little thought and moved on.
A week later when she went to the billiards club, she found Jimmy practicing alone so she thought that it would be fine to ask him to teach her, while he was lining up for a colour ball.

“Hello...”
“Yes?” Jimmy asked softly without even looking at her.
“…remember, we met last week? …. Here…. So are you free today to teach me some billiard shots?”
“OK, just watch me playing and try to learn, without disturbing me.”

Jimmy was an average looking guy and also a little chubby, while Sarah was the hell of prettiness so it was kind of insulting for her as every boy she knew was always flattering around her and praising her beauty. Maybe this drew her attention towards him, all the time he was playing she kept thinking about herself, doubting her beauty, since she was expecting a favourable behaviour from him. But now she decided she would never ask him for help in the game, so she leaves the club. Also the session exams were coming up so she was not sure about her next visit to the club.

For the next couple weeks she got busy with her exam preparations, and kind of isolated herself as she was very anxious about scoring high in these examinations. During this period all she did to stay in touch with her school mates was social networking.

While returning after writing her last exam she, along with her friend, went to a book store to buy a few novels as she and her friends were very fond of reading. At the book store, while she was finding it difficult to choose a book from a book shelf, she heard a familiar male voice from behind, “may I help you?” As soon as she turned back she found Jimmy.

“Oh, I thought you hate to help!”

“I am sorry for being rude all the time. Hey check this out, it’s some Indian writer, I hope this is what you are looking for.”

“Well I don’t pick by looking at the cover.” Then she turned a few pages and found it was totally worth reading, so she picked up the book and left the store without looking anywhere.

Later that night she did a facebook search for Jimmy, but couldn’t find him.
Next day while returning from school her eyes were looking for him but couldn’t see him anywhere. Though she never had spent any time with him, she was feeling something for him. Later that day, she saw him at the club.

”hey”
“Hello”
“So you seem to be very into-books, I mean the book suggested is totally worth reading”.
“Well, I can judge the book by its cover.”
This was their first friendly chat ever, but what happened next totally surprised her.
“Shall we go for coffee?”
“Hmm, I have to leave, maybe tomorrow same time?”
“OK”
She then wrote her number for him and left.

Later that night she waited for his call, but he didn’t. Next day she waited for an hour, but he didn’t show up. Now all her propaedeutic affection was diminishing as she considered this as another rude act of his. Now she had stop thinking about him, also she had some assignments from her class teacher which ultimately kept her busy and thus prevented any thoughts about Jimmy to her mind.

But exactly after one month she received an e-mail which read:
“Hey Sara,
I am sorry for not being there; actually I am out of town for some private reasons. I am writing this mail to tell you a few things, the most basic thing is – we don’t even know each other, the maximum we know is just the names  but still I think of you every night and believe me this is very frustrating as I am confused about what it is really about. Either I am being unrealistic or it’s something else, so I think we need to figure it out and for that we need to talk! Yeah, I didn’t come last time, but it won’t happen again as I am feeling now that if I had come then I would have been less frustrated now. Wondering where I got your e-mail address from? Well I searched you at FB and found this e-mail address from your profile. Lastly …. I’ll inform you when I’ll be back in town. Tc
Jimmy”

She logged out, and now she was confused about what kind of person he was. A major turbulence of negative and positive thoughts occurred in her mind. “Maybe he is some pervert who would ask her for a date and then rape her,” “maybe he is my soul-mate,” “maybe he is some random psycho”…. And for the rest of the night similar kinds of thoughts took birth and died.

Next morning she received another e-mail from him which was to tell that he was at his grandfather’s farm and it may take a week for him to be back.
No matter how many negative thoughts aroused, she was feeling something for a person whom she barely knew. And now she started replying to his e-mails, which ultimately ignited that little spark of attraction to a blue flame.

A few days later she received another e-mail which read:
“Well, to be very true, I am here trying to build up a conversation as I was completely mesmerised by the time I first saw you at the billiards club, but found you way out of my league so tried not to be close, but now it’s getting hard to ignore so I am writing this e- mail to release the heavy baggage of emotions on me. So how have you been back there? Once again I am so sorry for being rude, but that was all unintentional.”

She replied to the e-mail. And since that day she has been receiving and sending e-mails. This continued for a few weeks until Jimmy walked back in town. So they both decided to meet and start it off again. Jimmy took her to a local coffee joint. Though they weren’t meeting for the first time they both were a bit formal like they had never seen each other before. Also Jimmy was a total gentleman at this occasion; he even pulled a chair for her. After a long silence till it got awkward they started to talk and after a few minutes apparently gave an impression that they would never stop.

Now they were meeting as frequently as every day as they both were feeling like falling for each other, but hesitated to accept and express the fact, until one day Jimmy asked her a question, which made things semi-clear.

“Hey … one of friend asked me yesterday whether you are my girl friend, what I should tell him?”

“Tell them you are my boy friend.”

Everything looked perfect for both of them. As they were watching the sunset it was like even the surroundings were forcing them into each other. They kissed.
After a few weeks when Sara’s parents were out of town for a couple of days she invited Jimmy for a night out at her place. Jimmy showed up with a romantic novel and a bottle of wine. It apparently looked weird but Sara could assume it as a gift as she knew that he knew she loved reading novels. As soon as he handed over the items to Sara he quickly landed on the couch and turned on the TV, while Sara went to the kitchen to get something to eat. Later they watched a movie together and decided to cook together instead of going out. Later when they were washing the dishes in the kitchen Sara mischievously threw water on Jimmy which drenched him to an extent, so he removed his shirt.

“Wow, you got six pack abs, and there are really six of them.”

“Ha-ha”, Jimmy gave a pseudo blushed expression.

Then without giving a clue she kissed him hard. For a second Jimmy backed out but it did not take him any time to realise what was going on. They moved to the couch and Sara got on top of him. Jimmy looked a little uncomfortable, but she ignored it and began her moves. Jimmy appeared to be tolerating the things going on but couldn’t take it for long and pushed Sara off him. Sara got so passionate that she even ignored this and kissed him again and when the things got out of control Jimmy got violent and hit her on her forehead which ultimately cut some skin and ended up bleeding.

Sara didn’t care about the bleeding wound and looked into Jimmy’s eyes and asked, “What’s wrong with you Jimmy?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Jimmy said in a dangerously changed voice. “I loved you, but all you want is just getting intimate.”

“That’s what people do when in love. Maybe there’s something wrong with you. And I love you.”

“Hey Sara, I am sorry about that. I want to tell you something that you don’t know yet.”

Sara curiously looked at him while putting a band-aid on her forehead.

“Look Sara, you are the most awesome person I have ever met and I am looking for serious stuff with you so I don’t want to hide anything ….. Below the belt…. I was born different.”

After a long awkward silence Sara approached him and moved her fingers into his hair and said, “Hey I love you more than anything in this world …..But…” She stopped.

“But what? OK I get it; it’s a no ... Right?”

“Jimmy… it’s tough on me to breakup with you, but this is the only option we have.”

Jimmy remained silent and moved to the other end of the living room.
Then after a few minutes said, “Maybe you are correct Sara; I should be leaving now ...” and approached the exit door while Sara remained seated at the floor looking away from him.

After he left, Sara was fighting with her emotions when she felt someone standing behind her. It was Jimmy with a kitchen knife in his hand. Sara was so stunned that she couldn’t even say or think anything.

“I thought you loved me…. I thought you wouldn’t discriminate against me, as other people did ...this is the reason why I was dropped from the high school football team…. So I decided to live isolated and live life alone in my way ...but then you came in bringing me a normal life. I thought you were the one, but it’s not you, all you want is just sex, not love. Just because I can’t give you a happy sex life ... you decided to split…which means you never loved me. But I loved you. Actually you don’t deserve to be loved …. Well, guess what, you don’t deserve to live...” he was stammering and his tone got even more dangerous as he moved closer to her with a knife in his hand.

Sara quickly picked up the metal flower pot in self-defence.
”Don’t come near me, or I’ll smash your head……”

Before she could complete what she was trying to say Jimmy hit her with the knife at her arm, and when she tried to scream he silenced her by pointing the knife at her throat.

Jimmy was literally shivering with his anger. “I never wanted to do this but now if I let you go you could screw up the rest of my life. You will tell your friends and I am sick of changing schools. And all that shame kills me, how people treat me. Did I choose this life? Is this my fault? You normal people will never know how it feels....all you can all do is just make fun of people like me. So here is the final good bye for you.”

His eyes went into tears, his voice became soft again, as he wasn’t even looking at her, and so she quietly crawled to the telephone and dialed 911.

“So here this is the final good bye for you.” He turned back and quickly smashed the phone on the wall. “I am sorry Sara but you have to go ...this world is not for nice people like you it’s just full of nasty idiots... So I'm freeing your beautiful soul from this ugly world.”

“No, you can’t do this to me... Please.”

“I have to baby. Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.”

Sara tried to scream back at him but all she managed to give was a look which showed her agony with her bleeding arm.

“For that, I am going to get something from your garage,” he then laughed like a clown and moved. While Sara was still struggling with her bleeding arm, she had enough energy to fight for her life. So she stood up and moved towards the exit door as fast as she could. She ran outside but she was only lucky enough to reach the front lawn of her house before Jimmy caught her from behind and brutally dragged her inside the house. Sara’s big German Shepherd was still barking for his owner, and it was loud enough to make the neighbours awaken. Jimmy was very angry at the dog so he went there and beat him up with a bat. The dog was tied so he was helpless and went quiet after a few more hits. Jimmy moved inside as he had removed the only obstacle in his way, but he didn’t realise that he had removed one and created another, as the neighbours were already woken up. Her neighbours were Mr. Benjamin, an ex-army man, and his wife.

“Honey did you hear that?” Mr. Benjamin asked his wife.
“Hear what?”
“The neighbour’s dog is barking hard, isn’t this weird?”
“I don’t know, why don’t you just go there and check, and please let me sleep”, she went back to sleep again. But Mr. Benjamin was having various thoughts about what might be the reason so he went outside to check and as he went closer, he found the dog was lying helplessly in a corner near the lawn and was moaning badly. And it took a nano second for him to guess what just happened, so he quickly called 911 to save the poor dog’s life. After a few minutes help arrived. Mr. Benjamin explained everything to them, which, according to him, was that his neighbours assaulted their pet dog. So the cops knocked at the door.
While inside Jimmy already had fixed most of the things as he heard the cop car moving in. So when they knocked he was all set to face the cops.

“Hello,” he greeted in a confident tone.

Before anyone could say or think anything, Mr. Benjamin came in and told the cops that, “I have never seen this boy here before.”

When asked about this he told them that he came here as a company to Sara as her parents are out of town.

Now the cops were inquiring about the dog, so he told them that he too heard the loud barking sounds of the dog but imagined that it was barking on some cat or something, but now it looks like a totally different story. He made the cops assume that someone might have tried to break in and when the dog raised the alarm that trespasser might have hit the dog and ran away. The officers shared a look and moved to Mr. Benjamin and inquired about the original residents of the house. Meanwhile a red cross team member approached Jimmy and told him that, “we are taking your dog to the hospital to treat these broken leg bones, we’ll call when done“.
“OK, I’ll be there tomorrow morning, thank you.”
The red ambulance leaves.

The cops now ask him about Sara, as Mr. Benjamin probably had explained the whole scenario about how her parents are out of town. When asked about Sara he lied that she is having influenza so she is taking a nap right now.
“OK, thank you, and if we get to know something else we’ll knock again, good night.”
The cops left in their car and Mr. Benjamin went back to his bed. So Jimmy resumed what he was doing earlier. He took a knife and pierced her foot and before she could scream he covered her mouth. “Look, this physical pain is nothing in front of what I have gone through.”

“Why are you doing this to me? Am I responsible for what happened to you in the past?”

“No you are not, but you could be a reason for the same in future, so are dying now.”

He then took the baseball bat, the one he used to hit her dog and smashed it on her legs. Now she was almost fainting as she couldn’t take the pain any more. He then took the hammer to finish things off. He lifted the hammer high and aimed at her head. Sara was partially fainted by that moment, but the next moment she heard a sound produced when the hammer was dropped down on the floor. Two policemen were inside. One grabbed him quickly and the other pointed a pistol at him. These were the same men which he had met a few minutes ago.

One officer quickly called the ambulance for Sara, then went to examine Sara. Jimmy quickly hit back at other and ran to other room, where he found a revolver on the desk that belonged to Sara’s father. But the revolver was empty so he quickly looked for the bullets, and he found a couple of them in the cupboard. The officers chased him, but the door was locked from inside and they had no idea that he had got a gun.

“Look Frank, you stall him from here and I am going to get him from the rear window, OK?” One officer instructed his partner. After a few seconds Jimmy suddenly opened the door and pointed the pistol at the officer and the next moment the other officer was right back at him saying, “drop your weapon kid.”
Jimmy didn’t respond. The officer shouted again but this time he fired at the officer and missed him and in less than a second the officer who was behind him gave him a perfect head shot.

It took a week for Sara to recover, and she had plasters on her broken leg. The police reported a case of psychotic violence where the accused was shot at the crime scene in self–defence, and closed the file. Also the local newspapers published several articles on the story with headlines like, PSYCHOTIC LOVER GUNNED DOWN, IMPOTENCY COMPLEX LEAD TO ASSAULT, etc. This remained the hot topic of the town for a few weeks. Later everything became normal for everyone, but not for Sara. Her physical wounds healed, but not the emotional ones.


THE END

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