by Clare Morgan
I closed my eyes and my heart resonated at the sound and I found Rick’s grip lose out and the knife fell on the ground.
Too many things happened together but the very first thing which I felt was that I was alive and the knife was no longer jammed on my face. I turned around and saw that Rick was lying on the floor and Ila stood behind him.
She had a gun in hand and tears in her eyes.
Finally, a killer but I have never been more thankful for her killer instinct.
Ila had shot Rick in the head and this had saved me right when I needed. She ran to me and collapsed in my big arms.
“I killed him. I am sorry, Larry. I am a killer now. I have officially killed a guy. I don’t know. We were just trying to start afresh. Why did he have to come here” she sobbed and I tried to console her.
“You didn’t kill him. You saved me and you did something for the guy you love and it isn’t a bad thing.”
We both kissed one more time and I knew that we had to leave. We couldn't stay here. We took the gun and hit the road and decided never to come back to this part of America again. The chapter was closed the real killer was dead and karma had given him the payback he deserved.
Epilogue:
It’s been three years today since Ila killed Rick and we started our life together. We are now settled in a small village in Texas far away from all the rush of the city. We both have seen enough in our life to no longer crave for that rush and thrill.
We made our little life together and we closed the doors to our past, we were happy with the way our life shaped.
In the three years we spent with each other, our love has only deepened further and I have never been so happier ever before. My life is complete in a lot of ways and I know that I have everything I ever needed.
We have made a lot of friends and we love the community we live in. I go by the name of Andrew and Ila calls herself Elaine. No one in our little village knows of our past and we want to keep it that way. We have changed as a person and none of us are addicted to drugs or gambling.
I work in the town library and Elaine works as a designer. She has her own clothing store and almost every wedding in the village makes it a point to come to her shop.
Not only does she design the best clothes, but the love she has and the kind of relationship she makes with people has made Elaine one of the most loved people in the village. We have a little daughter Rosie who we both love.
I am particularly nervous today because, after three long years and an adorable daughter soon to turn one, I and Elaine decided to tie the knot. I am finally going to walk down the aisle.
After designing endless wedding gowns, the whole village came together for Elaine and I am sure that she is going to look just as lovely as she did when I first saw her. She is still sometimes scarred by the memories of the night when she killed Rick. Those are the nightmares she had to learn to live with, but I know she is stronger than those nightmares.
As I find her walking down the aisle, there is a part of me that wonders if she misses her family but then I see her sparkling eyes and how Janet is with her. Janet is our neighbor and Elaine's best friend, almost a sister.
Everyone is happy and John is holding baby Rosie. John and I are best buddies too and it is needless to add that he is my best man. We are one of those lucky people who managed to get a second shot after fucking once in life.
As she came closer to me, I whisper, “darling, you are the prettiest woman on earth, I love you, Elaine.”
She smiled and says, “I love you too.”
When I am sure that no one can hear, I ask her, “Regrets? Want to change your mind?”
She smiles and says, “None. I have always wanted this.”
“I am thankful because if you said no, I would chicken out. I love you forever, Elaine.”
“I love you too,” she says and we exchange our vows and we both look at our daughter. She is a bundle of joy and gives us reasons to stay true and be great people.
I can now understand why Mr. Stills wanted the best for her daughter. When you become a father, you change. I kiss Elaine one more time and I am never going to get tired of kissing her.
Everything about her is perfect.
She comes closer to me and slowly whispers, “Larry, thank you so much for saving Ila. If it were not for you, I would have been a lost soul. You are the only person I would ever be with because you are my soul. I don’t even exist without you. I will always love you, till the end of forever and then some more.”
I know, I am lucky because I never saved Ila, Ila saved me.
Part III:
Chapter 1:
My life has never been perfect. I have never given things served on a platter. When it came to getting what I wanted, I always had to work a little harder than everyone else. I always knew what I wanted. I have dreamed of living an ordinary life. I wanted to be with the love of my life, marry her, and simply be with her every passing day. I wanted to have a family and live just an average life. I never dreamed of being rich or consuming drugs. I never dreamed of getting something extraordinary.
People dream of changing the world. Some dream of being the president while others dream of climbing the top of the Mount Everest. Some dream of being a billionaire while others dream of traveling the whole damn world. My dream was none of these. As I lay in bed, simply looking at my wife, I knew that my dreams have already come true. I wanted to be with that one special person my whole life and have a family.
When I grew up, I got lured by the temptation of money and drugs. I had a friend called James, who first introduced me to drugs. I can’t even remember what kind of drug it was. It could have been cocaine or meth, but I wasn’t really myself after consuming it for the first time. I was somewhere else. I just wanted to capture the whole world and got addicted to it. One thing led to another and I got consumed in the entire world of drugs, sex, and money.
It took me really long to come out of it. For a while, I started to believe that I will never be happy. I reached to the conclusion that my happiness will always stay as a figment of my imagination and that I had to live an incomplete life. I thought of myself coming out of the idea of happiness at least a million times, but I never once thought that just like everyone else, I can also be happy. The reason was pretty simple – I was trying to find happiness in the wrong places.
Happiness doesn’t exist in tangible and materialistic things. Getting a new car is not happiness, it is excitement. Buying a new house is not happiness, it is the thrill or the accomplishment of another milestone. Having a one night stand with someone is not happiness, it is lust. My idea of happiness was clouded with drugs and money. I forgot what I truly wanted.
With time, I started to believe that in order to be happy, I needed to have money. I needed to have all those glitters and other gold plated things with me. I needed to have the best stock of drugs with me. My temptation got me into betting and I lost more than what I had. In order to get quick money, I not only lost my assists, but also my pride and the sense of self-esteem. I was sold from one buyer to another as if I was no longer a person.
I became a possession and started to follow the wrong path. I was at the core of the mafia when I met Ila. She claims that I was able to save her and brought her back to life, but the truth is that I didn’t save her. She saved me. She made me realize the difference between gold and gold plated. She was pure gold and everything else that I was looking for in my life was just gold plated.
Together, we were able to come out of that dark phase. She needed to kill Rick, who was one of her friends. She used to love him and thought of marrying him one day. Little did she know that Rick was merely using his all this time! Not everyone in this world gets a chance to start their life all over again. But we did. I still count my blessings every night before going to sleep and I am so utterly delighted that God has made me meet someone like Ila.
We saved each other and were able to start our life once again in Wimberley, a small
town in Texas. The town has less than three thousand people as its official residents. We keep hosting a few people everyone and then, but that’s it. It is a calm and peaceful town and has given both, Ila and I, a perfect place to start all over again.
It has been three years now since we have been married. We have a daughter Rosie, who is four-years-old now, and she is nothing but the apple of our eyes. We love her to the stars and back. We would like to give her everything that we never got – the care of her loving parents, an education, a decent life, and a chance to chase her dreams. Neither Ila or I got a chance to follow our dreams. Out judgments got clouded by the consumption of drugs and we lost our track even before commencing our journey.
We didn’t want anything like that to happen to Rosie. When Ila killed Rick and put an end to her problems, we both realized that we had to move somewhere else. We were not safe in NYC or Chicago. We knew that the mafia would be after us and if we truly wanted to be with each other, then we need to take a significant step.
We both ran and didn’t look back. One might think that we eloped, but it was just the right thing to do. We both had each other and didn’t want anything else. There is this thing about love, it makes you believe that you want to be with the one you love, even if it means that you have to compromise with every other thing in your life. Together, we started to drive towards Mexico. Though, we soon realized that the mafia would be even more active on the other side of the border.
We were on our way and were driving through Texas when we halted at Wimberley for a night in order to relax. We both were driving for a long time and wanted to take a nap. We found the small town so attractive that we decided to spend one more day there, just to relax our senses. We just wanted to be there and forget everything else. We soon realized that we could be anything we want in that town.
We didn’t need to go to Mexico or fly to Europe in order to start our life again. We were fortunate enough to find ourselves in one of the perfect places in the world and just didn’t want to leave. Instead of running, we both decided to settle. Though, we knew that if we really wanted to start our lives from the scratch, then we were supposed to change our identity.
We got a perfect second chance and started to live together in Wimberley. Ila became Elaine and Larry became Andrew in that small town. When we got Rosie in our life, we decided that we would never tell her anything about our past. We wanted to let her know that we belong to an average American family and were pretty happy with what we have got.
Right from her childhood, we started teaching Rosie the true meaning of happiness. The true motive of life is all about finding happiness in the smallest of things. Instead of collection material things, we taught Rosie to collect moments. As Elaine and I got married, we both decided to complete forget our past. We knew that Rosie would be listening to her and she might ask her about Ila or Larry.
For us, both Ila and Larry were dead. We even stopped calling each other with those names. Elaine was my wife – she was my one true love and I was elated to be with her. Together, we were able to start our life once again in the small town of Wimberley and I finally got what I wanted. My dream was to live an ordinary life. Yes, I was distracted and got lured by temptations in the past, but I was able to come out of it. Together, Elaine and I – we both were able to come out of it and got a second chance to live our life.
We didn’t want to blow it away and started working just like everyone else to earn a good livelihood. I started to work as an administrator officer in the local library of the town while Elaine opened her own boutique. She works from home and all her clients visit our house, where she had made her own room. She started with just a nook and a sewing machine and has certainly expanded her business in the last few years.
She has a dedicated room in our home now, which is her workplace. It is both, her studio as well as her office where she interacts with her customers. From wedding dresses to party gowns, she does it all and has earned herself a good reputation in the town. I am pretty happy too in doing my ordinary job. I look after everything in the library and makes sure that it is running smoothly
Wimberley is a small town and it has really not been changed in the last few decades. Though technology has made things easier for people here, but they have kept the age-old charm of the town alive. There are cell phones, laptops, and every new-age things present in the town, but none of the residents have forgotten the true values of life and entertainment.
While Elaine was able to find Janet, who soon became her best friend, I got John as well. Janet was one of her first customers and loved Elaine’s work. Since we were new in the town, Elaine started going out with Janet, who introduced her to other members of the community. I met John one day while I was still looking for a job. He introduced me to the head administrator of the library and helped me get a job. John was a great guy and we clicked instantly.
Needless to say, when we got married, John became my best friend while Elaine has Janet as her maid of honor. In Wimberley, we were able to get everything that we dreamed of. We got married and were living a peaceful life. We were able to create a whole world for ourselves here and were delighted with our choice. We have friends, who are nothing less than our family. We have our whole life planned here and I for the one couldn’t wait to grow old with Elaine by my side. I would like to watch Rosie growing up into a beautiful young girl, while both, Elaine and I would guide her and let her know the difference between right and wrong.
Wimberley is a beautiful town and we have managed to adjust ourselves to its slow pace. The town has less than three thousand residents and almost everyone knows each other. It is a closely-knitted community and we all gather together every once in a while. There are Sunday picnics and mass gathering in which we love to participate. We have got one of the best neighbors in the town and a bunch of friendly folks nearby.
We know Rosie would have a great upbringing in the town and we don’t like to move anywhere else. This is the place we choose to stay for the rest of our life. Both, Elaine and I would like to grow up next to each other in Wimberley. We have found our happy ending here and there isn’t even a single thing about my life that I would like to change.
Chapter 2:
When I woke up the next morning, there was nothing else I wanted to look at except Elaine. The moment I opened my eyes, she was the first person I see. I have been watching for years now. It has been more than three years now since we both have been married, but it still feels like yesterday. I am looking forward to growing old with her and share my whole life with the most beautiful women in this whole damn world.
When someone else sees Elaine, they might turn their head to get her second look or to admire her beauty, but they don’t really see the beauty in her heart. Others might find flaws in her. They might only concentrate on the things that Elaine is not good at, but not me. I see her and I love her for who she is. She might not be perfect for someone else, but she is perfect to me. I can’t love any other women. Honestly, I can’t even think of being with someone else than her.
She is the love of my life, the core of my being, the reason of my existence, and everything in between and beyond. I can’t imagine a life without her. She has given me more than what I could have ever asked for.
As I woke up a little early that morning, I thought of doing nothing else but watching her. The glittering rays of the sun were falling on her skin and making it seem like gold. For a moment, it felt as if her entire body was made of gold and there was nothing I rather wanted to do than only to look at her. I was lost in my own thought as I kept admiring her beauty.
Her curly hair was all over the place – some covering the pillow while others were on her face. She was wearing a white t-shirt and somehow even in those loosely-fitted clothes, she was looking utterly sexy. I wanted to steal a kiss and make some passionate love with her. But I knew that Rosie would be up anytime. She was sleeping in her room and since it was a Sunday morning, her school was off. Fortunately, neither
one of us were supposed to go out that day.
We had the whole day for ourselves and I couldn’t wait to spend it with my family. After watching her for a few more minutes, she finally started to open her eyes. I could see from the look on her face that she was not willing to get up. The bed was warm and she didn’t really want to leave. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes just to look at me.
“Good morning, love!” she said as she opened her mouth and leaned towards me. I moved a little towards her only to give her a perfect morning kiss. Our lips met and I could taste her presence on the tip of my tongue. In my life, I have been intimate with plenty of women. I have shared a kiss with so many women that I can’t even come up with an exact count, but none of them felt like this.
Each and every kiss that I share with Elaine becomes unforgettable. It is like as if I am addicted to the taste of her body and soul. The moment our lips parted ways, I only wanted to kiss her one more time. It is like as if I need her to survive and can’t really find a reason to carry on and live my life without her and my adorable daughter, Rosie.
“What were you doing all this time? When did you wake up?” she asked me the moment we parted our lips as if she already knew what I was doing.
“I woke up a few minutes back. I was looking at you,” I replied honestly.
“What? You were just looking at me and were not doing a thing? How can you invest your time by just looking at someone?” she asked me and laughed at the thought of it.
“There is no other thing that I would look at, Elaine, but you. I would rather look at you than all those natural wonders. I would rather look at you than the Eiffel tower or the Statue of Liberty. You are the most beautiful thing in this world to me and I would have it in no other way!” I said as I held her hand tightly and kissed it. It was pretty amazing to see how the gaps between her fingers were filled with mine so effortlessly as if the universe itself wanted us to be together; or as if the creator himself has made the two of us using the same brush. We were both painted in pairs by keeping the same color for our souls. We had only a few differences, but together the two of us combines to become the best masterpiece that is ever painted by the God.