by S. S. Sahoo
“Juliet-” he took a step forward but I raised my hands and shoved him back.
“Stay away! Leave me alone,” I said weeping and having stuttering breaths.
He pulled a tissue and forwarded it to me, I snatched it away from him and wiped my tears away.
“You know I can’t do that,” he sighed and said in a low voice.
“At least tell me why are you crying?” he urged me to answer.
“Did anyone tell you something that you didn’t like?” he asked I nodded my head no.
“Did anyone hurt you?” he asked again and I nodded my head no.
“Then?” he thought and then questioned “Did that Nicholas tried to contact you?” he asked all of a sudden anger burning in his eyes. I lit the fire in his eyes off by nodding no.
“Then what?” he snapped with irritation.
“You!”
“You are my problem,” I said in between my sobs.
“What? What did I-?”
“Shut up!” I said with annoyance.”
“Fine, remain angry then,” he said and got hold of my hand and dragged me out back to our table. I thought I would go back and sit with Kiara but instead, he pulled me with him but he politely asked Kiara to slip over to the chair next to her where Loana was previously sitting. Kiara obliged and slipped on the other chair sitting next to a confused Kristian and then he made me sit on Kiara’s chair. He sat on my chair all the while holding my hand in his. Loana looked as if she was going to pass out. As if she never had witnessed Zachary holding hand of a woman. I tugged and tried to pull my hand away from his hold but the only thing that he did was to glare at me and he whispered into my ear “Don’t make me do anything which I don’t want to,” he warned and that made me stop.
He made sure, to remain close to me the whole night not leaving my hand as if I was a spoilt stubborn kid. Even if I glared, tried to pry my hands he didn’t let me go and the worst thing was when he dragged me to his car and made me sit next to him.
“You think you are the only stubborn one in this world? Well, get it in your mind. I’m even more stubborn than you and until you tell me what is the reason of your behavior I will make sure to I have you under my wings, under my watchful eyes.” he said and I crossed my arms over my chest and looked out of the window to find everyone walking out of the restaurant but the expression of Loana made me little happy. Her pissed off expression as she marched to Kristian’s car and hopped in all the while glaring our way.
Kiara and Jace joined them in their car while the rest remained the same and we all drove back off. Kristian would leave Loana in her house and then he would join us because he will be living with us.
Zachary slapped my thigh because I wasn’t listening to him and that angered me. I glared at him and pinched the skin on the back of his hand. He hissed and glared at me.
He just can’t slap a woman. Mannerless Jerk!
48
Juliette
Mom asked me to pack the food in the basket as she herself remained busy filling up the water bottles. I kept the food in the basket and looked up when Zachary’s mom walked into the kitchen humming a song. She wore an orange summer dress and a fedora. She looked extremely happy as she walked in humming and wiggling her eyebrows at my direction.
“You look happy Julia,” mom asked and she nodded.
“Of course! I am really happy today because we are going on a family picnic after a long time. I just can’t express my happiness,” she clapped her hands and walked up to me inspecting my basket.
“Oh, and don’t forget to take those blueberry jam too. I love them in my sandwiches,” she exclaimed and I nodded smiling at her. I walked to the kitchen cabinet and brought out the jam bottle and kept it inside the basket.
“I am also going out for a picnic after a long time,” my mother told her and she looked back at her.
“Really?” Zachary’s mother asked and she nodded.
“Well, I bet you this will be the most happiest and memorable day in our life Jessica,” she said and I looked at both of them.
“When have you both started calling each other using your names?” I asked and they looked at each other and then back at me.
“Last night,” both of them said in unison.
“Morning,” Kiara walked in and walked to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of fresh juice and gulped it.
“What happened to you? What are those dark circles under your eyes? Did you not sleep well yesterday night?” Zachary’s mom asked Kiara and I turned to look at her to find dark circles under eyes which was quite unusual.
“What happened to your beauty sleep?” I laughed at her which made her roll her eyes at him.
“Some jerk kept on calling on my number disturbing me until I switched my phone off,” she said and stifled a yawn.
“Must be from one of those lovers of yours,” I winked at her and she glared at me.
“It’s nothing like that!” she said from under her breath.
“Sure!” I mocked her and turned around packing my stuff. It was true though, Kiara had lots of fan followers who constantly try to woo and get her as their girlfriend. And who wouldn’t? Undoubtedly Kiara was beautiful, talented and she belonged from a rich high-class sophisticated family. One thing about her was unlike me, she spoke of her mind. She did whatever she wished and liked and the only things that could ever scare her apart from ghosts is a gun.
She has a tragedy with a gun in her past which made her so afraid of guns. It’s like a phobia to her. She can’t be in the same room with a gun and I have already told about it to Zachary to make sure that he doesn’t pull his stupid gun out else I will kill him using his own gun.
Speaking of Zachary, we are still not on talking terms. How can I talk to him when I know that Loana is again coming today to join us and again I would have witness them getting comfortable and cozying up to with each other. I sighed when I finished with my packing.
“Are we all ready to leave?” mom asked all of a sudden jumping like a kid excited.
“No,” I heard Kiara mutter under her breath and I glared at her.
“Yes,” we all said in unison and I picked up the baskets as we walked out of the kitchen towards the front door.
“Give it to me,” Zachary said as he forwarded his hand asking me to hand him over the food basket. Instead of giving it to him I walked past him and kept it in the hood of his car by myself. When I looked back at him, he squinted his eyes at me and closed the hood all the while looking my way.
“Dad can we-” before I could ask Gale if me and Kiara could come with Zachary butted in “Go and sit in the front passenger seat,” he commanded.
“No,” I whispered yelled at him. Thankfully no one was looking our way or it would have been way too awkward to handle because they would have started asking us question about our behavior if we had a fight or something and I knew that like me, Zachary too had no interest of answering them anything about our relationship problem.
Relationship problem?
“Go by our own wish else I will have to use another method,” he whispered back through gritted teeth and Kiara nudged me hard by her elbow.
“Ow! What?” I hissed at her.
“Stop being so stubborn and sit in the front with him,” she hissed back at me.
“No, I won’t!” I argued.
“Yes, you will!” and the next moment she pushed me towards the front and opened the door and shoved me in.
“Cheater! You traitor! Whose side are you taking?” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her.
“Of course I am on your side and that is why I want to see you happy. How will you be happy? With him!” she answered her own question and shoved the door on my face. I shook my head at her and she mocked me by showing me her tongue from the outside to which I just rolled my eyes.
“You just understand when I ask you something to do hu?” Zachary said with anger evident in his voice as he got inside the car and sat in the driving seat
. I looked out the window avoiding him. As I turned my head, I saw Kiara in front of our car placing the water bottles in the hood of Kristian’s car. Today, everyone was wearing comfortable and casual clothes. I was dressed in a white button-up shirt and sky blue jeans with my hair braided to the side and I was wearing a sneaker. Kiara was wearing the same just like mine, but instead, she paired up her jeans with a pink top.
Zachary, unlike other times, was also dressed casually. He was wearing a bottle green polo shirt with black jeans whereas Kristian wore a black t-shirt with short camouflage pants. Jace wore the same short shorts pairing up with a gray t-shirt and my mom wore a peach colored tunic top with black leggings. Gale and dad wore black polo shirts which Gale gave dad because they would be going for playing golf which was a few distance away from our picnic spot.
As we drove off to our picnic spot I watched as Kristian took another road, because he was going to pick up Loana from her house. I just wished she didn’t come because if she did then God only knows how pissed off I will be seeing her hanging out with Zachary.
In the vast grassy meadow field me and Kiara started unpacking the stuff and both of us placed the sheet under a tree for shadow and placed the food basket over it as we sat down and Kiara laughed seeing both of my mom clicking selfies and pictures of themselves near the lake.
“Be careful or else you will tumble down in the water,” Kiara yelled at them warning them when they went too close to the edge.
“We are adults,” my mom yelled back which made us roll our eyes at them.
“Yay, adults behaving like kids,” Kiara spoke and leaned back against the tree fishing her phone out of pant pocket.
“Not again,” she hissed which made me look back at her.
“What?” I asked seeing her angry face.
“This dude just doesn’t give up!” she showed me a number of miss calls she had on her phone.
“Who is he?” I asked and she shrugged her shoulders “I don’t know! It’s an unknown number and you know I don’t pick up unknown numbers,” she answered and turned her phone into flight mode.
“C’mon let’s click some photos,” she said and I nodded smiling at her. Switching the camera mode she took some pictures of mine and then I took some pictures of her. We even took some selfies and laughed hard at the weirdest one in which my hair blew up covering my eyes, with her made a sneezing face etc.
“What is taking Kristian so long?” I asked her to which shrugged.
“Maybe the snob princess is taking her time to get ready,” she answered which made me giggle.
“Talking about her, what is your problem with her? It looks like both of you dislike each other. Though I can understand your pointing of disliking her but what is her problem?” she asked and I heaved a sigh.
“I guess I will have to tell you then,” I told her and she nodded her in curiosity.
“What?” she said once I completed telling her everything. I told her everything from what I had heard in that party about her relation with Zachary to the very phone call when I heard her in the background.
“Go and ask Zachary right now about what he was doing with her so late in the night,” she ordered me and I crossed my arm over my chest.
“Never!” I said stubbornly and pulled out a sandwich and ate it.
“Give me one!” she said and I took out another one and handed it to her.
“Thanks and why not?” she asked as she took a big bite from her sandwich.
“Because then he will ask me why do I want to know about it. Then what will I answer?” I asked ad she rolled her eyes “Tell him that you like him and you can’t see him with some other wo-”
“No, No! Yes, I thought about it in the beginning” I cut her off and she cringed up her face in confusion.
“What? What are you saying?” she asked and with my eyes, I signaled her to look at her back and she looked behind her to find Zachary walking up to us.
“Oh!” she answered understanding why I changed the topic all of a sudden.
“Let’s eat now. I am hungry after taking so many pictures,” I heard Zachary’s mom and looked towards their direction to find them walking towards us. Gale and dad also walked to us followed by Jace and I shifted in my position freeing up some space for them to sit down. As they sat down on the sheet, my dad took the carpet and laid it down for the sheet was too small for all of us to sit on it. Mom and Zachary’s mom sat before me and Gale, including Jace and dad sat next to him on the carpet. Zachary walked up to me and picked up the basket and sat on its place next to me.
So he won’t stop bothering me?
I looked at him but then felt a nudge on my side.
“What?” I asked Kiara.
“Look what she is wearing!” she said signaling towards the front and everyone including me followed her gaze to find Kristian walking up toward our direction with Loana following him. It wasn’t Loana but her dress that made us look at her.
The woman chose to wear a high thigh slit burgundy colored maxi dress with a pair of stiletto and she had a Smokey eye and red lipstick makeup on her face. The thing which was funny was the way she walked. Her stilettos dug into the grassy earth as she walked maintaining her balance but she was continuously bending to her left and right side because her stilettos weren’t helping her walk on the grassy field. As I looked at her and then turned to look at Zachary he already had his eyes fixated on me.
“Come with me,” he said all of a sudden and kept the basket on the sheet before him and then he held my hand and pulled me up with him leaving no room for me to say no.
As, I walked with him I looked back at Kiara who gave me a thumbs up sign and she made a kissing face as if telling me to kiss Zachary. I glared at her and looked back at Zachary who mistook my hand as a leash and me as a dog because he was literally dragging me with him.
49
“What?” I jerked my hands away from him and stopped in my place. He stopped in front of me and I watched as his shoulder rolled back and he sighed before turning to face me.
We were in the different part of the field away from our family and nearer to the lake. The sun was above us and the water in the lake shined because of the rays of the sun. Some people were boating while some were fishing. We stood under a tree and I crossed my arms over my chest looking towards the lake.
“Tell me,” he said out of nowhere which made me look back at him and I raised an eyebrow at him confused from the inside thinking what he meant by that.
“What?” I asked in a low tone. He shoved his hands into his pant pockets and pursed his lips as he threw his head backward and then slowly he looked back at me.
“We are not leaving this place until you tell me what is your problem,” he said and I turned around ready to leave but stopped when he held my hand stopping me from going.
“Leave my hand,” I said and wiggled my hand.
“That’s not the answer to my question,” he stated and that made me even angrier than I already was.
“I said leave my hand,” I looked back at him and said enunciating each word so that he would get it that I was not having it from him today.
“Fine,” surprisingly he said in a soft tone and let go of my hand and raised his hands in surrender.