I held her hands and looked into her sparkling tiny eyes. It was moist with tears of contentment and were ready to flow out easily. I couldn’t see that and so, I raced my hands to her puffy cheeks and wiped off those tears before they rolled down.
“It’s okay. Everything fine now and from now own, I’ll take care of you. I'll make sure that you’ll get back to the tracks and that you’ll get the second chance you always deserved” I gave her the assurance and she giggled at me.
“What??” I felt a mysteriousness in her giggle and asked her.
“You made me remember dad’s promise” she looked down at her legs and reminisced those words.
“That day in the lighthouse, he had this same tone and determination. It was with which he promised me that he will work hard and earn money the needed for my surgery and he would give me the best treatment. But for that, he took a big promise from me” the smile in her face faded as she told me in a dull tone.
“imaginable” it was obvious to guess it and I muttered.
“He asked me to promise him that I would not take up any kind of risks especially that I wouldn’t think of sports for the time being. That’s when I had to promised him that I would never run till I was cured. It happened to be the worst days of my life” she paused to take a breath.
“After that day, I decided to change myself. I had been terrible for many days. But somehow, I was able to muster my courage, strength and hope which made me ready to create a new world for myself. For that, I had tried to include myself with the outside world but it didn’t make me happy. The extrovert Zoe had then changed into a complete introvert. I built my own new world piece by piece with limited people in that world” her voice started cracking as she went on. It was very tough for both of us to go through that confession but she wanted to do it anyhow.
I could feel that she wanted me to know every tiny thing about her and that was her life story. It was undeniable that now she didn’t want to hide anything from me after knowing what all I did to her. Even though I never wanted her to live through her past scars once again, I also wanted her to break free from her past completely. And if that meant she wanted to do it by confessing everything to me, I was ready to let her get over her past completely!!!!
“Zack, I was living for the future until you came to my life. Along with you came Caroline but that didn’t matter to me. Fate always kept us from coming closer to each other and it kept my feelings fire up. The more I spent time with you, the more I felt to live the present moment. You were my hurricane to which I wanted to be a willing victim to. And that hurricane was the one that had shown me the real lighthouse” finally, she came to the weirdest confession I had ever heard in my life!!!
Hurricane....victim...... I could totally tell that she was the weirdest girl I had ever seen in my life. She was the perfect combination of mysteriousness, innocence, cuteness and most importantly, maturity. Though her words had such weird touch to it, the meaning it held was far beyond any normal person’s understanding. Only the people who knew her language had the power to decode it and luckily, I was one of them.
I laughed out loud hearing her words and saw her cheeks turn pink. Oh my gosh, my girl was blushing so gorgeously!!!!!
This girl was the purest soul I had ever seen in my life. I had got a chance to understand what a women can actually do for their loved ones and nothing had the power to open my eyes than Zoe's actions. I was indeed satisfied with everything my life had given me whether it be good or bad times. And the biggest lesson I had learned was that sometimes life can give cupcakes also.
For now, I wanted to make the moment more special for her so, I slowly stood up and also made Zoe by holding her. From her confused expression, I knew that she thought I was going to confess my love for her in a dramatic yet romantic way.
However, I was going to make it even more special for her. I kneeled down on my legs and a sudden expression of disbelief and euphoria flashed upon her face. Seeing her expression, I let out my wide smile, took a deep sigh and asked her.
“WILL YOU BE MY LIGHTHOUSE ZOE?” I confessed to her in the same way she had confessed to me.
“Zack......” she muttered my name in the most beautiful tone she could ever take my name with.
“Yes....” the next second, she happily confessed to me.
My heart exploded with euphoria and I bit my lips in happiness. She was so on cloud nine that she forgot all about her condition and threw herself on me to give me a tight hug. Bad luck followed her when she immediately lost her balance and my heart skipped a beat. I instantly became her savior and held her in my arms before she fell down.
“See, I told you that you’ll always be there for me anyhow” Zoe laughed to me. I don’t believe this girl!!!!
“Oh yeah, then what about this?” to snap back at her, I pulled her up to my chest.
She landed right on my hard-core chest and looked into my eyes aghast. She had no idea why I did that nor what I was going to do. Me, I had a lot of things going on in my mind and the top most one was to taste her plum strawberry-colored lips. So, I did. I crawled my hands towards her face and gave her goosebumps. By now, she had understood what I was going to do and with full acceptance, she smiled and I slowly locked my rough lips on her. This was pure bliss!!!!!
Our tongues met and how could I describe the way she surrendered to my dominance. With the thought that it was her first kiss and I wanted it to be the best and the most memorable one for her. She let go off her guard and I caressed my hands all over her neck and down her hands. Yes, this was the best first kiss of hers.
“Zack....will you suck my soul out??” a minute later, she freed herself from the kiss and asked me shyly.
“If I can, I will. You, your life, your soul...all belong to me and I swear I'll protect it with all my might” I smirked at her and she hugged me tight like a koala.
It was one perfect romantic and blissful moment of our love story. It was absolutely something which we both would remember forever in our lives. After impaling the essence of the whole moment, it was time for us to go back home and suddenly, Zoe came up with a strange request.
“Zack, if you don’t mind, will you let me do something?” Zoe stopped me and asked me nervously.
“Zoe, if you ever want to do anything, you never have to take my permission. I don’t want to be that kind of boyfriend to take away your individuality from you. Next time, just tell me and that’s it” I let her ease up and told her my point of view.
“Sorry. And thank you” she didn’t at all expect such a talk from me.
“Both in one?” I smiled suspiciously when she used both in one sentence.
“Sorry to make you feel bad and thank you for being the best boyfriend ever” she explained it to me and winked at me cutely. It made my heart flutter!!!!
“Now tell me, what do you want?” I asked her.
“I wanted to visit Jake’s grave” she took a second to tell me.
“Sure. I'll drive you there” without any hesitation, I agreed to it. Why would I ever stop her from doing that???
She was happy to know my answer and without wasting any time, I helped her down to the car and drove her to the grave past the church of the town. The whole way, I was able to feel her heaviness of heart which she felt thinking of Jake and the confrontation with Caroline in the hospital.
In a matter of minutes, we reached the graveyard and I stopped the car. Zoe sat there, los in her thoughts which were clashing with her wish to meet him. Seeing her struggle, I held her hands and consoled her. She sighed her worries off and got out of the car and when we stood at the gates, a sight really astonished us. There, in a distance stood a girl, whose appearance made it clear that it was none other than Caroline!!!!
“What’s she doing here?” I asked Zoe in shock.
“Guess we’ll have to find it out” she told me in a bland tone. She was the last person we ever wanted to meet for the rest of our life but seeing her there like that, we had no choice. Zoe held my hands and I helped her walk to Jake’s grave and saw that Caroline had already kept her bouquet there.
“What are you doing here?” Zoe asked her in a furious tone.
Caroline was startled to see us there. But what appalled us the most was how her face was swollen up by her cries. Her eyes were blood red and her whole face had lost its shine. This was her.... her real face...innocent, broken, guilty......
“Came here to repent for my actions” she wiped her tears and told us.
“Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?” out of the blue, she asked us the most unexpected question of all times!!!
There was a long moment of silence between us after the question and when no one broke the silence, I broke it.
“If you come out clean, I'm sure he’ll forgive you” I told her in a dull tone even when I wanted to scream at her.
“I hope so too. Anyways, I won't stay here for more” she smiled a dull one and told us. Zoe raised her brows in question of what she meant by not staying there.
“Where are you going?” she asked her in a narrow tone.
“Back to the city where I’ll be admitted to a therapy treatment. I've told mom and dad about what all I have done here and they have promised to help me out this time. I think this is the best punishment I'll ever get. Back in the city all will call me crazy but, that’s okay. It feels kind of cool now” Caroline told us in a depressed tone.
“Why don’t you start on a positive note then? If you sincerely repent for your actions nothing will some in your way” I somewhere felt bad for this new Caroline who was ready to mend herself for good.
“Thank you so much. And I’m really sorry for everything once again” not having the courage to face us anymore, she took off after apologizing to us. We couldn’t tell her anything as she left as soon as possible.
“Good that she’s redeeming herself” I commented on Caroline’s change and turned to Zoe.
“She too deserves a second chance because I know, unlike you, she loved Jake truly and immensely” a drop of tear rolled down Zoe’s eyes as she told me.
She was true. For Caroline, I was just her ego which she wanted to win at any cost, her childhood had made her such an attention seeker who craved for love and when she didn’t get it, she turned into such a beast. But Jake, Jake was her first crush and true love. Getting the shock of knowing she was the reason for his death had a huge impact on her and that truth was her biggest punishment. She had to live with it and nothing could have been more dreadful to her than that!!
But now, she was totally different from what she was and it proved that she was a new being and that was really great start. The past chapters of both our life which had tangled us with each other was now closed and Zoe clung onto me as we looked at Jake’s grave.
Zoe was sure that Jake would have been at peace after seeing that his Caroline was now the girl, he always wanted her to be and the hurricane of our life was finally settled by the light of the lighthouse......