Chapter 1: bloodshot.
(All characters in this chapter, and all others, are fictional)
“Is it true?” she asked me. “I-I-I DIDN’T DO IT!”, I shouted in tears. “I didn’t do it. You know I couldn’t do something like this even if I wanted to, EVER.” When I calmed down, she spoke, “I want to trust you, but you know I can’t”, “You know you can”, “Can I?” “You can, forever and ever."
That was the fight I thought would end the relationship I gave up everything for. Thankfully, it didn’t. The only reason it did not end then and there is that she trusted me. She trusted me with her life, and she did not let a stupid fight get in the way of our relationship. But, it wasn’t a fight that any of us caused; it was someone else, someone who was jealous, jealous of us, and I had a pretty good idea of who it was.
It was the dawn of a new chapter in my life, Grade 11. My boards had just ended, and… they went well. I had studied for 3 months without missing a day. Now that it had all ended, I felt empty, without purpose. The first day of Grade 11 was… uneventful to say the least. I mean, our class teacher told us there was a “new joinee” but that’s what she said last year, so I wasn’t excited. I attended a small school, with a total of around 600-700 students (from Pre-Primary to Grade 12). New joiners, especially in higher grades, were extremely rare to see. But this time, our class teacher wasn’t lying to us. The next day, there was a new girl in our class. She had brown, curly hair, hazel eyes, and a face which looked like the amalgamation of everything I ever wanted. She was SO hot. It’s not like I haven’t found people attractive in my school, I have, but this was different. It was like I finally had a crush, a proper one, after 4 long years.
I had taken PCM with economics in grade 11. I didn’t “love” any of those subjects, but I would rather take PCM than PCB after looking at the biology syllabus for grades 11 and 12. I was pretty good in academics, I got 97% overall in my preboards, and my predicted score was 98% for the boards. It wasn’t like I couldn’t do these subjects, I just didn’t want to work that hard. I wanted to be a musician, a music producer, a rapper, and a complete artist. I wanted to reach the epitome of fame in the world of music because I knew I had the talent. I wanted fame, I needed fame. With fame, I believed I could have everything in life that I desired. Money, power, women, attention, validation and maybe, even love. I didn’t desire love for the same reasons as the ordinary, I needed it, I was deprived of it. I needed it because I had some horrible things happen to me and the people I loved, which I had seen too early to comprehend, and I needed to vent to someone. A certain someone I could trust no matter what. I had waited 4 long years for an opportunity like this. I had waited for someone I could trust with my life, and without even talking to her, I knew she could be the one; I just knew it.
As I introduced myself to her, she told me her name. “Ananya”, That name felt familiar, like I had heard it somewhere, but half the female population in India is named Ananya, so I ignored that feeling for now. All I cared about now was getting her to like me, but not so fast. The first step was to become friends. Not good friends that I get friend-zoned, but good enough that she starts to like me. I had started to go to the gym again, improved my diet, all just for her. I needed to prove to myself that I deserve her first, because if I didn't, then the relationship wouldn’t last. If you don’t deserve something in life, God will eventually take it from you, no matter what.
A few weeks passed, and we kept talking. We became pretty good friends, and I made it crystal clear to my friends that this one is mine. What that meant is that if anyone else from my friend group even dared to try and pull her, I would beat the living shit out of them. It had recently happened where I did something that I would not dare to do in grade 9, but I did it. And I didn’t regret it.
I had a bad history with love. I had been hurt, a bit too much. Was it deserved? No. It’s those scars that I live with today, which define me, and I’m glad I was hurt. Betrayal taught me something important: you’re only hurt by those who are close to you, and those whom you trust more than your life. I hoped that maybe somehow, we could make up, but that was 2 years ago. It was before the shit she pulled that hurt me even more. I wanted to hate her, I NEEDED to hate her for my sanity, but I guess she underestimated how much I loved her.
April flew by, and May came. A new month, a new goal. I was hoping I could pull her by the end of the month, but what happened was something I never expected. I saw Ananya sitting in class one day, alone. We had music right now, so everybody had gone to the music room, but she was still here, her head on the table, her arms wrapped around herself, as if she was trying to hide herself from the world. I had a dilemma: should I enter the class or not? Should I ask her what happened, or should I let her be? Did I care enough to pay attention to her, or was I just an onlooker? Should I be with her, or should I be with the rest of my classmates? I mean, what would my classmates think? What would she think? Would she think I’m being creepy by coming into the class just for her? Which version of Dashmehar should I be?
“To be, or not to be: that is the question”
I decided to enter the class, and she sat up straight, none of us saying a word. Her bloodshot eyes and tears told me something was wrong. I didn’t need to know what it was, and she most probably didn’t want to tell me. But I sat down next to her, and said, “You don’t have to tell me, it’s alright”. Sometimes, people don’t need more questions on top of the questions they already have, they need someone who can make them feel normal. Someone who isn’t judging or seeing them as something that is having a bad day, with something gone wrong, but someone who acknowledges it, and remains quiet. That silence may be something you want to fill, but let that silence stay, because silence can speak and mean louder than words.
She was still crying, but she wasn’t hiding herself from the world, she wasn’t taking the comfort of her arms, she had put her head on my shoulder, and I, I was fine with it. It felt like I had already accomplished what I was after: her comfort, her love. But that wasn’t true, and she just needed my comfort. A few minutes later, she finally calmed down, and I asked, “Now tell me, what happened?” “I-I can’t tell you”, she said, looking worried. “Alright, tell me when you can.” I told her, fighting every urge in my mind to ask her, “Why? I didn’t just sit here to be told, “I don’t trust you enough to tell you about anything that’s going on in my life.” I NEED TO KNOW!” But I knew that wasn’t right, so I decided to seem okay with that response, and then got up and left. The next day, when our eyes met, it felt as if we were strangers, and never knew each other. From a moment like that, to square one. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, but alas, I must move on in life. Maybe she isn’t the one, and perhaps I was just delusional, or maybe, when our eyes met, she didn’t know what to say to me, so she looked away, trying to run away from me.
Days turned to weeks, and she kept this act up. I was fed up at this point, so I confronted her, “Why are you avoiding me?” “Because I can’t tell you, and you said to tell you when I can, and I can’t ever tell you why I was crying that day,” she said. “What? Why?” I asked, “I just can’t! Stop bringing it up!” “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s alright, but you can’t throw away our friendship because I decided to care about you.” “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE!” she shouted, “I was doing fine alone, and I didn’t need anybody. I don’t need anybody to ‘care’ about me. If you do ‘care’ about me, how about you leave me alone from now on?” I felt betrayed, as if we were something in the first place. I asked myself, “Why is she acting this way? She isn’t like this. What could possibly be stopping her from telling me?”
I decided to find out.
I knew where she lived, so I decided to come to her society one night. When I saw her going out, all alone, no phone, I knew something was really wrong. She was going into an abandoned warehouse, behind her society. I kept following her from a distance. I found myself a spot from where I could see what was going on inside, without being seen. There were a lot of guys, way older than me or her, then I saw the more concerning things. Guns, knives and drugs. This was some kind of gang, but the real question was, what the fuck is Ananya doing here? Then I saw her walking towards someone, this someone was probably the leader of the gang or at least this warehouse, because I could see that everyone respected him. Ananya and this guy were talking, and he seemed annoyed. Since I couldn’t hear them, I had no idea what they were talking about. When I decided to get up to get closer to the warehouse, I saw the guy slap Ananya and then shout at her. He kept abusing her, and she was trying to fight back, but then he… my eyes had to be deceiving me. “What the fuck…” I said to myself. The rest of his gang were coming around to join in, but I wasn’t going to let this happen.
too far.
I don’t know what got over me, but throwing all logic out the window, I entered the warehouse. I had no plan; there were about 10 other people in that warehouse (except the leader and Ananya), and they weren’t armed yet. The guns and the knives were still on the table, and I started to think of something.
“WHO THE FUCK IS THIS GUY?” one of them asked. “Death, destroyer of worlds,” I spoke. Then I grabbed a .9 of the table and some ammo, reloaded it, and shot the guy in the head. Dead. You can call it unnecessary, or murder, or whatever, I don’t care. I call it shooting practice. You’ve got to warm up before the game, right?
Everyone started to rush me, and I hadn’t planned beyond this. I looked around me, trying to decide where to run, but I couldn’t run. If I tried to run, they would grab the guns and BANG!, I would drop to the ground. I decided to shoot each one of them in the legs. I wanted none of them to walk after I was done. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! I shot each one with precision, and they dropped to the ground. I would tell you I hadn’t used a gun before, but I had, and I wasn’t proud about it. Even though I had experience, I had never been this good, I was trash at using them. It’s crazy what anger can do to you. The leader had already run away. I don’t know how he was scared of an angry 15-year-old, but I wouldn’t blame him. I just soloed his entire group of wanna-be gangsters.
“Wh-H-what the fuck have you done?” Ananya spoke. “I’ll tell you what, I’m glad you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have found this shit without you,” I told her. “Are you stupid? I told you to stay away! I can’t believe-” “Shut the fuck up, I wasn’t let you get raped by a 30 year old guy.” I cut her off, and it was enough to shut her up. As I was leaving, one of them grabbed my leg and asked me what my name was. I told him, “You can call me bloodshot.” I proceeded to shoot his other leg.
As I dropped her home, she asked me, “Why bloodshot?” I replied, “There was blood, and I caused it. It sounds cool as well.”
That was the birth of a new era: bloodshot.