The Forgotten Rose ( PART 1/2)

It was a bright and sunny morning. The sunlight made its way through one of the eastern windows; the window that was open. The closed ones gleamed white. The accumulated intensity of the light, after reflecting and refracting fell on the book Miss Ballard was reading. It was an old novel, having some notes scribbled on some pages. Miss Ballard did read the novel once before but after some good number of years she decided to read it for the second time. The room was very neat and tidy; it had to be, after all, a man’s room reflected his personality and way of life. The white curtains very well complemented the yellow walls. The sofa was placed at one corner diagonal to where Miss Ballard was sitting and a major part of the walls was covered with books that adorned the wooden bookshelves. Miss Ballard sat at the table, turning pages of her book. A flower vase kept at an edge of the table held two roses- one facing Miss Ballard and the other one facing the sun. She stopped for a while and played a song on her phone and continued. It was a soft-tuned song. The entire room was filled with the mesmerizing notes and the fragrance of Miss Ballard’s perfume.

“You are my sunshine; the tale that I tell in dreams and while awake,” the song continued.

Miss Ballard turned a page while she was expecting the description of the appearance of the central character in the following pages but she found something more. There was a dead, dried rose, that was once red and cheerful pressed between the pages. The old rose caught her attention. She stared at the rose for a while as it transported her mind and heart to some years back. Suddenly her eyes were glistening. Tears rolled down her cheeks notwithstanding the fact that her expressions knew not the meaning of distortion.

“This is for you Ava.”

“For me? But why?”

“Because you are as beautiful as the rose,” continued James.

Ava Ballard lowered her head as she smiled shyly.

“Thank you, James!”

The bright red rose was the first gift that she received from her first love seven years back. Ava Ballard met James when they were pursuing their major in English Literature at the Pristine College. They were classmates. For James, it was a ‘love at first sight’ – a concept Ava never approved of.

“You can’t ‘LOVE’ anyone without knowing a thing about them!” she would argue whenever one would use the phrase in front of her. “It’s merely an attraction. You fall in love slowly, gradually and you just keep falling in love with the same person again and again, if your love is true.”

Ava was a dusky, tall, beautiful girl. The boys of her class would wait for the professor to tell Ava to read a text, for, that was one of the very few times they would hear her beautiful voice. She was quite quiet, reserved, and would often be busy with the characters of her stories and the elements of her poems. She had a magical way of expressing her ideas. She was no less beautiful than her prose and poetries.

“Every time I try to forget you, you come back, disguised as a memory.”

James, being attracted to Ava from the very first year, would often go to her, sometimes to take notes, sometimes to ask doubts, and often to praise her literary works that would be published in their college magazine or that she would post on her social media pages. James was not the only one to do so, but James was definitely the only one whose presence Ava liked. Everyone was quite aware of the fact that James was one of those boys who were trying to get her attention, but scarcely did anyone know that Ava too secretly liked him— ‘liked’, not ‘loved’.

“Oh! A painful memory.”

James was a charming lad. He too had held the attention of a lot of young girls during his high school days and now again in college. James was handsome but Ava was not merely ‘pretty’— she was ‘beautiful’. The depth in her personality was the rarest trait that could be found in her contemporaries. Her eyes, her smile, her personality seemed to hide something very precious deep, down her; the depth that was very well reflected in her oeuvres— the depth that seemed scary at times, yet any man would have loved to dive into the depths and discover her.

“.. I burned in the flames of despair .. you ignited not a flame of love, but despair!”

“Hey! Are you sad?” James asked one day Ava.

“No,” said she slightly smiling.

“But I can clearly see it in your face!” “What’s making you sad Ava?”

“It’s actually a novel that I am reading James.” “The pain and struggles of this girl make me sad – and thoughtful. Life is strange— so unpredictable.”

“What?” “Some imaginary characters make you this sad?” said James while he was on the verge of laughing.

“You laugh James?” “The novels, stories— each word and line of theirs are meant to be felt! It teaches us about life, about human personality as every situation depicted in them are often stimulated by real-life situations. They are not mere page-turners.”

James became a bit thoughtful.

“Yes! You are correct Ava! I never thought that way.”

James kept looking at Ava, in awe of her mature thoughts. He was smiling slightly, his eyes wanted to look at the beautiful girl forever— the desire that was marred by the professor entering the class.

“Hey, Ava! Can I borrow this novel from you?” said James as Ava was leaving the classroom with her friends as the classes were over for that day.

“Yes sure. I will finish within a week.”

“Okay!”

They both smiled at each other. Their smiles had much more than just cordiality mingled with them.

“How am I to believe that the ties are broken forever? .. Oh! Forever!”

“I see! You have got a special connection with James,” said one of Ava’s friends one day as Ava handed her novel to James.

“There is nothing like that Amanda!”

Amanda continued smiling mischievously. Amanda and Ava have known each other from their school days.

“Hey, Ava!” James called as he handed chocolate to her.

“What is this for?” caught unawares, Ava asked.

“Just a gift.” “Because you let me borrow your novel.”

Amanda nudged Ava.

Suddenly, one day, Ava realized that her liking for James was becoming stronger each day. She would often think about him. Her heart would skip a beat whenever she would hear “Hey Ava!” from James. For the very first time in nineteen years, Ava experienced butterflies in her stomach, a racing heart, happiness on seeing ‘him’, and all that she would often read in stories and hear from her friends.

Ava was competitive but she herself was her biggest competition; a lot of people say that though they are not even close to it Ava deeply related to the idea of competing with herself, but whenever there was a group activity where a few groups would compete against one another, Ava would do everything to make her group win and every single person competing against her team was her biggest competition; she was a great leader and every team she had led in the two years of her college life, be it in a writing competition, debates, handcrafts, she had won.

It was a drama competition— the first team competition of their third and final year of major degree. Ava worked very hard, taught some of her team members proper expressions, selected outfits, made sure everyone had their lines ready and fluently spoken during the rehearsals but one actor marred all the hard work when owing to her illness, she forgot her lines and fumbled and ended up saying some other character’s lines. James’ team won the competition.

“I am so sorry everyone!” “Please forgive me,” cried Katie with shame in her lowered eyes and guilt emanating from her face.

“It’s okay Katie.” “You were sick,” consoled Ava. 

“Yes. It’s okay. It’s only a drama competition Katie!”  cried the other boys and girls though all had a suppressed sadness— a justified sadness for they had tried their utmost but Ava was happy. She was very happy that James had won the competition. For the first time in life, her teammates’ dejection didn’t move her and got masked by her arcane feelings for James.

“I made an abode for you in my heart… though you were never mine..”

          

To Be Continued....