Roses by Maneli Panahandeh (read out loud books .txt) 📕

As the tears tumbled down her soft, warm cheeks, her only thought was, “if only I knew”. She sat there in the empty, yet full room, staring at the glow in the dark stars plastered across the sky blue ceiling, picturing how amazing it would be to just fly away from all the darkness, all the pain. Raging as the fire in her soul burnt, she laid on her bed, paralyzed, unable to get up and pull herself together. The tears would gently run-down her snow-white, pale face as the sounds of his laugh rang through her ears. It broke her heart knowing she would never hear it again.

October 14

*DING* I peered over at my phone as I heard the familiar sound. ‘Message from Kendrick’ read the screen. Shocked, yet intrigued, I opened the message and there it was; that message. “Hey... I was just thinking and I realized we don’t hang much and well, maybe we could go grab lunch or dinner sometime?”. It was as if I just flew to the moon and back. Oh my god, falling in love with him was like walking into a house and finally realizing I’m home. Every time he looked into my eyes, I felt as if I saw the galaxies among the universe rather than the regular chestnut brown. I replied with excitement as my stomach sunk in, thinking about the day. “Next week Friday?”. It was as if he was waiting for my response; “Perfect.” I spent the rest of the day making up scenarios in my head (which probably weren’t going to happen). I had been waiting for this day for so long. As bad as it sounds, I always had feelings for him, even when I was with someone else… It was like a weird magnet pulling me to him all the time and it just wouldn’t stop. There was no way I could say no...

October 23

It was our first date or let’s say outing together. That day felt like the most complete yet emptiest day I had ever had. The sky was pure as the sun shone as it had never before. I got to the place, Russo’s, a little earlier. I guess you could say I was excited. Goosebumps rushed over my body as I locked my eyes on the clock’s second hand ticking; tick-tock, tick-tock, ticking as nervously as I was. As the bell announced his arrival, it seemed as if the world had just stopped. I felt- weird. Just looking at his eyes made me stop in my tracks and think about what I was about to say next. His smile made my chest quake and my lungs shrink but feel refreshed all in one motion. Every inch of my body was pleading just to put my head on his chest and feel his heartbeat; to feel home. I remember my phone ringing as we were just about to order dinner. It was Nina. She asked if she could see Kendrick for a few minutes (I didn’t know he had told people we were out together) and that’s when it all went wrong. He left and never came back. I felt the knife before I saw it. The sky was filled with emotion; all with darkness. Running back home, I could feel the raindrops dripping down my body as my tears chased them down through. I felt as if I was trapped in a box, unable to get out as anger was all that I could see. That was it. I thought it was all over. How stupid was I to trust him? As I got home, my phone rang. Kendrick. It read. I picked up and all I could respond with was “it’s fine” though nothing felt fine.

October 26

Halloween was just around the corner and I was still on the hunt for a date to the party. I had to show Kendrick what he was missing out on. I was a fool. He was still all over Nina and I was trying to make him jealous. Pathetic. I actually thought of her as one of my friends. It was the first day of school and also the first time I was going to see Kendrick after Friday. My hands trembled with fear and anxiety as my teeth were chattering, nervous as I attempted to unlock the lock on my locker. I scanned the hallway, hoping to see and not see Kendrick at the same time. My body temperature dropped as I saw him through the corner of my eye. I turned around, avoiding eye contact, knowing just looking at him would make me fall for him all over again. “Hey Sel, what’s up?”. A rage of anger ran through my head as I noticed the hands I was hugging myself with were pinching into my skin. I murmured, “What’s up?” and walked away. “Hey, what’s wrong? I called you that night and you said everything was okay. I care about you Selina, I really do. I'm sorry about the other night. I’m sorry I left. I don’t know how I can prove it to you, but I’ll do anything to make it work. You name it”. All I could work out and say was “ok” and resumed walking back to class. That was the last time I saw him that day. I went home and I started texting my childhood friend Andrew about him. He told me one thing and that was to be careful.

October 27

I woke up missing the bond, but then I remembered the disrespect and went back to hating him. I had this ongoing thing where I would just hate myself. I would hate myself for loving him so much that I still loved him regardless of what he did. I never understood why I set myself up to be excited just to be disappointed in the end. Another dreadful day at school, I thought. Little did I know, I opened my locker to find a bouquet of roses. He knew roses were my favourite. He remembered. Hesitantly, I turned around and as cliche as it was, he was standing there, waiting to see my reaction. “I’ve been waiting for you all morning. Please just give me another chance.” How could I say no?

October 31

Halloween had come and it was time to dress the f—- up. I had decided to dress up as the devil and he went along with it so I’d be the devils ‘wife’ as inspiration from ‘Lucifer’. He picked me up with his dads best car; the matte black Lamborghini. HOLY SHIT. He knew my love for Lamborghinis and said he thought he’d “spice things up a little”. He then pulled out a bouquet of black roses; a little festivity added to our kind of date together. He knew roses were my favourite... I left the flowers in the car to take afterwards and presumed to hold his hand whilst we made an entrance to the party. We were ‘that couple’. It felt as if we were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. All eyes were locked on us as we “partied the night away”. Everything was perfect or seemed perfect. There was nothing else, no one else that I needed at that moment. It was like there was this one piece missing from the puzzle and I had finally found it. Him. He was that nothing when people asked me what I was thinking about. It wasn’t until I left for a couple of minutes to use the washroom to see what really went down that night. As I was approaching Kendrick, everyone started giving me weird stares and I couldn’t realize why until I saw Kendricks lips locked onto Ninas. Immediately, Kendrick pushed Nina away, locking his eyes at mine, full of tears whilst his was filled with guilt. I left the party and Kendrick didn’t bother to come after me. I felt confused as to why he didn’t. Once I was out and alone, I felt the real pain, the real knife stabbed through my heart. I learnt one thing that night; sometimes the person you’d take a bullet for, ends up being the one behind the gun.

November 1

It was the night after. I refused to check my phone. I couldn’t do it. My heart, mind and body ached just thinking about last night. The image was haunting me and no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t leave my head. It was all I thought of all day. I remember I had a chemistry exam that day and all the answers to the questions were just “Kendrick, Kendrick, Kendrick”. It was as if I had never seen chemistry before. It was my birthday month, it was the month in which every day had to be a good day but the first day already had turned out to be bad. I had to watch him and Nina together, having lunch, laughing together and all I could think about was, what if that was me? If only I was good enough for him…

I got a call from Ray later that day. “Hello?”. “Hey Selina, look I’ve been meaning to call you all day I was just quite busy running some errands. Anyways, that’s kind of irrelevant as to why I called. I wanted to talk to you about last night. Listen, Selina, what you saw the other night looked really wrong. I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but, you deserve to know what happened. Alright, so, when you left Kendrick alone, Bernardo told him that Nina was crying in the balcony and so Kendrick went to comfort her since they’re pretty tight. When she calmed down, Nina went ahead and kissed Kendrick and, well, you walked in right when he turned her down. I know you probably wouldn’t trust me or believe me, but Kendrick is devastated. The man loves you and wants to be with you! Please, please, please just give him another chance”. I hung up.

November 3

The pain wouldn’t heal. The wound of the shotgun would just grow bigger and bigger. I felt destroyed. I felt like nothing could make me smile anymore, except the thought of him. I woke up finding my white sheets dyed in the colour of blood red. “DID SOMEONE REALLY SHOOT ME?” I thought, thinking I often thought of the idea, resulting for it to actually happen. Then I returned to the real world and realized it was just my normal monthly menstrual cycle coming back to make sure I’m extra emotional these days. I took a deep breath and just as I thought nothing could’ve possibly gotten worse, I realized I ran out of pads and so I had to run and buy them from the supermarket. That's when I ran into... Emanuelle. He was my rock. He picked me up when I needed a shoulder to lean on and got me through my “emo” phase. There I was, in love again. Although I fell for Emanuelle, a part of me was always with Kendrick. I just couldn’t let go.

November 17

Everyone has “that day” in which they could never forget and November 17 was one of them. It was a couple of days before my birthday. It was exactly 12 pm. 12 pm when it happened. Kendrick called me and told me he was a few minutes away from my house and asked me to get ready to meet him. A part of me wanted to say no but every inch of my body pleaded and pushed me to say yes and so I did. Although I felt guilty about Emanuelle, it felt like I was doing the right thing.

I got ready and went downstairs and there it was, all those emotions and feelings rushing back like they had never