5 CHAPTER FIVE - YOUNG LOVE

France – Present Day

“Jaden, did you notice that she avoided telling you where she lived and never answered your request for ice cream either? Tisk! Tisk!” Gustave said.

“Yeah, I noticed that she never spoke about where she lived or her family life, but I was not concerned about that. I was concentrating on the fact that she called me ‘honey’ and that later that night we texted way into the wee hours of the morning. We reminisced about the good old days on Monk Street. Over the following days and weeks she texted me at 10 p.m. every night religiously and we would spend hours on the phone, texting about what happened at school and shared many jokes about Antonio. I, however, realised that she seemed to compartmentalise her life to the point where there was no connection between her social, family or domestic lives. They were kept separate with seemingly no interaction which seemed quite artificial based on our growing friendship.

Gustave, I was determined to find out more about her and the curiosity was driving me crazy. As a young child I would read mystery novels and that had fed the desire to find and unravel the mysteries in people’s lives. While I was comfortable being at the platonic stage, I had intentions to extend the boundaries in order to reap the benefits of the time and attention I had invested. I even scheduled six months for this segment of our friendship and wanted to realise a positive return on my investment.”

“So, Jaden when last did you visit the old house on Monk Street? Since the family had moved to St Jago Heights?”

“Not in a long while, Gustave; since the crime was on the increase in the area and my mother insisted that once you leave, you must not look back. “

“So, how did you find out where Lisa lived?”

“I used the guise of school work and pressed Lisa in order to get her address in Rivoli and it took weeks for me to finally dig it out of her, but I was very coy in my approach. I am a grown man and saw no reason why I needed to get permission from my parents in order to go somewhere and pursue my dreams,” Jaden replied rather abruptly.

“So, was Rivoli a bad place, Jaden? Then maybe that is why your mother would have been apprehensive about you going to a place where you could be endangered?” Gustave asked with anxiety bubbling in his voice.

“Gustave, evidently you have not felt the pull of a woman; to me my actions were perfectly logical and rational, I found Lisa’s house by using software and mapped the route from the nearest bus stop based on the bus service’s website. Thank goodness for technology, but I first had to prep and scope out Lisa’s aversions to me visiting her neighbourhood without giving away my plans. I thought football would have been the best vehicle to be used to introduce the subject. Rivoli United was a former Premier League team and was trying to win the Division One title. Damn, I thought I was smart and there was no way she would see this coming and I would stop and get a pizza to top it off as she loved pizza from Big Caspers.

My plan was set, but there was the usual internal conflict between my head and manhood. The very rational and cautious Jaden was saying, “Why are you putting yourself in potential danger?” My manhood had a timely response featuring the advancement of my 6 month objective and the brownie points I could gain with the pizza. I knew from my interaction that she would even die for pizza; so, imagine what she would do for me, if I delivered her favourite pizza unexpectedly. Hormones always won the debate over safety and common sense.”