1 "ADELLA? IS THAT YOU?"

'Micheal and I just got engaged! '

'He proposed to me on our trip to Paris, the city of love, as they call it...as you can see the ring. It is pretty right?

I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. The man has good taste...'

She winked at the camera.

And my hand scrolled up on the screen.

'Derek and I love these morning mist. It reminds us of our love...'

I skipped to the other one.

'Guys!!!! We are expecting!!! Expecting our first baby!!! '

The camera gets disoriented and then it points to a man.

'What are you doing baby?'

He wraps his arms around her waist, hugging her body close to his.

'Breaking the news of the new addition to our family...'

She chimes and then eases into his hold, tilting her head to kiss him.

My forefinger scrolls through.

'You know a lot of people say how it is not the right time...they shame us for being teen parents...but Jordan and I just love each other.

Both of us belong to a strict catholic family and we had never thought that I would get pregnant so soon...yet a baby is a blessing from the Almighty right?'

Her eyes welled up. She looked away from the camera. It got my attention.

'It was hard. Our family disowned us. Jordan had to take up jobs and I had to drop out of high school.

We both lived for months in one of his friend's houses before actually moving out and getting our place...it was hard, really really hard...'

Speeding through it, the ending was here.

'We still get stares when we go to the mall or in public places, but Jordan and I have never been happier, with our baby...

Everything was so hard but it was worth it!'

A family picture of them popped up on the screen. I hit the pause button to see it more clearly.

"Della! Stop watching reels and get ready..."

My mother's voice knocked me back to reality. I looked away from my phone's screen, putting it back inside my pants pocket.

"I was not watching reels."

I said, getting up and picking up my backpack from the sofa where I was sitting a second ago.

"Whatever YouTube and reels, shorts or ticks, they are the same."

Bethany huffed. She was chopping vegetables on our kitchen island. It was a small one, adjoined to our living room.

"They are not the same mom!"

I rolled my eyes at her. She just did not want to admit that she did not know the differences between them.

"You know we could open a channel on YouTube and you can post your cooking?"

I suggested to her, walking up to the kitchen island where she was standing on another side.

"I m happy having my cooking known to a few many who will get to taste it."

I shook my head in dismissal. It was just useless to bicker with my mother. She was old school.

"Stop mouthing me old school in that pretty head of yours."

Mother frowned. I did it back at her and decided to finally head out to school. It was only a fifteen minutes walk from my neighborhood.

"Do me a favor and please give a tinch bit of your attention to studies too?"

She yelled at me as I closed the door behind me. I looked around and to the extreme right from where I was standing, about three miles from here, which is where the Randalls lived.

Shawn Randall...that is where he lived too.

And if I delay even for a minute, his Porsche would drive past my house and I would miss yet another chance to ride with him to school.

But looking at my wristwatch right now, I could tell that either he had already driven off or was not coming to school today.

So not having another option, I had to walk to school as usual. It had been ages since I rode with him to school.

When we were in middle school, driving together had become a routine. I, him, his younger sister, Maples, and sometimes even Ava, the eldest, who was in the same grade as I was driven together by their driver.

But ever since Shawn got into high school, his father had gifted him a black Porsche on his sixteenth birthday and by seventeen, he would drive himself and most of the time, even his sisters Maples and their youngest, Kitty too to school.

I had only got to be his very first passenger when he was still a new driver and a few times after...but later it felt as if he would be avoiding me purposefully.

And I was not ignorant about the reason as to why...

Because I was madly and crazily in love with Shawn Randall and not afraid to let the world know about it either.

We had grown up together. I had held him when he was just a baby, not realizing I would fall so in deep love with the boy I had grown up playing with.

It felt like he was into me too. Instead of spending more time with Ava, who was the same age as me, it was Shawn who would keep me company and I to him...we were inseparable.

Being a year older did not stop us from playing together or doing things together.

When had it happened? How did it happen? I would never come to know about it...

It could be when I hit puberty or him...it did not matter because my heart had started beating for him, unknown to me and these feelings were out of my hand or reach to control them.

His sleek black hair and those evergreen eyes were like the rainforest of the Amazon, I could just get lost in them.

And when he would look in my way and his lips would curve to a jaw-dropping smile, my insides would flip and squeeze out.

But which love story had a happy ending with ease?

Right...none. You need to fight for it, struggle for it to make happen, and transform it into reality.

And I was ready to go through it all, make him see, make him realize that it was me, and not others, that he would never be able to find another like me...I was ready...it felt like it was what I was born to do...

...to love Shawn Randall, unconditionally, with my everything and nothing.

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And who could have known it would take only five years to change the entire narrative...

Now he became the man visible when I close my eyes, not dreaming but while reliving in my nightmare...

Now he became the man, I wanted to hide from and never see again...

Now he became the man, that would remind me of my stupidity over and over again...

Three years of nothingness, life being static, him disappearing from it...and now they are saying, he was here...

And I needed to be out of here before my eyes would spot him and the history would repeat all over again, even though it deserved to be only six feet under the ground.

"Adella? Is that you?"

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Due to my approaching exams, no time to edit, apologies!

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