Chapter 12

Kol had his girlfriend, Freya's, entire birthday surprise planned out, complete with intricate details and extra touch-ups. 

He was going to bring Freya to Coffee Tales on the evening of her birthday and then surprise her with the cake and her present. He had already spoken to Jace about it and Jace had assured him that he had the full support of the entire Coffee Tales' staff. 

I sighed and then sighed again. 

My heart was still swaying between the choice of telling and not telling Kol. One single choice could either break his heart or let him continue living in his oblivious bubble of happiness and love. Both of the options were just as bad. 

Did I even have the right to interfere in his personal life? Did I have the right to just blurt out such a shattering truth that could destroy his relationship completely? Would he even believe me? 

But he's my friend. It's my duty to tell him the truth.

I wanted to pull all my hair out. This was a cunningly tricky situation and there was no easy way out of it.

Thus, the day passed and Kol left the cafe for the day. And I had not uttered a word to him.

It baffled me how clueless he was. Did he not suspect anything? Was he really that blinded by love or was he just choosing to ignore the thorns amidst the roses? 

I would not know the answers unless I asked him and that was something I would never have the courage to do. That was just not who I was. 

If I perceived the dimensions of love from Kol's perspective, then it was all pure bliss. Unexplainable joy, eagerness to please and see the other person happy, an intimate connection of raw truth and heart-warming comfort.

However, if I fit Freya and her betrayal into the equation then everything changed. Like the snap of a finger, deep cracks appeared in all these dimensions. The generally unseen faces of love, the ugly ones, with little regard to the feelings involved came to light.

It made me wonder if the vulnerability that people advocated to be an essential part of a relationship was any beneficial at all. To me, it seemed like a double-edged sword. I failed to understand how someone could overlook all these things and go behind their partner's back. Was it that easy to just step over these middle things and form new ties again?

The night fell and it was Ira's turn to lock up the cafe, so I left early. 

The fifteen-minute drive home was something that I enjoyed everyday. Good music, the wind hitting my face and the quiet darkness created the perfect space for me to lower my guard and loosen up. I tasted freedom in those moments and always found hope to get through another day.

But for these past two or three days, I had not been enjoying my drives. The once cherished factors seemed like aggravators of the demons inside me now. All that remained in the place of lost joy was an overcrowded mind and a hollowness inside my chest.

Still drifting in and out of thoughts, I found my eyes lingering on the rearview mirror. 

I snapped out of my daze and realised why I was constantly checking the mirror. 

There was a car behind me. Again. 

I had been seeing the same car behind me since the past five minutes, from the time that I had left the cafe. 

What the hell? 

This can't be a coincidence anymore. I'm not paranoid. This is really happening.

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and I continued to drive without showing any signs of panic. The car followed.

Should I tell mom and dad just yet?

How was I supposed to deal with this now? Who was this person? What did they want from me? 

A daunting thought crossed my mind. 

The colour of the car was different this time. It was not the same car that had followed me to the restaurant. 

How was that possible? Was it two different people? 

All of a sudden, the car took the left turn behind me and disappeared. 

I sat dumfounded in my seat. The car was gone, just like that. 

It had the chance to continue following me, but it had turned. What did that mean?

What if it had not been following me at all? What if it was a sickening coincidence again? Even the colour of the car was different, right?

The same confusion again, the same mess of brain-racking what ifs and what nows. I wanted to throw up.

The possibility that this person was the other undead accomplice was real. But at the same time, it also seemed too farfetched to be true. Maybe it was the constant fear at the back of my mind that made me fit my past into anything that happened in my present. I did not know.

At this rate, I would never be able to grow out of this state of mind and craft my life the way I wanted it to be. 

Was my past going to dictate the rest of my years till I was buried six feet under the soil? Was this the ultimate destiny of my life? Was the future I dreamt of never going to become a reality?