Love Unfolding

KAILEEN ANDY LEWIS

Days pa.s.sed, remember Lea? She"s kind of irritating but I could only endure.

Ever since I gave her my number, she has been sending me text messages, majority were of no particular reasons.

I only gave reply to those related to sketching her though. I don"t want it to cause dispute to my relationship with Erika when we are really going smoothly in the pa.s.sing of days.

Right, I could do that realistic sketch in ten hours time with no one to disturb me and in a quiet and alone s.p.a.ce but… but I didn"t able to find the time until now since academic stuffs became really hectic.

Only two semesters to go till graduation; if no failed subject that is, and so everyone was so worked up in studying.

Hence, I didn"t able to make that sketch.

Still, I occasionally met Lea. I only gave her face as it was the right thing to do. Though I don"t see a need to see her face anymore in order for me to sketch her, I needed to meet her to justify myself as the same as an average fine arts student.

Where in, in order to draw a realistic portrait , one should know the details of the face like eyes, nose, head and many more then applying the skill to make it more real... like feelings and emotions.

Of course, with our every meeting, Erika knows. I"m just glad she"s so understanding about it.

Then one time, my phone rang. It was midnight. I checked who called and it was Lea.

She was crying and sounded so helpless. Since, I"m a good samaritan, I ended up going to check on her.

I found her sitting by the side of the road. She was a mess and I could smell alcohol from her.

She cried more as she saw me. I sat beside her and instinctively hugged her.

"I felt like I"m cheating"

"d.a.m.nit"

We stayed like that as she cried her heart out about her problems and all. I didn"t say anything. I just listened, then I drove her home after that.

I also didn"t tell that incident to Erika, I don"t see the need to but I did to Donna.

Then another ha.s.sle she caused me the following days, she called me at nine in the evening that she was robbed with her wallet, cellphone and cards gone. That she"s just calling me using a strangers phone.

"d.a.m.n"

"Does she not have any friends?"

And so I ended up fetching her again and two other more incidents of the same sort happened on the following days after that.

[********]

"Stop it already Andy." Donna reprimanded me.

We were in her apartment. I visited her.

"You can"t always be nice."

"That"s how people take advantage of you."

I kept my silence as I buried my face in her pillow. I"m crashing on her bed.

"Not everyone will appreciate what you do for them."

"You have to know who"s worth your kindness and who"s taking advantage!"

"And that girl, I could tell she"s taking advantage of you!"

"So put some boundary and stop it already!"

I still didn"t say anything. I just listened to her every word.

"Was I taken advantage of?"