29 Melancholy

Shirley was feeling a bit melancholic. Her head was swarming with a multitude of thoughts. Even though nothing could be deciphered from her blank face and solemn eyes, anyone close to her, who knew her, could see the gears turning in her head.

Shirley's thoughts were going on a loop about that man's words. How he had dealt with the situation. He did not lose his cool and was level-headed. It was admiration worthy. So when she coincidently met him, she was consumed by this stupid urge to ask him why he did that. She knew that his answer would be a major setback to her emotions but she had willingly swung the axe to cut down the tree she was sitting on. And now she was falling into a deep abyss of newfound hurt.

Not because his words were wrong. He was right to the tee. It was the righteousness that made her feel sad.

Yes, there are men who care about their women and would protect them till their last breath. She was happy to see the bright side of the world but the irony was not lost on her.

He was a good man, virtuous but the woman he was with was rotten. Shirley thought that she was a good woman, she has never harmed others and did not wish for their ill but the guy she loved turned out to be a double standard cheating wimp.

See, a nice guy is with a bad woman and a good girl is with an adulterer.

How is that fair?

Did the say- what goes around comes around false? Did karma does not exist? Did good nowadays deserve bad? Where did that effing balance of doing good have good gone? to hell?

Shirley's thoughts became more of a jumbled mess. She did not know how to get out of that web of torture that she spun for herself. But one thing stayed firm in her mind. It was a wish or prayer to whoever that listens up above, her heartfelt plea.

She hoped that the man would leave that vile woman and met with a nice one instead. He deserves some happiness. The love that he showers so unconditionally needs to be reciprocated. She wished for him to meet a person who would love him deeply and care for him the exact way he does.

As for her, Shirley was thinking to take hiatus from dating for a while. It would be good for her to take a break from all this. Her wounds were fresh and need to be taken care of tenderly. She would nurse her heart back to its old condition. Maybe after some years, she would look back and think of this incident and not feel anything.

Yeah, that would be good, to be able to look at this whole incident as a situation that happened in past. Shirley wanted to leave this bitterness, that borne out it here and move on. She did not want to carry it her whole life.

When Sam saw Shirley walking towards her she felt something was off.

Sam has known her for a couple of days but the connection they shared was not light. They had that instant spark that people only heard of. They had hit it off from the very beginning. Sam had felt a certain kind of pull, she felt that they had something similar and it did turn out to be true.

When Shirley had told Sam about the bitter truth of how her relationship had ended. Sam knew why she was attracted to Shirley. She has felt the same kind of sadness that she was living with these past three years.

A woman betrayed by a man.

That was the common connection point in both of them. Sam knew that after this incident Shirley would be disturbed but she did not realize that the impact would be this huge.

Or something happened on the way back to her?

The way things were turning up, later might be the case. Sam's thoughts were confirmed when she saw her friend did not stop in front of her but walked by her side in a daze.