CHAPTER -19(drawing a little more distance between us to get closer to you more than your own breath)

Arthur kept staring at Luna . He doesn't care about his broken phone anymore. 

He's just trying to figure out if he misheard something or Luna really proposed to marry him on her own. 

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" Arthur again asked to be confirmed. 

"Exactly what you've just heard. Didn't you want to marry me at first? You didn't even think once, before blackmailing me to marry you. You wanted it at any cost. SO NOW I'M ASKING YOU MYSELF." Luna narrated with a suppressed huff. 

"No, you don't have to do that. I already promised that I'll never mess with you. Forget everything. I'm not going to harm you or blackmail you for this. I was just teasing you that time. Don't take it seriously. I guess I've already apologized. I don't want you to make any decision by being scared of me." Arthur politely said as if there's no one in this world as gentle as him. 

"SCARED OF YOU MY FOOT…I don't care about your stupid shit…" Luna mocked Arthur while mumbling in a low voice. 

" Sorry…..!!??" Arthur looked at Luna as he couldn't hear what she said. 

"I'm just saying that I don't have any problem marrying you now. I mean of course if you still want to marry me, then we can just implement it. " Luna said in a robotic vibe without any feelings. 

" What do you think of me?? That I'll do anything to marry you or even inconsiderately take advantage of the situation just to get you. AT FIRST TELL ME WHAT'S ACTUALLY GOING ON IN YOU HEAD !! Why did you suddenly change your mind?" Arthur asked narrowed her eyes. 

Luna finally looked at him. Until now she was staring at the grave. But she shifted her gaze as she felt a little bit irritated at Arthur's fake politeness.

"Now, it's around 11 am. It's still morning. I swear,I'll change my mind as the sun will set. So here's my offer, Arthur. You've time till the afternoon. Within this time if you manage to marry me, I won't refuse or restrict. I'll happily marry you. CHOICE IS YOURS." Luna gave a confident smile. 

Arthur chuckled. 

"Huh…..Do you really think I'll be driven by your silliness. I'm not doing anything SO UNREASONABLE like this." Arthur carelessly exclaimed. 

"Tik tok tik tok….." Luna widened her smile indicating the big wall clock hanging on a medium tower of the cemetery. 

Arthur didn't look at the wall clock but he subconsciously checked the time through his expensive wristwatch. 

He looked around the funeral hall. 

"Don't go anywhere. Just wait a little bit. I'll tell the manager to fetch the marriage registration papers. And we'll get married today. Wait…here…." Arthur said, holding her hands for once and then quickly ran leaving her there. 

Luna burst into a suffocative laughter while observing Arthur's hastening motion . 

Arthur ran towards Newton as he couldn't find the manager. 

"Where's the manager from the marketing department?"he breathlessly asked Newton. 

"He is at the infirmary crossing the street of the cemetery. He must be bandaging Aris." Newton answered. 

"Go and bring him here. I'm going inside the hall. I've some important errands for him to do right now. Tell him to leave Aris with others. It's my order. I want to see him in front of me within two minutes. Go.." Arthur commanded while stepping inside the convention hall where the funeral ceremony was being held. 

He wanted to finish the ceremony as soon as possible and send most of the outsiders back to their home in order to prevent any rumors. 

Newton ran towards the infirmary as if his life depended on it. 

Luna had great fun watching them in a devastating state. She laughed for a moment and then took a deep breath. 

She walked towards the grave where Jorge was buried. 

Without considering her plain off-white dress, she sat on the sandy ground beside the grave. 

She sprinkled a handful of sand over the tomb of Jorge as if she's showing her affinity in this way.  

"And my love isn't like this sand. Your love was fragile and unreliable like these particles of sand. You scared me…because you couldn't love any of us or achieve any of us. Nor me neither him. My love is so firm. I won't be like you. And I don't want to be like you. " Luna said, facing the tomb and then started playing with the sand. 

She had a glimpse over the funeral hall. Everybody seemed so busy. She wondered what Arthur was doing inside. 

She hesitated for once, thinking if the decision of marrying Arthur is an effective action or not. 

She doesn't know the future. All she can do is to put her efforts and pray. 

"I hope it'll work this time." Luna let out a deep sigh while scratching the soil and mixing the mud with sand. 

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She's at a loss ,thinking if she should have the sense of culpability or ignore the fact. Anyway a guy like Arthur doesn't deserve her guiltiness. 

Besides, she has come to an extreme point of her patience….. It's a luxury to think about the righteous path when she's at the edge of surviving. 

It's hard to survive for her staying away from Brandon. 

Things weren't like this earlier. Her mental dependence on Brandon wasn't that serious before . She could have easily cut all the ties with him and run away that time. But maybe destiny didn't let her lead a normal life like others and trapped inside a harsh illusion. Even though she was the one who chose this life for her. And she doesn't regret it.

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After running away from home, Luna genuinely wanted to move on from her immature infatuation on Brandon. With a revived and clear heart,she was intending to go away to London for real. 

But after she reached Paris, she couldn't make it a success to depart for London through Le Havre seaport as the full escaping process was more expensive than her calculation. It wasn't as easy as she thought before. Though she covered up everything with her money but couldn't afford a place inside the ship as other illegal immigrants were bidding for a place and everything suddenly transformed into an auction and rose up in prices. 

So Luna decided to stay in one of the nearest cities such as Paris or Rouen for a time being and earn enough money while waiting for a proper opportunity. Then she would leave the country in a smooth way. And she chose Paris to stay.

 She started working after arranging an average place for living. And of course she didn't try to do anything in a normal way and again started her old method of working. The only method by which she could earn faster and comfortably. But on top of that, she got familiar with some local gangsters working in the same field as her. And then ended up joining with Dr*g Mafias through them.

Luna started trafficking goods for mafias along with some other same aged people like her as the police used to treat minors in a soft way or they couldn't even imagine that they were involved in such inhuman businesses. Meanwhile her hacking skills and knowledge about technologies kept developing. Everything was going well. 

And surprisingly, she met Jorge working in the same mafia group as her.

 He also ended up coming to Paris after escaping from home. 

Both of them were running from each other but at the end they had an unexpected collision there. At first they were in enemy mode. But no matter how much they fought against each other, it was hard to fight against their instinct. Driving by their old habits, they again started depending on each other unwillingly. 

They continued their friendships avoiding those unavoidable bitterness. 

And Luna got used to everything with the time. But she didn't forget about Brandon even after spending a full year in that adventurous lifestyle whether it was hard to remember herself. She kept stalking his whereabouts from time to time. 

By the end of the year, Luna was fully prepared to leave the country. Not only had she earned enough money but also earned a lot of extra. She could comfortably live in London with that.

But before saying the final goodbye to everyone, she decided to see Brandon face to face just for once. Even though it was really tough to meet him in person. Brandon always kept a low profile surrounded by many securities and as an ordinary little girl, it was impossible for her to reach even to his shadow. But she was determined to give it a try. Only in this way, she would be able to move on from him. Because in reality Brandon might not have assembled with her imagination. A simple meeting would give her thoughts a completeness or break it. So it was necessary to take this risk to cut off all her old ties before stepping in a new chapter of her life. MEETING THE REAL HIM WOULD BREAK ALL HER ILLUSIONS.  Or else she would keep burning in her agonies for eternity.

As a result,she kept trying to find a way but couldn't manage to see him. She was stalking his information enormously and restlessly. She didn't know how many days or nights she had wasted on her stupidity. 

She tried so many methods but failed.

In one of those attempts, she hacked the police commissioner's bank account and drained away all his money. Because she found out that the police commissioner was Brandon's friend and within a week Brandon was about to pay a visit there to discuss some of his personal matters related to his company. 

The policemans chased after her for the whole week and Luna intentionally got caught by them at the fixed date when Brandon was about to visit the police station. 

The police commissioner was thunderstruck discovering an innocent teenage girl like her could do something so terrible. He was totally speechless. But still he didn't put Luna inside the jail as she was a minor. 

He scolded her for a couple of hours while the other officers did the paperworks to send her to the minor's jail. 

Luna silently heard all the boring lectures of the police commissioner and kept waiting. 

And all her tolerance finally paid off, when Brandon actually came to the police station to meet with the police commissioner. The commissioner hurriedly went to receive Brandon and his men ,leaving Luna with another police officer inside the specious general cabin.

That was after a very long time , Luna saw Brandon face to face apart from his social media accounts. He wasn't the same person when Luna met him for the first time beside that lake, that year. There were vast changes in his personality. That day in the past, he(B) looked like a stubborn and stray boy complaining and revolting against the whole world. But this time he was more like a reliable man who curtained all his carelessness with maturity and his smile was representing as if he conquered not only the world but also the whole universe under his feet. Even his t-shirt got changed into formal suits. Everything really changed in a good way.

Luna couldn't decide which Brandon was more impressive. 

She kept staring at him as if the sight was splitting her soul from the body. 

Brandon and the police commissioner greeted each other by shaking their hands. They went inside the commissioner's chamber while talking about some important issues. 

Luna didn't even figure out if Brandon had a glance over her or not as she was so engrossed in observing him. 

The police officer continuously asked Luna for some personal information so that he could fill up the form but Luna lost the ability to hear his words. 

All her consciousness got centered in front of the closed door of the chamber where Brandon was attending a meeting with others.

She walked towards the chamber and tried to sneak in. But another officer dragged her to the bench again to fill up the form. She couldn't help but to cooperate with the police officer and do everything according to his order. 

After an hour, Brandon came out of the chamber while talking with the commissioner and some other high ranked officers as well. A manager and two of Brandon's subordinates were standing in front of the door. They immediately left the police station after getting an order from Brandon and receiving a highly confidential document. They looked at Brandon for his permission. Brandon nodded, moving his eyelids and all of them went away leaving him alone.

Luna was still present there. The other police officer almost completed all the arrangements  to send her to the minor's jail and even took out all the information related to the hacked bank account.

Luna looked at Brandon through the window of the cabin ignoring others. This time she felt like Brandon looked at her. Luna's face turned red as his gaze fell on her. She started feeling tipsy as if that gaze was intoxicating in her veins like alcohol. She couldn't help but shamelessly kept staring at him expressionlessly. SHE THOUGHT THAT MAYBE BRANDON RECOGNISED HER. DID HE STILL REMEMBER THAT LITTLE GIRL WHO HE MET ON THE LAKESIDE LONG AGO??!!

Brandon looked at her once and gave a gentle smile with his godlike appearance. That was all Luna needed. She felt like her life goal had been completed. Now she could go on to her new stage of life without looking back. She decided to start her journey to London as soon as she could escape from jail. 

Thinking all the things she maintained her gaze at him. She didn't even bother to reply back with a smile to show her manners. Her eyes were totally vacant and only contained the reflection of Brandon. She even waved at him adding with her smile.

Brandon seemed to talk with the commissioner looking at her in between the discussion. 

Luna got back to her senses. She wondered if they were talking about her or not. Clearing her mind from illusion, she concentrated on eavesdropping their conversation. The commissioner was talking about her indeed. But unfortunately Brandon didn't recognize her at all.

Brandon was just curious why a minor girl was at the police station and as expected, the commissioner told him everything even mixing extra spices with the story. Luna got angry at the commissioner. How could he bad mouth her in front of her idol? It was so embarrassing.  

Luna sat back on her bench and stopped peeping at the window. She couldn't find any way to block the commissioner from splitting out the truth. Anyway it wouldn't make any difference. 

But to her utter surprise, the situation turned totally opposite as she thought. 

Unexpectedly Brandon bailed her out of jail. And it wasn't the end. In addition, Brandon asked Luna to work for him at his company. 

HOW COULD THIS BE EVEN REAL?? She thought she might be day dreaming. But it was absolutely real. Her innocent and contented heart suddenly became greedy and empty as if she got a new goal....

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To be continued.....