Chapter 15: If only one could TURN back time!

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Without wasting a second more, David ran out of the park at top speed as if racing with time, leaving the bewildered boy standing rooted to the spot. At first, he couldn’t find her anywhere on the road. And then he spotted her. The scene he saw made his insides churn and caused a shiver to run down his spine, for Zahra was lying on the road in a pool of her own blood!

The whole world began to swirl in front of his eyes, but he quickly put himself together and bent down to pick her up. If he waited for the paramedics to arrive, it might be too late. Her condition was serious. Thankfully, the St. Catherine hospital was just a block away, or there would’ve been no chance for Zahra of surviving her injuries. Spotting her handbag on the other side of the road, he ran to get it. And then, he quickly yet gently picked her up in his arms.

Zahra was so light in weight that David couldn’t even feel her in his arms. Only when he stared down, while running at top speed, at the load in his hands, did he realize that he was actually carrying a real person upon his muscular arms. She was really short in comparison to his own six feet. His head throbbed with pain seeing Zahra’s blood smeared face and he mentally cursed himself for bringing her to such a condition. He was a selfish brute and the proof of it was in his hands right now.

“I need a doctor please,” he shouted urgently the moment he reached the hospital. Two nurses came running up to him with a stretcher between them. David gently laid Zahra upon it and they wheeled her away to the E.R. Heaving a sigh of relief, he crumbled upon the seat nearby with his head between his hands. Exhaustion was rapidly taking over him. What wouldn’t he do to be in his comfy bed right now and doze off to sleep? He felt extremely tired, even when he had done nothing to make him feel that way.

This was the gravest mistake he had ever made in his life. Avenging somebody else’s horrible crime with such an innocent and sensitive little creature was justice to none. When did he become so inhumane? ‘She was aggravating’ his mind foolishly tried to reason, but that was an idiotic judgement of a person’s nature who dressed not to please the opposite sex but for her own security and respect.

Recalling to mind his cruel behavior to her in almost all their meetings in the past five or six months, all he could do was clutch his dark brown hair in agony and flex his muscles in a tensed manner. He had got blood on his suit due to carrying the girl over to the hospital, and people gazed openly at him in wonderment. Presently, he relieved himself of his coat, made it into a ball and thrust it into a corner of his chair.

He had stopped feeling guilty for anything he did wrong, ever since his mother died when he was just twelve years old. He felt as if he was taking out all his anger of the pains and scars he had received from life, by making people feel bad, feel hurt. In short, he had become somewhat sadistic.

There had been countless moments when he had broken extremely profiting deals of his father’s company just by uttering wrong words at the wrong time. And he never gave it a thought afterwards. He liked to give people a piece of his mind, even if they liked it or not. The media had often dubbed him as the ‘short-fused’ CEO.

But now, he felt ridden with guilt. He had never regretted doing anything in his life as he did right now. He kept questioning himself as to the need of insulting the girl so harshly. And it was only now he realized, he always had so much of his own way that he felt as if he owned everything and everyone. That he could boss people around the whole place, make them dance and whirl around his little finger.

He remembered their first meeting, or to be more precise, their first collision, as if it had happened yesterday. No one, not even the big brains of the corporate world, had the nerve to talk back to him like that girl did. It was apparent that she had a lot of pluck in her.

Just the memory of it made a smile come to his face. He had been in quite a good mood that day, or he wouldn’t have spared her. And it had taken him by surprise when he found her standing in his office, from which she had ran out, scared, when she saw him. She probably hadn’t known who he was.

One thing he knew for certain was that she was completely different from the whole lot that came to work in his Office. Clumsy, childish and not like those who ran after him to get his attention. But he chose to ignore the fact, because he had taken it in his mind to hate her. He felt offended by everything she did, and the feeling was always mutual. He had seen it in her eyes.

Even then, he couldn’t stop himself from getting attracted to her, though, not in a bad way. She was the kind whom he didn’t want to keep as his enemies. He wanted to know how deep he was in the thoughts of such people, so as to make out his risks and get himself ready to retaliate if they, suddenly, struck him.

He had even begun to trust her so much as to give her his mother’s old watch. But it was just like her to leave it all to dust and mix herself in some crazy detective work. ‘Why couldn’t she stop ruining things for once?’ he thought, annoyed.

Her pretty, almost verging on beautiful, face kept running through his mind, while he tried in vain to find out what exactly had she done to him to deserve such humiliation in front of so many strangers. ‘Oh! If only one could turn back time’ he thought, what he wouldn’t give to make that happen and undo all his mistakes. But it was no use now. Zahra was in the emergency room fighting for her life with those frightening injuries.

Covering his face with his hands, he tried to block all the horrible thoughts from his mind. What if she died? What would he tell her parents, especially her ailing father? That he killed her with his words?!

All due to a small glitch in her report that she couldn’t correct because she was mentally strained due to the fact that her dad was dying! “You’ve become a mercenary, you brute,” he muttered in a low voice and mentally kicked himself. He would never be able to live this down, that was a sure thing.

Rubbing his eyes to keep himself awake, he was sure he had heard someone’s phone ringing incessantly. But there was no one around, talking on the phone. ‘Why isn’t anybody picking up that darned phone?’ he thought, irritated.

Trying to locate the source of the sound, he looked around him, and strange enough, everyone else was doing the same. And then he realized that the maddening sound was coming from Zahra’s bag which he had picked up from the road, and which was now lying beside him on the chair he was sitting on.

Not liking to touch her things without her knowing it, David reluctantly opened the bag to look for her phone. A hundred diaries, notepads, pens, and a wallet came into view but no phone. God! Did she write each and everything they said in the meetings?

Exasperated, he opened the other zip of her bag, and a large sized hanky, a strange looking cloth with a minaret designed upon it, and a small lip balm were all that brushed his fingers and came in contact with his eyes. He was amazed that she had no such thing as a make-up kit inside her bag. She was certainly not like other girls.

Frustrated with the ceaseless noise of the ringing phone, he ruffled up the contents once more, and this time, he succeeded in extracting out the precious gadget, commonly known as cellphone, from the bag. The screen showed the name of someone called Laura. Reckoning the girl as some friend of Zahra, he picked up the call.

“Thank God! You picked it up. Are you always miles away from your phone?” an annoyed, but sweet voice probably belonging to the girl named Laura, asked from the other end of the line, without giving David a chance to speak. “I wanted to inform you that I wouldn’t be able to pick you up coming back from work. I’m working for an extra shift today. A very important and urgent order has come up,” she kept saying.

“Zahra, are you there? Why don’t you say something? Have I hurt your feelings?” she suddenly asked, finally observing that there was an eerie silence on the other side. “Is it necessary that I come? Hullo?” “Zahra Fatimah has had an accident. She is in the St. Catherine Hospital at the moment,” David said, finally finding his voice. “What! And who are you?” Laura asked, pointedly. “I’m her boss. I…um…kind of brought her here. She was lying on the road,” David replied, hesitating.

“You said something bad to her, right?” Laura suddenly said, leaving him dazed. “Mind you, she didn’t tell me that. I figured it out from her worried tone when she called me a few hours ago. I’m coming down there right now, and I wouldn’t hesitate to give you a piece of my mind, you get that, you snooty old brat,” Laura shouted at him, enraged beyond measure.

“Who do you think you are, hunh?” Laura spit out at David, as soon as she reached the hospital. She had presumed that he was her boss, as she had recognized Zahra’s handbag on one side of his chair and her phone in his hand.

“And give me that,” she said, and with a sudden motion, she had snatched away the cellphone from his hand. “Do you ever care about what people are going through in their lives? No, you certainly don’t. You just know how to make a slave out of them, right! You just like to have them as your personal money-making machine,” Laura said venomously, hate pouring out from her words.

She kept pacing around the whole room, her forehead creased with a hundred lines of worry, dreading in what condition Zahra might be right now. After a while, she asked David, “Was she hurt badly when you saw her?” and he nodded in affirmative. He didn’t have the strength to say anything for he had no justification to give about his conduct towards her friend. As far as he was concerned, he had behaved horribly with her. Laura’s anger was getting the better of her now, because if Zahra suffered any permanent damage, it would all be this man’s fault.

“I’ll get even with you on that, you mark my words. I’ll make you go through all the pain you’ve inflicted upon her, and in case you think my threats are lame, let me prove it to you.” And with that, Laura socked his cheek so hard that her hand stung from the impact, leaving a red mark upon David’s face. He was shocked and amazed at the same time. They now had the undivided attention of the rest of the people in the room. He never knew that the shy little girl could ever have a friend like Laura, who would stand up for her, no questions asked. He was amazed beyond words.

And he was boiling inside too. How could she touch her? But before anyone of them could say anything to each other, the doctor who had taken up Zahra’s case strode out of the emergency room. “Mr. Walworth? Ah yes, there you are,” he said, and his words left Laura reeling in surprise. She had thought that the guy was Zahra’s HR manager or something! She had never seen any of them before, and she had never thought that it could be him!

“Was the girl under some sort of mental pressure before the accident?” he asked, staring at the two of them in a scrutinizing gaze. “Yes. She was very much tensed,” Laura replied quickly. “It has had a serious effect upon her brain. The girl has fractured her left leg and her right arm very badly, two of her ribs have broken due to the force with which she fell. Also, her nasal bone has received quite a blow. But these are just superficial injuries,” he said pausing to see their reactions, and hurriedly wrote something on his notepad.

“The patient has suffered an open head injury,” he suddenly announced. Laura’s hand flew up to her mouth in shock and her eyes became wide like two large orbs. “It might lead to a few complications since she is very weak but thankfully ‘coma’ is not one of them."

"She is still unconscious but we are doing everything we can to get her back to normal. Her brain is very much traumatized which, I’m sorry to say, might lead to a mild amnesia which may last for about an hour or so. The miraculous thing is that she has survived her injuries. But she needs proper care. So I’ve decided not to discharge her as yet.”

“You can meet her but only after about two hours,” the doctor told them reassuringly. “There’s no need to worry, the patient’s out of danger. You just have to go through some formalities and make the payment at the reception desk downstairs.” He handed the prescription to David and patting his back, went inside the E.R.

“You don’t need to pay for Zahra. She won’t like it. Give me the prescription, will you?” Laura said, extending her hand, expecting him to hand it over to her immediately. “You just stay here, okay. I’m responsible for all the damage, so I’ll pay for it too,” David replied in an authoritative tone, indicating her to sit. Laura thought better to not argue with him, so she complied meekly, sensing danger from his tone of voice.

“Hey, you are David Walworth? I didn’t know that before the doctor called your name. I’m sorry about slapping you, but I still can’t forgive you for what you’ve done. And yeah, forget about the threats, I’ve got no means to deliver them with,” Laura said, permitting a small smile to grace her lips. “It’s alright. I think I deserved it. It made me discover what an a**hole I really am,” David replied and chuckled.

“Hello dad, something really bad has happened. I wanted to get to you as soon as I could, but I just didn’t have time. Zahra Fatimah has had a very serious accident and I’m at St. Catherine’s right now,” David said into the phone as soon as he reached downstairs. “What? How?” Michael Walworth asked, shocked. “Well, she was crossing the road without seeing around her, I guess. I was not there, so I can’t really tell. It was only after I heard the crash that I realized what had happened.”

“Is she fine now?” “Yeah, but she’s still unconscious. I’m sorry for everything dad, I really am,” David replied, smoothening lines of worry from his forehead with his free hand. “It’s OK son. I’m glad that you’ve accepted that what you did was wrong. It’s a marvel in itself,” his father proudly replied from the other side.

“Listen dad, what I really called you about is that I need some security to cover the area around the Hospital, because a guy in a car caught me picking up the girl, and he clicked a picture of me holding her in my arms! By now, it must have gone viral on the internet. And I’m expecting the news people to mob the area any minute now. Thank god! Her face wasn’t visible else I would’ve been in deep trouble.”

*********SOMEWHERE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD*********

“The dashing young CEO of ‘Walworth & Co.’ was caught by a passerby on the camera today, helping a damsel in distress. The picture has received over five million views on Twitter and about as much likes on the social networking site, Facebook, in just a short span of an hour or so. According to the man, he ran with the girl to the St. Catherine Hospital nearby. As of now, we do not know the mystery girl because her face was not towards the camera. For further insight on the news, we take you right to the Hospital, from where our reporter Dana is covering the sensational news….”

The television is blaring in the empty room having transparent glass panels. The mystery man is sitting on the chair opposite the TV, his feet propped up on the table near him. His face is a huge storm of emotions, of which rage occupies a considerable part. His top mercenary and his right hand man, Jake, enters to deliver the unfortunate news. “Sir, the operation was successful, but the girl is still alive,” he says, his hands shaking violently. “A man saved her before we could remove her from the scene.”

“DRAT THAT MAN!!” the mystery man suddenly shouts and the whole room booms with his voice. In spite of being a heavy-built man, Jake whimpers and shakes uncontrollably. “That Walworth busybody b***ard has crossed my path for the second time now. Doing it for the third time might not be good for his health,” he says smiling like a fiend.

“And you. You say it so bravely as if you’ve conquered the whole country. You are of no use to me,” he spat, glaring hard at his henchman. He pulls out his gun, but thinking better of it, he keeps it back into its place. “You’ve failed me once, but, if you fail me again, I will not spare you, is that clear in your head?” he says with a heavily English accent. The man called Jake nods slowly, staring fearfully at the gun.

“And that f***king girl slips each and every time from my hands. You b***ards don’t even know how to do a girl in!” he adds grotesquely. “What kind of mercenary are you? And now, I want you to go watch over that Hospital. I need hour by hour report of everything going on there, and if possible, kidnap her and bring her to me. I don’t want her to die in obscurity, I want a good pomp and show so that the whole world comes to know of the secret she’s been carrying since the last twenty three years,” the mystery man says with relish.

“None of you have ever been of any use to me when I need you most. And damn that girl, Demetria. She had to go get herself locked in the cooler just when I needed her. If she still had been working there, I wouldn’t have had to rely on stupid people like you and your boys. You’ve let me down Jake. I never expected it of you. Now don’t stand there and look so foolish. Get out of my sight, I’ve had enough of your stupidity for today. And don’t you dare to fail me again.”

Trapeze, Clydesville.

“Who called all the media people over here? Have they come for you?” Laura asked David, when she saw hundreds of news vans parked out on the driveway, from one of the small windows. “Look. I need to confess something to you, please do not panic, okay,” David replied, a worried expression upon his handsome features. “Oh! What have you done now?” Laura asked, fed up.

And slowly he told her the whole story, making her go crazier by the minute. What crazy nightmare they were in that just didn’t stop, instead it went on and on. Laura was frustrated and to make her mind clearer, she went outside. Grabbing the opportunity to check upon Zahra, David strode towards her room.

She had been removed from the E.R. once she regained consciousness, but the doctors had put her on anesthetics to relieve the excruciating pain she had felt in her fractured bones and skull. They were still not allowed to go inside her room, but just having a glimpse of her from the outside was enough for David.

Once he had reached the place, he peeped inside from the glass door. A sleeping Zahra greeted his eyes. The blood that had flowed from her face due to the wounds had been cleansed. Her hijab had also been removed to operate on her skull, so that those curled, midnight black locks now freely fell upon her face. To David, she looked extremely pretty and he felt a sudden urge to go in and remove those locks from her face so that he could have a full view of the beautiful nymph like creature he had hurt so much.

David thought of her as the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ waiting for her Prince Charming to arrive and kiss her wide-awake. He had heard the story from his mother when he was small and he knew it by heart. His mother had always wanted a girl, but when it didn’t come, she made him his own ‘dear girl’, telling him all kinds of princess and fairy stories she knew of. So, he was quite familiar with the subject. However, she had discontinued the practice when he grew up, finally accepting life as it was.

Zahra wasn’t exactly white, she had a rather pale tinge to her face, nor was she blond, but to him, she seemed perfect. She had a child-like innocence upon her face, and it made her face glow extraordinarily bright. And for the first time in his life, David declared a girl as ‘flawless’!

-------AUTHOR'S NOTE-------

I am extremely lazy. Ya Allah! pleez give me strength to complete this story ;) btw, tgib has reached 1000+ reads n I am vry excited abt that.

I love you awll my lovely readers <3 <3 <3