Joe isn't a psycho!

Joe had fewer friends because they knew Joe was untrustworthy. They wanted to be kind to her, but not at any conditions, her personality allowing them nearer. They had differences of opinions, unlike others, Joe had entirely unacceptable mood sets; she would become so sweet to others and in a moment venomous as a cobra. She had chosen St. Marks College to read psychology and people would say, “a psycho is reading psychology,” it sounded so lame like—an apple was eating an apple, wasn’t it? 

Everybody has a life written to live with all the ecstasy, pain, and grief sometimes, and so had Joe. The more the people were ignoring her, the stronger she became. 

She couldn’t lie to anybody; it was her problem; she reckoned, “Lying is synonymous with betrayal, and I hate to betray or getting betrayed.” 

Joe didn’t have any mental issues, nor she was a psycho. It was all her past dreads that made her firmly believe in the toxicity of a lie. Her pasts made her vulnerable and also deteriorating her future.

 Andrew came into her life and bought a mystic hope of living, and she believed she wasn’t a misanthrope. Andrew got pretty blue eyes like the spring sky; had some old wound scar on his left cheek, a pointy nose, and a large masculine beard amid prominent was his double-shaded-lips looked juicy for a smoothie. He would be a foot or two longer than Joe. She became his preference. Hopefully, he would have known about all the sheer turmoil she had confined within her heart, but he couldn’t stop himself to ogle her; he was smitten by her. Joe was beautiful: she had peace in her beauty like an evening at the bank of a river. She had dimples on her cheeks, unusually long neck, hazelnutty eyes, and rose-kissed-skin and intricately carved. Innumerable guys would like her, but the peculiar narration about her personality would force them to take their feet back. Life was hard, however, going smoothly, but she came to realise that she became as lonely as a nocturnal animal after her friend Natasha died. She was very close to Joe, and so was Joe. They were sweethearts until one day when Joe told all the truth about Natasha to her family and her boyfriend that on Christmas Eve Natasha was drunk, and then offered a group of handsome guys to sleep with her, together they fucked her badly the whole night, and she enjoyed it, albeit the pain they had given to her was lousy. Her family bashed her badly, and her boyfriend broke up with her, also he abused her and disrespected her as a result, she didn’t want to give any clarification; she had broken from the inside and committed suicide on the following new year.

Andrew knew this story, but he found the reason for telling the truth all the time no matter what—was more convincing by Joe. She told—because of all the lie her mother told to her father; she had to tell more lie to cover the older one, consequently, there came a gigantic wall of chaos in their relationship and collapsed to kill their 15 years of marriage. Joe was 12 by the time when her mother died of the tumor, and she didn’t know where her father had gone after divorce. So Joe never thought about a single lie, and so the world was calling her untrustworthy, psycho, blabbermouth, and what not? But she always stood stiff in her beliefs. However, she regretted the death of Natasha that incident left her utterly bereft. But, later she thought about the call of destiny, she said, “I respect the demand of destiny, if it has decided turmoil in my life I will accept it forever, making no complaints. Whatever happens, it happens for a cause. I would dare not to raise my fingers at it. Argh! Natasha would be happy in heaven. I am sorry, Natasha.”

“Can I kiss your scars?” asked Joe in a tone filled with pity. “How did it happen, honey? Argh! I would be so deep, wouldn’t it?”

“I love you, Joe. Do you really need my consent to kiss me?” said Andrew in a falling tone with a twitched smile. “It’s a long story let’s not talk about it. Old stories only rewind the reels to the lousy past.”

“You are like an angel to me, they treated me like untouchables, but you treat me like a queen. I am so damn lucky to have you. You gave a reason to relish this life that was nebulous and aloof.”

Andrew grinned and tightly hugged her, and she couldn’t persuade herself to not cry, so wet his shirt with her tears.

“I request you Andrew, please do nothing in life that would bring differences in us. I don’t want to lose you. Be my side forever, don’t you?” she squeezed her hazelnutty eyes and let the last drop of tear came out. 

“I promise, he whispered in her ear.

              ***

On Christmas Eve; Joe and Andrew had been together for a year and planning to get married soon. Both were feeling blessed for a perfect partner. Andrew was a man with a golden heart, and so caring for Joe. All the love she was deprived for years, Andrew would have given her superfluous in a brief span of time. The love, warmth, and care for her in his eyes were prominent and anyone could feel it thoroughly. After having a wonderful celebration in the Rock Inn, they were returning home around 2:30 a.m. Andrew felt a bit lazy in driving, however, the Irish Wine was tremendously heavy on him, Joe was almost dozing off on the companion seat. But he couldn’t take the risk with her life; he kept pushing to drive safely and urging himself not to feel overwhelmed. 

He was going down at his usual speed when a car with breakneck speed banged on from behind. Joe shuddered and woke up in utter surprise, and the car behind kept pushing their car for a few meters and then stopped. Luckily, god saved them.

Andrew got pissed off. He jumped out of the car, followed by Joe for an altercation, as expected. He was frightened and equally furious and ready to kill the driver. But what he saw--he blanched, and a jolt would run down in his spine, and he flinched back.

“Cas, is it you?” mere his utterance was audible, and the cacophony of high-speed cars were passing by on the highway distorted his words.

“Yeah. It’s me. I heard you got a new girlfriend, didn’t you? Lemme see her,” she said in a tone filled with jibe and sounded fake. She peeped through the window for Joe. She peered into her eyes for a moment, scanned her from top to bottom, and gave a sarcastic smile of pride, her worried face filled with satisfaction and a victorious smile.

“This is what you have chosen as a replacement for me, shit!” Cas said very rudely to him. He kept gazing at her in dismay or longing. 

“It’s none of your concern. If you ever tried to harm us, I shall report you for the next time. Stay away from Joe, do you understand?” Andrew barked at her badly; his eyes were red and fluttering with anger.

She jumped out of the car as well, came very close to him as she tried to intimidate him, but looking like she failed.

“You will report to the police, but before it, please save yourself for the next time of face-off,” she said and smiled eerily. She took out her pistol from the back of her jeans and kept on Joe’s head with no second thought. Joe started crying with fear. She closed her eyes and almost accepted her death, but before the trigger would come into her control, the gun was in the hands of Andrew and on the head of Cas. Now she started flowing those crotchety tears, she started pleading for her life, asked for clemency, but before she would ask for the sorry for the tenth time—he blew her head off. Joe’s inner fear made her jump a foot in the air and fell behind on her back. She had her eyes closed of fear. Andrew went close to her and consoled her; told her Cas deserved to die: she was very dangerous, she always tried to blackmail him, Cas was his first girlfriend. He was in depression for a year because of her, and eventually, she killed his new girlfriend and ran away. Cas gave that scar on his head; once she tried to kill him like today she did. A car hired by Cas hit him,, and he got a deep wound. She was a bitch.

Joe went on crying badly; he threw Cas’s body down the river stream out of the town and took Joe home. He kissed gently on her head, asked her to forget everything she saw today, and made herself happy again. 

“Santa would be on the way with your gifts. Now please smile, honey,” Andrew said like killing wasn’t a big deal for him. She didn’t utter a word, covered herself with the blanket, and went on sleeping.

Day two or three would have passed ecstatically, fearless and no stress, but Andrew had been forgetting about Joe’s impertinent personality. He realized when he was behind the bar that she could never lie no matter what. In investigations, she told everything and let herself freed from the weight of lie; once again she did her lie credits to zero.