The scope of love

Chapter 8

Ellie Smart. She is a beautiful girl. She has soft curly light blonde hair and big brown eyes with lashes for days. It seems like there is always a natural blush to her creamy skin. She is tiny and delicate. She is what I imagined any guy would go crazy for. She seems innocent and guys usually eat that up. They would want to protect her, hold her tight in their arms making sure she doesn’t get tainted by the evil world. Even I like her. Not only is she beautiful, but she is kind as well. Her voice is also soft and musical, almost bell like. When she laughs you can’t help to smile since it is more like a childlike giggle. Underneath the beauty and the softness lurks sadness. She is lonely. She wants to find love, but she feels like she tries to hard. Her adaptability makes her change for the person she is interested in. Her curiosity makes her seem clingy as she wants to know everything about the person. She is also very restless and she feels like she becomes to much. She had tried really hard to make a match, but it didn’t work out. She was desperate to be loved. She seems like the perfect catch to me. I don’t get it how someone like her couldn’t find anyone. I blame the programme, I blame it for everything after all. She wouldn’t be so desperate if it wasn’t for the programme pressuring her to find love before time runs out. She could have found someone if she had a greater choice of people to. I feel bad stealing her identity. Borrowing temporarily. It’s the only way that Declan and I can go out together. I still need to come out with a plan on how I will bring the programme down. Declan is right, just finding love in another group isn’t enough. They would argue that anyone could find love, but that love doesn’t always lasts, but their statistic can prove that the love they set up does love. I though about getting a really good lawyer and having that lawyer go through every detail of the program until he finds a fault. A fault that we can expose. The thing is that would be very expensive and I am only a high school student and due to the requirement of the program I won’t be able to study or get a job if I don’t get married at eighteen. The other thing is that no lawyer will take them on. They have a whole team of lawyers and a lot of money. They will scare or bribe people to stop poking around. At the moment that was my best idea.

We had searched high and low for someone that fit with what we needed. Declan and I both becoming very social, more Declan than me because to be honest I couldn’t hang out with the Aries and Gemini anymore. People were starting to ask question both in that grouping and in mine. It was odd that I popped up every other day. In the beginning it was fine because they thought I was a new student checking out the school, but usually that is only for a couple of days and I pushed it for a couple of weeks. No one seemed to fit what we wanted until we met Ellie. Yes she desperately wanted love, but she knew she wouldn’t find it here. She has exhausted the people here and the chance of someone new coming in on their senior year is low. She already signed up for the speed dating and subsidized apartments. She was a perfect fit and even though I felt bad about pretending to be friends just to see if we could use her, I know we had to do it if we were going to stay together. Now that we have found her we have to test the waters. In order to not cause any suspicion I am going back to my grouping and I’m ot allowed to cross over again. I will miss spending lunches with Declan. I’ll miss sitting in his arms and holding his hand. I’ll miss his warm lips against mine and his teasing breath in my neck. I will miss him a lot, but at least when we are registered as a couple and by us I mean Declan and Ellie then we can go out on weekends as much as we like. The truth is they don’t mind what registered couples do or how much they go out. Teenage pregnancy isn’t a big scandal anymore since they expect you to get married at eighteen and have kids before you are twenty. Falling pregnant earlier just proves that the program is working and that there is love blossoming. I find it ridiculous, but I find the whole thing ridiculous so yeah. Declan is going home this weekend. He has arranged this visit especially so that he can go and make my fake ID. Once he get’s back he’ll register us and we can go on our first official date.

It’s only Wednesday now so that means I will only get to see him in 10 days and I am afraid that this will be the longest 10 days ever. This thing with Ellie as put some strain on my and Madisons friendship. She doesn’t like the idea and I get it, but I need to be with Declan and she gets that too. We just don’t talk as often as we use to and it makes me sad. She is my best friend ad I would love her support, but she needs to go along with the program for her family. She doesn’t want to bring it down like me. She doesn’t mind if it comes down either. Her attitude towards it all is pretty neutral. I’m hoping now that I will be back at our grouping things would get better. In all fairness I have been a pretty bad friend. I haven’t spend a lot of time with her. I have been chasing romance and justice and neglected friendship, but I have ten days free and I will make it up to her. I will be the best of best friends. I will cherish and shower her with attention. Starting with breakfast everyday. I got up super early and went to the kitchen to make her some eggs. There will be no cereal for her. Once the eggs were done I made her some coffee and then I took it to her, waking her up with breakfast in bed. She was surprised and I had made her smile which was a good start. The whole morning I gushed about her hair, earrings and what not. I didn’t bring up the programme or Declan once. I thought that she needed a reprieve from all of it. I talked her ear off and listened like a pro to her.

It only took her a couple of days to get sick of me. She then burst out of frustration.

“Quit it! You are driving me insane. You are being to nice! I don’t know you like this you are a very rational ad sometimes cynical person. You have always been so please and I am begging her…Please can you just complain about something and stop focusing on me. If this continues I’ll be fat by the end of the year and have a mojor ego from all your compliments. Okay go!” I started laughing at how she was commanding me to complain on the spot, but I had quite a few things to complain about so I gave her what she wanted. I first started to complain about the programme and how it was keeping me and Declan apart. Then I complained about how bored I was, I covered it up by telling her how much I love spending time with her, but things are different now. I guess with all the sneaking around and secret it felt like my life was a little adventure and now I am back to my normal routine. The routine I have come to hate over the years. In all honesty I feel like finding a whirlwind love has ruined me for normal life. Most of my thoughts are consumed by Declan. I wonder how he looks today? Is his long hair loose or tied up, messy or neat? How did he sleep? What was he doing? Is he missing me as much as I am missing him? It’s a constant flow of thought that makes my longing worse.

I wonder if he has registered us yet or if he even managed to get the ID. There is no way for me to know since we can’t message each other. I will only know when I show up and hope to see him waiting for me. If not and I am caught then our cover is blown. I was overthinking this when someone came to sit next to me, I paid them no mind. There is only so many seats and it’s not uncommon for people to join our table if there is a open spot. I just continued with my inner turmoil until a hand slid across my thigh. My head shot towards the person and there sat Finley. How I wished that Declan could be here in this grouping and knock him on his ass. If this continues I might just have to find Declan a Taurus tie and have him threaten Finley.

“If you value your hand remove it!” I warned him with a deadly scowl.

“Come on Angel don’t be like that. When are you going to finally just give in and see that we are made for each other. We had a good run and I promise I’ll try and behave this time around.” I slapped his hand away from my leg.

“There is no us and there will be no second chance.” I told him, when a stroke of genius happened.

“In fact I found someone else. Madison was covering for me, but on the days I wasn’t here I was at a different school looking to see if I could find a better Taurus and I did. We are a registered couple now. We might not get to see each other due to us being in different schools, but I love him so it’s worth it. He might just show up here at some point, so you better keep your distance. You know how possessive a Taurus can be. No point in poking the bear.” His face fell. I could see that he was shocked and then angry. Maybe he was feeling insulted and rejected. It was my aim after all. Stupid i***t. If he doesn’t leave me alone from now on then I’ll have to let Declan come and visit us, but I think I got him off my back for a little while.

Book Entry:

The days dragged on and the longing became worse. It’s hard to long for something that you can’t have. It’s hard to have something you are forbidden to have. The rules and regulation meant nothing to me at that point. Honestly I went out of my way to break them. My mind was a constant flow of Declan and Ideas of how to fight this system that has not only restricted us as human being, but also have gone and taken away our right. We had a right to speech, but not to speak up against the Scope of love, We had the right to express ourselves but not with love for anyone other than their choosing. Things started to get real at that point. I set out to find someone and by some miracle I found the perfect one, someone who had picked me over the program being fully aware of the risks. I was in a real relationship and we were taking it to next level and with each level the risks would increase. In that moment I didn’t know what a challenge it would turn into. I didn’t care. I should have cared more, I should have taken more precautions.