Chapter 14: Chapter 14

The moment I stepped into the room, I panicked. Dread gripped my chest with it's cold, electric claws and squeezed my heart, draining all the blood out of me.

She wasn't in the room like I left her, but her purse was on my desk and my jacket, the one I had given her, was on the bed.

We had parted ways, deciding to freshen up. She had the bathroom here all to herself, while I used the spare one down the hall.

I walked into the room, my bare feet, padding onto the shiny tiles. There was no sight of her, anywhere. I gulped, feeling my heart ache. I sat on the bed and gripped my hair, hating myself for letting her affect me like this.

It felt like I hadn't let my lesson, getting so close to a stranger for no reason.

Suddenly, I smelt it... Burning nicotine. I stood up like I just got zapped in my spine and followed the scent to the balcony. I found her there, leaning against a pillar, staring out at the sea below us. She looked in awe as the seas crashed against the rocks, the shore, tidal waves, moving into the city. She was only wearing a bathrobe, she had let her hair down again, cigarette stick between her fore and middle finger.

And all I could think about was She's here. She's here. She didn't leave. She's here.

I must have made a noise because she suddenly turned to look at me. "It's really so peaceful out here." She whispered, she was looking at me in wonder and fascination like she was still staring at the sea. I decided I liked it. I liked her looking at me like this.

"I want to watch the sunrise tomorrow." She was saying, still looking at me.

I gulped. Something was fluttering it's wings in my throat and it was getting harder and harder to breathe because she was looking at me. Ya Allah! She was looking at me like I was more fascinating than the sea.

"Come inside. It's cold out." I told her, when I found my voice.

Translation: Come to my bed, I want to make out with you..

Reasoning was escaping from me. Trying to break free out of my grasp.

"I'm sorry, I should have asked if you were okay with a stranger smoking in here." She stubbed the butt of the cigarette and threw it out. And wouldn't look at me.

I don't mind, I wanted to say, and you're not a stranger. But instead I walked to her, wrapped my arms around her. It didn't come as a shock anymore, how easily and enthusiastically I moved to hold her. She sank into my arms, afloat in my embrace. She smelled like me. She had used my soap. "How do you feel?" I asked instead.

Her reply was a breathy murmur. "Like I never want to leave this place."

I badly wanted to ask if by 'this place' she meant, Offshore, the vacation house or my arms. I so badly wished it was the third option but I kept my mouth shut, wanting this peaceful moment to last forever.

She destroyed the moment five seconds later, tearing herself away from my grasp and walking back into the room, pulling me along with her. "I saw a guitar." She picked up the acoustic guitar sitting on the side of my bed and turned to look at me with excited dark eyes. "You play?"

I nodded.

She squealed, pulled me to sit with her on the bed, folding her legs under her and looking at me with excited wide eyes. Her purple hair was all over her face and I couldn't think past the fact that I wanted to caress her cheeks, feel her lips, but instead I took the guitar when she handed it to me.

"Play something for me." She wouldn't stop trembling in excitement.

"How about a duet?"

"You sing too?" Her eyes went round in pleasant surprise, she was excitedly leaning towards me and she probably didn't know.

"Yes." I settled the guitar on my lap. Giving her my full attention. I couldn't look away if I tried.

"Do you write your songs or just make covers?"

For an unexplainable reason, my heart started pounding faster. "I... I write."

Your songs make me want to slit my wrist. Rashid once told me, his face, pinched into a worried scowl.

This... This is so dark, Amir. Nadia looked at me, concern in her dark eyes. Let's just stick to the songs Rashid writes.

Oga, you need help. Dave decided, when I played him an original song by me. This is some depressing shit!

"Can I see?" She was looking at me, solemnly now. Understanding, swirling in her dark, dark orbs. "I won't judge."

No. No. You don't want to see my deepest thoughts. You don't want to enter into my head. It's dark in there and it scares and cripples me and I don't want you to leave.

"Maybe some other time." I said hastily, adjusting the guitar on my lap. "What do you want me to play?"

Her lips stretched into a dark smile. She had high foxy cheekbones and huge foxy eyes and a sexual foxy face that was honestly too attractive to look at. "Surprise me."

I thought for a while, sifting through the songs in my mind and memory, turning them this way and that in my head and finally decided on the perfect one.

I smiled to myself, a quick soft smile, adjusted the guitar and started plucking the chords, creating the perfect rhythm.

She wasn't smiling anymore, she was staring at me in awe now and my gaze didn't want to leave hers.

She inhaled sharply when I started singing, gasping at my voice as if she had underestimated how well I could sing.

The lyrics flowed out of me easily. Like I was conversating with her. "Tell me something girl... Are you happy in this modern world?"

She looked like she wanted to avoid my gaze. She was frozen with that look on her face.

"Or do you need more?... Is there something else you're searching for?" I peered at her, letting her know that I meant every word I was saying. "I'm falling."

She took a shaky breath. Gulped. But continued to watch me play.

After the first verse, she waited a beat, before she started her part. Her voice, shaky but harmonious. "Tell me something boy... Aren't you tired trying to feel that void?"

I closed my eyes, my heart hurting. Touché. The lyrics... This moment, right here, it suddenly felt like it was meant to be. Like it was pre-ordained.

"Or do you need more. Ain't it hard, keeping it so hard core?" She whispered, her words like cherry blossoms and falling petals, caressing my cheek. "I'm falling."

My heart was racing and her eyes were magnetic. Hooking and reeling me in, into the ocean that was her being and I was falling and falling and didn't have anything to hold on to and I was losing my grip and falling to pieces into her.

"Out of the deep end, watch as I dive in..." I watched her, amazed now, as she rose her voice, closed her eyes, stressing the words and infusing emotions into the lyrics because she had reached the bridge and I was wondering if I could ever ever ever get used to this. "Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us. We're far from the shallow, now!"

I joined in and she opened her eyes, singing in that high-pitched, powerful voice that was drowning me in waves and waves of sound energy, reverberating my heart with staccatoed bursts and this moment right here, I didn't want it to end.

She crawled unto my lap and I didn't know where or when i flung the guitar but suddenly I wasn't holding the wooden instrument anymore, I was holding and grasping soft skin and softer curves and her lips were on mine and I was tasting watermelon and whiskey and shooting stars all over again and I never never ever wanted it to end.

We were a tornado of hair and lips and skin and teeth and she tugged my shirt off, tossed it somewhere and pushed me unto the back. I gasped as my back hit the bed. Her lips and teeth and fingers were everywhere and she was shattering every bone in me, my joints came undone, and my spine lost its shape, and suddenly I was a heap of patella and vertebra and broken promises scattered all over the bed and my precious sanity had taken a hike on me and that was okay because I didn't want it to come back.

She leaned away and looked at me and I decided I didn't want to be looked at, any other way. Her eyes of creamy black coffee and inky darkness were filled with something that made my heart ache and my lungs tighten. I was gasping for breath just looking at her. It was a painful moment because there were no words to describe how I felt and I never wanted it to end.

Her lips descended on me again, but not on my lips, not on my face. She was tracing parts down my neck, nipping at my chest, fingers, clawing at my arms and pulling me closer like she just sipped nectar from the gods and couldn't get enough. It felt like stars were exploding into existence across my skin. Every part of me was aching and burning but I'd never tasted agony, so sweet and insanity, so right.

I flipped her over, and she pulled me to her, her arms were everywhere, nails scratching, teeth nipping and heartbeats synchronized. I suddenly realized that I was gasping for air and it didn't matter because I wasn't running on oxygen anymore.

"I want this off." I told her. I didn't recognize my voice. Breathless, raspy, touching the bathrobe and she complied, smiling at me and taking her bottom lip between her teeth, her dark eyes were even darker, more seductive, like we were sharing a secret from the entire world. I must have been smiling too because my face was hurting.

She tugged on the waistband of my sweatpants. "I want this off."

Destroyed me.

I pressed her hand to my chest, squeezed. "Don't..." I gulped, closed my eyes, my chest was rising and falling rapidly, it was getting hard to breath. "Don't make me fall."

"Likewise."

_

It was early morning. Barely even seven o'clock, last time I checked my wristwatch, sitting on my bedside table. I was aware of many things.

I was happy. Split open and stuffed with sunshine and rainbows and magic and stitched back up. A huge grin was splitting my face and I held back a laugh at the back of my throat.

I felt weird... At peace. Like I just came home from a tiring day at work and collapsed in my bed, exhausted and tired to my bones. I felt like I had been sedated and had just had a much needed long, long rest. I could get used to this. I could stay like this for an entire decade. I could stay like this for the rest of my life.

She was sleeping beside me, her arm, under her cheek, snoring softly. She looked like a softer, more angelic version of her original dark, sensual self, her hair, all over her face. I had been brushing it out of her face all morning, caressing her cheeks, tracing her eyebrows.

She was lying on her stomach, her leg entangled in mine, under the sheets. I traced a soft line down her back...

She shivered. Her eyes flew open.

"Good morning." I didn't recognize myself. My voice. Light-hearted. Almost chirpy. I couldn't stop smiling.

"Good morning." She mumbled sleepily, covering half her face with a pillow.

I laughed. "You missed the sunrise."

"I'm looking at it."

Fuck.

She rolled unto her back, exhaled softly. "What time is it?" Sat up, promptly. "I have somewhere to go."

My smile melted off my face. My Utopia came crashing down, all around me. The foundations were crumbling, the ceilings, caving in and burying me in a pile of rubble.

"You..." I gulped. "You don't have to go yet."

She turned to her side, looked at me, perfect eyebrows arched, like I just said something stupid and she couldn't believe I could say something that stupid. She held that face for about two seconds, then laughed softly. "You're so cute." Pinched my cheek, rolled away from me, out of the bed and tugged on the bathrobe before padding into the bathroom.

I was left staring helplessly at her, feeling like a million wasps were throwing a party in my stomach.

She came back out, now wearing her outfit from last night.

My mouth felt like it was stuffed full with cotton wool and my tongue would not unknot itself.

She was slipping on her heels and reality was slamming into me and I was crumbling to pieces and helplessly watching her.

She was leaving.

"Can... Can we." I gulped. My lungs were thick blocks of burning ice. "Can we be friends?" It even sounded stupid in my head and stupider out loud. She stopped, looked at me like I was breaking her heart. I hated how desperate I sounded but I still kept talking. "Please, give me your number. This doesn't have to end. I want to know you."

Please. Please. Please. Please.

She rubbed her elbows nervously. "Don't say that. You don't want to know someone like me."

"I want to, though." I didn't want to stand up, scared that any movement from me would frighten her away.

"I can't... you can't... Let's just..." She sighed, exasperated, tripping over her words. "Let's just forget last night ever happened and get on with our lives."

I reeled back, partly in pain, partly in disbelief.

She was standing there, nervously looking at me. "I like you. I really do."

My heart stopped beating.

"But-"

And dropped into my gut.

"But, it's just bad timing, you know? I just can't. I can't deal with a new relationship. Or anything serious. Not now, when you're still hung up over someone else. Not now when I'm still... I'm still healing."

I nodded, swallowing huge lumps wedged in my throat. "Let me drive you home."

"No, that's not necessary." She protested. "I'll get an uber."

I gulped, trying to think. "Can I have your number?"

"No."

She went back to fluffing her hair and reapplying her make up and I was sitting on the bed, wondering what else to do and coming up short.

I sighed, pulling my sweatpants on and walking into the bathroom, trying to think. I gripped the water facet, stared at myself in the mirror. Counted to ten under my breath.

What are you doing? Amir, what are you doing? Why do you feel like this?

When I heard it.

The rooms may be soundproof but the bathrooms echoed and carried sounds through a short distance.

It was a loud, high-pitched, blood curdling scream that made my heart jump into my throat. That voice. I'd recognize that voice anywhere.

Asachi.

I scampered out of the bathroom, my heart racing.

"What's wrong? What's going on?" The girl asked.

"Nothing. Stay here!" I told her, dashing out of the room as I raced down the hallway, rounded the corner.

The entire west wing belonged to Asa and I. It was a large space for only two people but it had always felt cramped and suffocating to me because of her cold, lingering presence.

My heart was pounding in my chest, bile rising up my throat.

Asa Asa Asa Asa. My throat was closing up, my vision getting blurry.

I bursted into her room, chest heaving. Her bed was a mess, she looked like she had been attacked in bed, pillows, blankets, strewn all over the place.

"Hey, are you okay?" I heard Osahon's voice, coming from her bathroom.

How did he get here before me?

"I'm fine." Asa whispered softly, hoarsely.

Oh Asa. Her tired voice actually broke my heart. I closed my eyes, feeling the whiplash. Gripped my chest.

"Look... Uh... I know I'm not Kam... But if you like... Need a shoulder to cry on or anything... I'm here?" Osahon was saying gently, nervously, tripping over his words.

She waited a few seconds. "Yeah. Sure." I heard the smile in her voice and immediately relaxed.

She was in good hands.

I walked back to my room, my heart, beating properly now, relief flooding my veins. But when I stepped into the room, I froze.

She's not here! Something in me was screaming.

I walked into the room, swallowing the heavy lump in my throat and ignoring the ache in my chest, denial, keeping me afloat.

I glanced at the dresser, where she sat to reapply her makeup. I had placed my wallet on it the night before.

She's gone. I whispered the truth to myself. And she took my wallet with her.

History was laughing at me.

I stared at the space in front of me, my breathing, heavy and aching like the oxygen in the room had suddenly depleted. I gripped my chest. Squeezed. Harder. Harder...

And dropped and scattered all over the floor.

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