Chapter 5

I slid my heel across his threshold and took a step closer to him.

“Can I come in?” I didn’t wait for a response, instead I walked past him, making sure to press my body up against his as I squeezed past.

“I didn’t say yes,” He said, stumbling over his words slightly.

It was working.

“You didn’t have to say it out loud Riaan. In fact, you don’t have to say another word.” I turned around dramatically and faced him, momentarily stumbling on my heel. I flashed him one of my best bedroom smiles but instead of having that drooling puppy dog look that he should have had, his face looked stern and his features harsh and angry.

“You’re drunk.” He said dryly.

“Drunk is such an ugly word.” I flipped my hair to expose more of my neck.

“I think you should leave,” He held the door open with his outstretched arm. I couldn’t help notice that he had a very impressive set of biceps on him.

“You don’t really want me to leave.” I said upping the ante and sitting down on his bed, moving the mosquito net to one side. But the darn thing fell back into my face and I was forced to push it away again. It was definitely ruining the cool, sexy vibe I was going for, but I remained composed.

Riaan remained unmoved.

Maybe he was the kind of guy that needed a bit of small talk first. I looked around his room. It was bigger than mine and about a hundred times nicer. This was the five star deluxe suit in comparison to my economy class slum. There were a few personal touches here and there.

“How did you get the nice room?” I ran my hand over the duvet. It was softer than mine and not as garish. “So what do I have to do to get upgraded, Mmmmm?” I let the implication of that sentence linger in the air a bit as I smiled at him.

Still, he remained unmoved.

I started to wonder if he wasn’t some cold-blooded reptilian, because nothing was having the slightest effect on him.

“Now. Please go!” His words were so cold and emotionless-I really didn’t like the way they were making me feel.

“You…” Now it was my turn to stutter a little, “You… really want me to leave?”

Riaan remained still and stared out the door with such intensity, it was almost as if he was trying to move me there with the power of his mind.

I crossed my arms involuntarily. I suddenly felt very exposed. Vulnerable. I didn’t like it.

“Now!” The word came out so loud and firmly that it forced me to stand up, I immediately felt the tip of my heel piece the net that was hanging on the floor. I tried to walk forward, but the net bucked against me and I tripped. I fell to my hands and knees and instantly tried to dislodge myself by crawling forward. But the more I tried to break free, the more tangled I got.

This was not going like I’d planned. I grabbed my ankle and tried to pull my heel loose, but it was not budging- so I did the only logical thing, I left it. I pulled my shoe off and stood up as gracefully as I could, trying to salvage any sliver of dignity I might still have left intact. But the whole falling, crawling performance I fear had not rendered me as desirable as I would have hoped. I walked over to the door, hobbling on one heel but pretending to completely ignore it.

“You know, the last guy that acted like this was gay. Are you gay? It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you are.”

Riaan glared at me, “I’m not gay.”

“You don’t find me attractive then?” There was a hint of desperation in my voice which I hated.

“No, it’s not that. You’re very….” He hesitated and I waited for him to say it, but he didn’t, “You’ve been drinking. It would be wrong and inappropriate.”

“I’m hardly that drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You’re also not in a good place at the moment. You’re angry and probably feeling lonely and-“

“What?” A bolt of anger seized me, “What the hell do you know about how I feel, huh?”

He let go of the door and folded his arms, his eyes met mine “I know why you’re here. I know your father sent you here against your will and that you are in some kind of trouble back home---“

“You know nothing about me Riaan. Nothing!”

I was furious now. No one had ever treated me like this- rejected me. Who the hell did he think he was?

Riaan took a slow deep breathe, the kind that indicated he was trying to calm down, “Just leave before this gets ugly and we both say something that we regret.”

“Like what? Huh? What are the things you’re dying to say to me that are so bad that you would regret?” I knew I was goading him, and I knew I shouldn’t’, but I couldn’t help it.

“Drop it Zara.” His calm voice just pissed me off even more.

“Say it! Come on. Why hold back? “

Riaan looked away now, “Just go, you’re making a fool of yourself.”

And that was the straw that broke this camels back. I felt like I couldn’t control it anymore. And by ‘It’ I mean the strange feelings that were bubbling up inside me; rage and embarrassment, feelings of rejection and for some reason sadness was thrown in too for good measure. They sort of combined and mingled into one monster of an emotion that I’m sure is yet to me named.

“Who are you calling a fool? Do you know who I am?” I screeched and flapped my arms in the air, which made me feel a little woozy on my feet. “Do you know how popular I am?” I felt ever so slightly detached from this moment, enough to make me realize that I was slurring, so I clenched my jaw and re gained control of my tongue before speaking again, “Do you know how many guys would love to be in your shoes right now?” I glanced down at his feet, “Even though they’re probably the most disguising, unfashionable things I’ve ever seen….HELLO, it’s the 90’s calling they want their shoes back!” He glared at me with anger filled eyes, which just egged me on, “ You have no idea how lucky you are that I’ve come to you’re room and----“

He cut me off.

His words were poisonous. He spat them out with such hideous disdain that they made me feel filthy. They were like venom entering my veins and causing my body to go stiff. His words caused my heart to beat faster, my mouth to go dry and my breathing to stop momentarily as they tightened their grip around my diaphragm.

It was one of the most hurtful things anyone had ever said to me.

“The way you’re behaving right now, I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last woman alive”

Silence.

It was as if all the crickets had gone still and the night owls had cocked their heads to listen. Our eyes met and a painful moment of quietness flashed between us. I’d only ever experienced one silence like this before. A silence that is so poignant and loaded that it’s almost deafening. It screams with the unsaid and it churns with the most intense of emotions. It is the kind of silence that can incapacitate.

I was sitting at my mother’s bedside at the hospital. I remember holding her hand so tightly that my knuckles were going white and her fingertips were starting to turn purple. Her eyes were closed and she looked so peaceful, as if she was sleeping. My father was there, so where my grandparents and my aunt but no one said a word. All you could hear was the rhythmic beeping growing slower and slower and slower and slower until…..

“Beeeeeeeeep”

There was nothing but the sickening sound of the machine flat inning. The noise seemed to go on forever until one of the doctors turned the machine off. No one said a word. No one cried. No one moved. We all stayed exactly where we were, staring at her face in silence.

I wished the tears hadn’t welled up in my eyes. . I wished that I hadn’t slapped my hand over my mouth and stared at him in horror and pain, and I wish I hadn’t burst out crying right there and then and ran (hobbling) from the room into the darkness of the night. I scolded myself for the disguisting weakness I'd just shown.

The pain of his blatant rejection caused the tears to start streaming down my face turning the black mascara and eye shadow into thick sludge. Like black oil it coated my face and stung my eyes. I rubbed them, but it only made it worse. I could barely see now as I hobbled across the sand in the direction of my room. But suddenly I was plunged into total darkness. The lights had gone out and I was surrounded by the thickest inkiest blackness I’d ever experienced. It was so sudden and disorientating that I stumbled and fell for the second time that night; my hands and knees coming into grazing contact with the hard ground below.

When I stood up again I was even more disoriented. My head was heavy and I felt dizzy from the alcohol and the fast shallow breathing that I was doing.

I heard a noise behind me and jumped. A twig snapped. And then another.  And another. Something was out there in the darkness and it was coming closer. I started walking backwards away from the sounds, but no matter how I squinted and strained my eyes to see, I still couldn’t make out a thing. I heard another sound, it was closer this time and I turned and ran.

I had no idea in which direction I was running and I almost lost my footing twice. But I continued full steam ahead until I felt the ground beneath me disappear and my body fall.

It felt like I fell forever before finally coming into contact with the ground again. My shoulder connected first and I immediately rolled. I must have rolled three times before coming to a stop in what felt like a wall of nails. In an instant, I felt the tips of a million little needles pierce my back and legs. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced and I could feel the warm blood escaping the wounds. I tried to move but the pain stopped me dead in my tracks.

I tried to scream. But a lump in my throat prevented me from doing so. It was useless.

I lay there in the dirt and the thorns and the stones. All I could hear was the frantic beating of my heart and the inconsistent sounds of my breathing. A feeling of empty hopelessness washed over me.

I felt so alone.

So lonely.

No one wanted me. Not my father, not Riaan. The tiny dog begging again... begging for a man, someone fucking anyone, to give me what I needed-- I was so pathetic.

I surrendered to the overwhelming feelings of self loathing and hopelessness. I was exhausted. Not from the day I’d just had, but from my life. It was a constant whirlwind of parties and events and fighting with my father.  Wanting, needing, never getting and running.

Running away.

Running nowhere.

Running, but always staying in the same place.

Despite the pain of a hundred scalpels in my back, the throbbing in my ankle, the burning of my hands and knees and the fierce bite of the bitter cold, I felt a strange sense of relief wash over me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but it was a kind of resignation. Giving up and letting go.

I closed my eyes and succumbed to the feelings.  Maybe I would just die here.

Then I could finally stop running.

I could finally stop needing...