Chapter 8

There are several different types of regret.

The kind you feel when you see someone wearing the same outfit as you, the kind you feel when you shouldn’t have had that last drink- or made that late night call, the kind you feel when you knew you shouldn’t have cut your hair but did anyway and the kind you feel when you wake up in a strange bed the next morning with a strange man lying next you.

There should be some kind of universal regret-o-meter, where regret gets categorized and assigned a number out of ten, depending on their severity. The outfit thing weights in at 6, whereas the stranger bed scenario comes in at an 8.

But then there’s the other kind. The worst kind. The kind that comes in at a solid, resounding double figure 10. It’s the kind you get after you spill your guts to a total stranger about the most intimate parts of your life. Stuff you don’t want anyone to know. Stuff you don’t want to think about let alone talk about. The kind of stuff that shows people where that chink in your armor is located.

A regret rating of ten was how I was feeling right now when I woke up and saw Riaan sleeping on the couch. It all came flooding back to me in torrents; the thorns, the make-up wiping, the kiss (the slow, meaningful kiss that hadn’t lead to sex) and worst of all, talking to him about my mother. Letting him see me like that. Vulnerable.

Naked.

Without my camouflage.

If I’d been in a stranger’s bed, I might have made my notorious escape. Messaging Clay with the address, slipping out in the dead of the night and speeding off before he had a chance to realize I was gone. Not before I’d done a full forensic sweep of the place though, removing even the stray eyelash that was clinging to the pillow.

But Riaan was in my place- so there was no escaping.  I lay there like a corpse, as if not moving would make it all better somehow, except it didn’t. It made it worse, because the stiller I was, the more I could hear his breathing. Why did he have to breath! It was so, so real.

Of course I blame it on the Champagne. There was no other logical reason that I would have invited this bundu-bashing-bumpkin to stay with me, let alone kiss him and tell him my deepest, darkest secret feelings. I was clearly out of my wits. My endorphins were probably going crazy from the pain of the thorns, perhaps such things were contraindicated with the use of alcohol.

Not that I have a problem with alcohol or anything. Despite what some of the less than flattering gossip magazines have said, and despite my fathers mad ideas.

Charles had had the audacity one evening to suggest I had a drinking problem. I’d never heard anything more amusing in my life. It had been several months ago, I’d come home late to find him waiting in the lounge for me. He never waited up for me. But apparently someone he knew had called him that night, very concerned because they’d seen me drinking and then climbing into my car. The "Good" Samaritan had somehow thought it was a "good" idea to tell my father.

He launched in with some crap about drinking and driving and how dangerous it is. How he was worried about me. But I knew he was probably more worried that I’d land up embarrassing him and putting a dent in his political career.

I’d actually laughed out loud when he’d used the ‘A’ word. I wasn’t an alcoholic. Alcoholics where vagrants with holes in the shoes that slept on park benches with cheap brandy in brown paper bags. Alcoholics where those men with red noses that pissed in pot plants and went to the bottle store in their slippers with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth. I was none of those things. I didn’t smoke. None of my shoes had holes in them. I’d never drink cheap brandy and wear slippers in public and I hadn’t been to a park in years- I hate pigeons.

I did drink. But everyone did. Besides I drank expensive stuff. Champagne, cocktails, wine. I never did shooters, that was just tacky and I never drank alone, that was just sad and pathetic. (Last night was obviously an exception to that rule- but lets face it, there were extenuating circumstances at play)

I was actually offended by the implications.  I was even more offended when he suggested I go to an AA meeting. I’d been to an AA meeting once before, not because I had a drinking problem, but because Clay and I had heard that it was the best place to pick up guys. Apparently they were all sensitive and in touch with their feelings there. But whoever told us that had obviously been smoking crack, because Assholes Anonymous was more like it.

And not one of them had been good looking. There was one guy who had vague potential, but when it was his turn to ‘share’-as they called it- and he started talking about how he had cross addicted to video games and that he’d been up for 72 hours straight playing them without bathing, he lost any appeal he might have had. Another guy had talked about beating up his wife as if it was nothing, and another one had talked about stealing his sons pocket money- he’d been saving for over a year to buy a pair of roller blades- and using it to buy a bottle of Gin. You’ve got to be a real loser if you don’t have enough money to buy a bottle of Gin!

There was no way I belonged there. In the place where grown men shared their feelings and cried like babies because their plant had died and now their sponsor had told them that they weren’t allowed to start dating. And to make matter worse, the woman all glared at me- except the one with the eye patch and the good eye that kept veering to the left. They were probably just jealous, because my clothes clearly hadn’t come from 1980.

Clay and I left during the break, but not before being hugged by several people and told to ‘keep coming back’ and ‘don’t leave before the miracle happens’ and other meaningless slogans that seemed to be tossed around like croutons in a salad.

We went straight to a bar after that- can you blame us. After an experience like that one needs a drink. We sipped Cosmo’s while we tried to imagine what those poor alcoholics lives must be like- and wondered if perhaps we shouldn’t do a fundraiser for them, charity work is always very in.

But when I’d turned the tables on the argument and pointed out that my father seemed frond of his evening Brandy too, it had gotten totally out of control. There’d been screaming, a lot of pacing (he did that) and a lot of huffing (I did that). Then I’d packed a bag, walked out and stayed with Clay for a few weeks to let him calm down and hopefully give him a chance to get the ludicrous notion out of his head.

Fighting and disagreeing with my father had become so commonplace that it was expected. If we did not but heads daily, or come to serious blows once a week, we were both either sick or dead. We never talked. We shouted.

Riaan started waking up and the idea of facing him in full daylight was sickening. He knew more about me than most people did and that frightened the shit out of me. I pulled the duvet all the way up so only my eyes were sticking out in an attempt, I guess, to conceal myself. Not that it was working well.

“Morning,” His voice was sleeping and crackly and for a second of sheer insanity, I thought how sexy he sounded. I flicked my eyes over quickly, and my sense of sight seemed to agree. His hair was messy, a little bit stuck on one side and he had a sleepy looking face that reminded me of a Labrador puppy. INSANITY!

I quickly realized that there was only one thing to do in a situation like this.

“What are you doing here?” I put on a terribly confused sounding voice.

He smiled at me at first, obviously thinking I was joking, but when I asked him again, a bewildered look flickered in his eyes. It pained me to see it. But I knew I had to keep going.

“You…you don’t remember what happened last night.” He asked, confused.

I swallowed hard, “No.”

“You don’t remember falling. The thorns. Talking for most of the night?" The bewildered look gave way to… to, what was that look? Disappointment? Hurt?

I felt sick to my stomach. Lying had always come easily to me. So why was I feeling so guilty about it now?

“Nothing. You remember nothing?” He asked a few more times, growing more and more desperate with each one.

“I told you I don’t remember.” I snapped back at him, ‘Get over it Riaan and while you’re at it, wont you mind getting out too, I’d like to get dressed.” It was so unexpectedly painful saying those words to him. But I had to. It was for my own protection.

He stood there gaping and blinking at me. “I don’t believe you. You must remember something?” He looked deeply hurt and it sounded like he was pleading with me.

I shrugged nonchalantly for added effect, “I vaguely remember playing a stupid board game and drinking terrible coffee.”

“We did much more than that Zara,” His big blue eyes met mine and I wanted to tell him that I remembered it all. But instead I feigned the most dramatic shock I could,

“Oh God! Please don’t tell me that we had sex!? ‘

The hurt in his eyes quickly gave way to anger- this was killing me. I averted my eyes because I couldn’t bare to look at him anymore.

‘I see the old Zara is back in full force!”

“What’s that supposed to mean,’ I snapped back at him- even though I knew exactly what he meant.

“You’re like Jekel and Hyde. Last night you were this funny, nice sweet person that kissed me and today you’re back to that cold, snobby Zara I met on the runway. Which one is the real you?”

“I was drunk last night. That was not me. And I don’t remember kissing you.”

Riaan walked all the way up to the bed. Closer and closer until he was only a foot away, face-to-face, looking directly at me.  Through me.

I felt vulnerable and pulled the duvet closer.

“I disagree. I think that you were the real Zara last night and this, this,” He gestured at me with his hand, “is some kind of character you’re putting on.”

And with that, he turned and walked towards the door. My stomach felt like it rose up into my throat and started obstructing my airway. It felt hard to breath, and even harder to swallow. My eyes started misting up and my lip quivered involuntarily. I bit it to make it stop.

He paused at the door, “I’m sad to see the old Zara go. Work starts in an hour, meet me at the reception and I’ll tell you what you’re doing today,”

He shut the door and was gone.

The room seemed very quiet and big without him.

I sat in silence for a while. The encounter had left me feeling sad and empty. Cavernous. I could almost hear my heart echoing in the emptiness of my chest. I touched my lips as I thought about that kiss. No one had ever kissed me like that before. No one had ever shown such kindness to me either- and now I was snubbing him.

It was all just too much to handle, so I did the only thing I could in a situation like this, I pulled the duvet all the way over my head and decided to sleep it off. But no matter how many times I shifted in the bed or adjusted the pillow I couldn’t get comfortable. The feelings of guilt where eating me alive from the inside out. Twisting in my gut.

All I could think about was that look on his face when I’d said I didn’t remember kissing him. My heart had cracked just a little bit .

It felt cracked now.

And I didn’t like it.

Not one little bit.

But what was the alternative? I’d over -stepped a sacred, self-imposed line with him, a line that I never crossed with anyone.

He knew more about the real me after one day, than anyone else on the planet.

No, I didn’t like this at all.