I just feel happy when I wake up in the morning. I am practically humming as I get dressed for school. I even decide against my usual baggy unattractive clothing and fake eye glasses. I pick a cute simple magnolia summer dress and brown strappy sandals. I lose the pony tail and comb my hair loss on my shoulders.
When I am done I prance into the dining room. Father is having his breakfast as usual and reading his paper as always. When I enter the room he set the paper down and regards me with a strange expression on his face.
‘Good morning father!’
‘Heather.’ Pause, uh-oh, ‘sit.’
I inwardly groan as I sit on a chair facing him. Of course if you live in a house with eight people there is no way you can maintain one mood.
‘I need to talk to you about something.’
Great, what is he going to talk about now? Judging by his expression—my mood is about to take flight.
‘It’s about Saturday—I am sure you must be very nervous.’
Nervous is the understatement of the year.
‘I just feel like it’s a bit too soon—like it’s being hurried too much.’
‘Charles wants you home and that’s a good thing.’ Father says with a condensed smile. That means he is about to drop a bomb on me. This is too familiar—hat was the smile he had on when he showed up at the police station to take me home. Like he just solved some big problem—or better yet like he was the hero in the movie Armageddon
‘the reason I chose to talk to you to say is because I wanted to talk to you- for you to prepare psychologically—err—I’ve really spoken to Charles about this,’
What could it be? I wonder- pretty much the obvious when we should have children, where we would live, and our role in the family welfare.
Wild mind’s face is scrunched nervously, eyes bulged out—it’s not that simple to guess what father has going on inside his head
‘After your wedding- Charles will have to live in his home town to run the family business—and you of course will have to go with him.’
I blink, still trying to get the unspoken meaning in the midst of the banter.
‘I already spoke to Charles about it and I thought I should tell you ahead of time that when you leave on Saturday you won’t be coming back here.’
I blink again, ‘I am graduating in nine months,’ I say slowly; my scalp prickles as I feel like I’m living on the tiny seconds of normalcy left before my whole world crumbles around me, ‘you want me to drop out?’
‘You won’t need this anyway—it’s just a degree—your new role now is to be a wife and with time a mother. And you will have a home to run-
Wait, rewind and pause right there—wait did I say that out loud to my father?—no, I didn’t, then maybe the expression on my face made him pause like that
Why is he looking at me as if I am holding a knife to my own throat? I recognize that look—he looked at me like that the first days I was dealing with my break down two years ago.
‘It’s only been three months Heather.’ His voice is soft and calm, out of character from my experience, ‘you don’t have to finish—a certificate is not the future, it’s just a road to the future.’
Now he is a philosopher on me. His mouth is moving and I can’t hear him because I am blanking out again. It’s not as if I had been excited about this final chance to finish my degree—I just hate being tossed about like a grass hopper with no stability.
Who am I kidding?—no—I am freaking out because the most dreaded picture is now before me. I picture myself, fat and round and barefoot in some giant house with a dozen kids crawling at my feet. I picture myself setting the dining table for Charles and h is sitting with an enormous newspaper open—I more like a servant than a lover. I’d be his pet. Totally depended on him for everything. My life would be all about him.
I stare at father as the images in my head fade away slowly like dark clouds clearing away after a massive storm.
‘no.’ I say breathlessly, ‘I can’t do that – I won’t do it.’
Yes I’d rather be the old lonely spinster living in a house full of cats than Charles’ housewife and child bearer.
‘Heather’ father is still calm, ‘it’s not like you will be doing something of low importance.’ He sighs, great, he’s about to play the guilt game on me, ‘I didn’t want to have to tell you this but—you marrying Charles will save our family.’
I blink at him—save our family from what? It’s not as if we had a good name to maintain in a foreign land. Did we?
‘The business has been struggling—lots of debts.’ He pauses--, ‘we are at the point of selling or liquidation—you are a business student you know what those terms mean.’
I nod slowly
‘Our family all live off of the business and we just couldn’t give up on it—a lot of people will starve if we do. So we took a loan and invested but that didn’t come out will either.’
That explains father and uncle’s row about accounts.
‘The loan sharks want their money back and we don’t have that kind of money yet at the moment but we managed to reach a sound agreement with them.’
‘w-what agreement?’
‘Charles’ family always wanted him to get a wife and he was refusing so if was putting him in a tight spot with his family—so this marriage will benefit both of us. Charles gets a wife and we are free from the wrath of loan sharks.’
Wild mind and’s jaws drop open first before I spring out of my seat, hysterical. Not almost but literary
‘You are selling me?’ I am shaking. ‘You’re selling me to loan sharks?’
‘Heather!’ he says in stern tone—no-not today buddy
I am furious, hurt and terrified.
‘no.’ I state firmly, ‘you’d rather disown me.’
‘Heather, sit down I am not done talking.’
‘No you are so done talking dad!’
‘You can’t reverse this.’
I can’t reverse it? I’ve heard those words before—after he’d already signed the papers with Alex’s twisted lawyers—hell I even believe that all lawyers are twisted somehow. Those devil’s advocates
‘Take it back.’
He stands up, ‘heather, go out and think well about this—we’ll talk in the evening,’ with that he strides out of the room. Not even willing to stay and hear the fullness of my wrath.
I don’t think as father has asked—I just act. I grab my tote bag, empty the books on the table and I rush to my room. I grab a couple of clothes and my bathroom bag and some shoes. My tote bag is so large everything fits perfectly.
When I arrive at school, the first thing I see are the police cars and the TV crew. Crap—but no I shouldn’t panic—maybe father may send the police but the TV crew?
A crowd is in the parking lot, where the centre of attention is. For a brief moment I forget all my trouble as I approach the crowd.
The scene before me is not very surprising—not that it’s not but I have the shocking news of the year right now so this is nothing to me.
Collins and his friend are handcuffed and police officers are leading them to the police car. Their heads bowed as the paparazzi cameras mercilessly flashes them. Their faces are aghast and some expression I once saw on myself in the mirror once when the detective explained to me that I was a major suspect.
‘He what?’ a guy asked someone somewhere in the crowd
‘Drugs—they are selling drugs,’ one guy explains
I knew he had to be drunk or high the day he’d attacked me in the woods when he kept laughing like the evil witch doctor in scary Nigerian movies.
And I will dwell on this later.
I move away from the crowd and I walk briskly towards the school building. My mind is far away—miles away, I don’t even remember entering the building and finding an empty class to sit in.
I don’t know how long I sit in the unused classroom but by the time I’m able to move and to realize that I have nowhere to go its past midday I think and I know most classes are over by now or whatever chaos that the day began with.
In times like these—one need friends—but I don’t have friends, I don’t deserve friends, befriending me will be like Jonah entering your ship while he is running from God only to bring doom on the crew. I could hear my friends scream as the memory flashes in my head, I could smell the smoke and hear the raucous laughter of the demons in human form.
I could hear the ripple of the river, I could see Stephan floating peacefully on the shore as if he had no care at all in the world. He had been his family’s only son. His parents had daughters and he was the miracle child—his family still blames me for his death. In fact everyone believed I was the cause—even I believed it. How could I be human?
I am an assert, father stopped seeing my human form—his daughter was long gone, I am her clone and father is doing what anyone can do with a clone
Clones are not humans—they are asserts. He is doing what should be done with asserts—invest with them. I can’t be a liability—at least I can bring money home
I reach inside my bag and fish out my phone. 36 missed call some from father, then Charles, then Taylor.
I dial Taylor, I know I won’t be hearing bad news from him
‘Heather, I’ve been trying to call you—why aren’t you at school?’
‘Hello to you too Taylor!’
A sigh, ‘did you come to school?’
‘no.’ my voice is calm and tired—but I can’t let him see me like this again—and I have a weird habit of pouring my guts to him and this is something I don’t want to drag anyone into. ‘Can’t I ditch school just this one time?’
‘No, you can’t!’
‘students learn from their teachers—and I happen to have a close friend who believes that showing up where you are supposed to be every day is not the way of the twenty first century.’
‘Lose such a friend,’ I can hear the smile in his voice, ‘are you at home?’
‘no.’ I answer automatically, ‘I mean not exactly’
‘Where are you? I need to talk to you!’
‘I’ll be at school tomorrow, right now I’m pretty busy.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ I sigh, ‘why did you want to talk to me?’
‘No reason—are you really that busy?’
‘Yes very busy.’
I answer with affirmation
‘what are you doing?’ planning the next blast off to mars?’
‘It’s not a bad plan.’
‘How long? Aren’t you going back home? The whole school is empty already they will lock you in and you will have to do a B&E to leave this place.’
I roll my eyes, ‘not everyone treads the same way as everyone else and point of correction—you only do break and entry when you are entering.’ I [pause, wait a minute what?
‘What—what do you mean?’ I freeze—crap, he knows that I am here in the school—I shouldn’t have called him.
I stand, wincing because I’ve been sitting for too long and my body is rigid and sore. I stretch myself before I turn and I jump, startled, Taylor is by the doorway leaning on the doorframe. He taps his phone before he slips it into his pockets
I groan inwardly, as of today I officially hate Tuesdays. He moves into the classroom, his eyes stay on me—I feel like crawling into a hole or for the earth to swallow me—my heart tapping violently as I watch his eyes move slowly from my head to my toes then back up again to lock with mine.
He steps closer to me, and I only stare at him when I should run—I mean if a person is looking at you like that—you are supposed to run right? Yes that’s the pattern—why can’t I move?
‘Taylor.’ My voice is shaky and he stops moving towards me—wild audibly breathes her sigh of relief.
‘Sorry—you are so beautiful.’ Taylor speaks like he is not himself for a moment, ‘I mean—you have always been beautiful but
I blink—oh – right, I forgot that I woke up this morning with an ‘I’m walking on sunshine’ beat in my head and dressed up like this. I turn away from him and sigh.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ I don’t look at him. I’m still trying to put on a brave face—the shock of father selling me still unfolding itself and I can’t mask it well yet
‘So you saw Collins?’
I look at him, he’s trying to figure out—‘yes, he’s worse than I thought,’ birds of the same feathers, I remind myself, ‘at least he won’t hurt anyone anymore.’
He nods absently, I flash him a small smile—no matter how disheveled my mind is I still can’t get over how beautiful Taylor is.
Wait a minute...
‘How did you know that I was here?’
A grin appears on his face, ‘I tracked your phone—during the call—technology.’
Ugh, I know I shouldn’t have called him.
‘I’m glad you called—you seem like you are planning to camp in here.’
My eyes automatically fall on my tote bag on the floor. So does his—no overreacting, -- I shouldn’t give him a hint. I pick up my bag and wince—the thing is so heavy, how did I carry it all along? What the hell did I pack in here when I was in my state of oblivion?
Taylor, of course, comes to take the overloaded tote bag from me.
‘So you’d really decided to come to school today after all.’ his eyes roam all over my face—forget it Taylor I am not telling you this one.
‘Yes—then I just felt tired of education.’
‘We’ll have to ratify that kind of situation miss heather—but now—I’ll get you home,’
‘No!’ I snap. ‘I’ll take the taxi.’
‘Are you ever going to willingly let me give you a ride one day? Besides aren’t we better acquainted now?’
I roll my eyes, ‘I don’t want you showing up at my house, it will just cause me problems.’
‘Your fiancé is the jealous possessive type?’
I groan, ‘if only it were that normal!’ I mumble to myself—wild nods in agreement
‘Fine then let me get you to the bus stop.’
Then he will just ,make sure I take the right one and I don’t think I am in the right mind to tell the taxi driver a different location—most importantly I am still trying to figure out where I am going to go.
‘no—I am not going home right now—I am going somewhere—just give me my bag,’ I reach for my bag which of course he doesn’t give me, ‘please Taylor.’
His expression hardens, I stare back at him
‘What?’
‘Besides the news about Collins—what else happened?’
I sigh, ‘nothing much—my life always have one or two things for me to freak out about because I am screwed up—I don’t need to share every gory life story with you.’
His hard expression softens a little then he begins to remove my bag from his shoulder—finally I can have my bag and start from there—but instead of handing it to me he shifts it into his arms and unzips it. I gasp in horror as he brings out a pair of jeans before going through the other contents inside.
‘What are you doing?’ dump question, ‘why are you doing it?’
‘You are not running away are you?’
I scoff, ‘I don’t know anything about running away,’
‘That’s what I am concerned about.’ He puts my jeans back into the bag and zips it up before carrying in back on his shoulders, ‘let’s go.’ He strides from the classroom.
I pause for a moment before I give up trying to argue and I follow him in silence down the corridors till we are outside. It’s almost dark and most cars are gone from the parking lot.
I can’t believe I sat all day in that abandoned classroom. Oh well, it shouldn’t be surprising, I am screwed up anyway.
As he puts my bag on the back seat, I walk to the passage side and I easily let myself inside. I sigh slowly as I sink into the seat and that lovely Taylor alluring smell engulfs me.
I inhale deeply and close my eyes as I rest my head against the car seat. I am so tired.
He starts the car—I am not worried about where he is taking me—in fact I don’t care—I’ve got nothing to lose. My spirit is crushed and dead even God can’t reach it, my soul is ruined and worn—I don’t feel like I have any future—all I have is this body which is currently engulfed in some form of dark feelings I can’t begin to comprehend.
The old adage—when you have you have nothing to lose—is making more sense to me now.
‘We are here!’
My eyes snap open—I must have blanked out again because this feels like the car didn’t move at all. I get out of the car—he even opened the gate and parked into his garage while I was in oblivion
The bull dog barks as I walk out from the garage—I don’t mind it, it could eat me if it wants and end my miserable existence.
I stop in front of the door—I just want to sleep I am so tired—hopefully I sleep a little longer before I wake up to face the chaos of my life.
I feel Taylor’s hand on my back as he unlocks the door. Inside is warm and the same as before. I guess it’s the only thing that hasn’t changed drastically for me in the past weeks. And it’s not even my house. But I have seen this place a thousand times in my memory and fantasies it could never fell new and unfamiliar.
I smile at this. Taylor turns to me and a small questionable smile appears on his face. I shrug in response—the rain of my thoughts are not comprehensive even to me sometimes.
I stumble forward to throw myself on the couch as he closes the door. I feel like making myself at home since I seem to dread mine. Besides this is not the time to worry about people’s opinions—my life is in danger.
He comes to crouch at the foot of the couch, his warm soft hands holding me to sit in an upright position. I focus on his eyes—the dark chocolate brown from them is something I can’t and will never get over. In fact, it’s exciting to me—like star gazing.
‘Heather.’ He says with a sigh. He is worried—I only shake my head with a flat smile on my face and unshed tears in my eyes. Taylor does that. He brings out of me this weak person which has to lean on him for support. I don’t want to lean on anyone or to feel like I can even rely on anyone. But with Taylor I have failed miserably. I have even told him things that therapists could not bring out of me and detective could not even scare out of me. Now that is something
The way I feel about Taylor is scary—I know that if he ever turns his back on me I will fall with a sickening crash and never recover. That kind of feeling is dangerous
Believe me, I know!
‘Please tell me what happened?’
I still can’t form a reasonable reaction to the fact that father sold me. Of course I knew that he is traditional but I had no idea that he is also barbaric.
I shake my head again, ‘it’s nothing really—I am just overwhelmed about Charles.’
‘You already were overwhelmed about Charles.’
I manage a small smile, ‘why do you want to hear my problems?’
‘Because I care about you!’ he respond without hesitating.
I inhale deeply—I don’t want to break down. I am barely holding it together. And isn’t it a little too late to try and deny that I feel so strongly for him and I can’t even undo it. I can’t fight it anymore. It’s pointless.
And right now I don’t want to think of my problems, the fact that father is letting me go to a family of loan sharks says a lot of things I don’t even want to comprehend. And here I had thought he was trying to put my life back together. Why was he doing all these things anyway?
I reach out and touch Taylor’s face. He closes his eyes and I feel satisfied—I have always wanted to do this. A smile of wonderment tags at the corners of my mouth as my fingers move from his slightly rough cheek because of a fresh stubble to his curly afro hair. He is so beautiful.
His long lashes fall on his cheeks as a small smile curls on his lips. This could become my favorite past time. His hand closes over mine still holding his cheek. He inhales deeply and with a growing smile he says
‘I love you.’ He whispers
That shatters my entire reverie and twists something inside my chest. Love—is that how I felt? Should I say it back? Am I ready to say those words to him? I do feel something for him but is it love?
His eyes open and lock with mine. He looks so sure and sincere about his love confession. The words are bubbling on my lips and I know that is the real truth. But I am afraid to say it. It will only solidify what I feel and I don’t want to have to think about serious things like what would I do if I ever lose him. Because I have lost those I loved once and what if—
My eyes land on his lips, suddenly overcome by the urge to kiss him. I don’t have to think twice, I lurch for him and he catches me in surprise as he falls on his back on the carpet floor and I am on top of him. I bring my mouth to his and he smiles against my lips before he starts kissing me hungrily as if the world depended on it. I bring my fingers into his hair again. It looks wild but it’s so soft. His hands travel down the length of my back, he sits up and draws me closer to him and I straddle him. I gasp when his hand twists my hair roughly and it’s surprisingly exhilarating. He leaves my mouth and his mouth is on my neck.
I giggle when I think about how I once imagined this. My imagination did no justice to the way I feel when his warm breath tickles the skin on my neck. I tilt my head to give him more access and he plants a lingering hot kiss there. His warm hands rest at the small of my back and I press myself closer to him.
He shifts and before I know it I am below him and my arms are pinned above my head. I am completely at his mercy and I don’t mind.
I open my eyes and I meet dark eyes. No they are really dark.
‘Heather!’
‘What are you doing?’
‘We can’t do this!’
‘What’s wrong?’
He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, ‘everything about this is wrong—I love you but I won’t take advantage of you.’
‘This is not taking advantage. Let go of me.’ I try to move.
‘Only if you promise to not attack me like that again, my control is hanging by the thread right now.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t.’
‘Heather-
‘I am different from all the other women?’
His lips part in surprise and I am also surprised that I even said that. But I refuse to be embarrassed after such a brazen act. Yes, this is my show why is he overtaking the whole thing?
‘you think I don’t want you?’ he looks at me in disbelief, then chuckles, ‘Heather the first days I met you I had only one thing in mind—I was going to pursue you until I get it. When you came to my house that morning I was going to get it, then I realised that I can’t walk away from you afterwards. I realised that I loved you.’
‘Wait.’ I shift and he lets my arms go and gets off me. We both sit on the floor facing each other, ‘are you trying to tell me that you found me attractive that way?’
I mean seriously—maybe he is the loon or he has a weird taste in women. I looked like a chaos the day we first met.
‘Heather you are a beautiful woman, nothing you can ever do will hide that beauty. And I have good taste.’
I cringe a little when he says good taste
‘No- no that’s not what I mean—Heather I am not proud of my past.’
‘Your past.’
Now I am getting shocked, is he referring to what he just confessed that he is a royal heart breaker as his past now? And it has something to do with me? Do I even care about it? Surprisingly the fact that Taylor just told me that he sleeps around with women and toss them away doesn’t bother me at all. I am obsessed.
‘I don’t care about that.’ I say, surprising him, ‘or the afterwards.’ I move towards him and he shifts away.
‘You are going to throw yourself at me, just like that—without any second thoughts,’
‘I am not throwing myself at you.’ I feel heat on my face, whatever had made me to do all this is fading and I can feel embarrassment creeping up my spine. What the hell is wrong with me? Yes I am mad about what father did and maybe I wanted to rebel as a way to relieve the stress but this?
He sighs, ‘why won’t you tell me what happened? It must be something pretty bad to make you think of doing this.’
I shake my head, ‘I don’t want to marry Charles.’ That’s true enough.
‘So you want to sleep with me first before you go to him?’
I gasp, ‘no I am not going to him.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, that’s why I am running away.’
‘Aha!—I knew that you were running away—what were you going to do if I hadn’t found you.’
‘I was figuring it out.’ I bristle, ‘well maybe--
He nods, ‘why did you call me?’
‘because you left fifteen missed calls in my phone and five messages, if I didn’t call you my phone would have broken and since I’m on the run I don’t have money to buy another one.’
Why is he acting as if I planned all this? In fact I hadn’t planned anything at all, if he hadn’t come to find me I would have eventually went back home it’s not as if I have any place to run to anyway.
He stares at me thoughtfully and I stare back adamantly. But my right senses are slowly coming back to me still I refuse to feel embarrassed by my actions. Like should it be outrageous (because it is and I still can’t believe it) that I am openly trying to seduce my tutor. Oh for heaven’s sake the man is far from being a teacher, I can only imagine what landed him in the position.
So maybe I can blame father for shocking the hell out of my wits this morning that I packed my sensible part and acted this way. How else would any normal human being (noting that I am not normal) take the news that you are being used as ransom for loan sharks? As assert. Like I am so insignificant to his existence.
Taylor gives up trying to hard stare the explanation he wants out of me and tilts his head to one side with a gentle smile
‘Let’s eat,’ he gets up and walks to the kitchen. I know I may have upset him by refusing to tell him but it really doesn’t matter. I have already given him the picture of my life drama and he should guess that this is just another episode.
I slowly rise to my feet and straighten my dress. Remembering again that I had dressed up this morning. I keep forgetting that. I run my fingers into my hair to straighten it and I walk into the kitchen.
Taylor is taking out precooked frozen and packaged foods and placing them in the microwave. I rest my elbow on the counter and I rest my cheek into my open palm, tilting my head a little as I follow his movements.
I wonder what is happening at home right now. Judith will not be covering up for me because of course she doesn’t know and I can imagine that they have already called her by now. How will Charles react to the news that I ran away? Urgh, I can’t imagine him ever doing anything dramatic. The man is so collected as if he is bored with life.
Maybe he really is rich. That doesn’t matter to me either. I mean, Father craves being rich so much he acts like the devil himself with a pointed tail and fork and is far from being a millionaire. He should just give up the search and start writing a book or something about how unreachable wealth can be.
I snap out of my thoughts when Taylor places a plate of hot food in front of me. He sits in the opposite chair and I watch him as he eats. He doesn’t look at me as he chews slowly and thoughtfully. Gosh the man even looks attractive when eating.
I shake my head and pick up my fork and start to poke at my food, my mind miles away.
An eternity later I give up trying to eat and I push my plate away. I blink at the intensity of Taylor’s gaze and he looks away before I say anything while taking my uneaten plate at the same time. I was so lost in my thoughts I missed that look. Okay I’m crazy now. It’s official. Maybe I need some sleep and my mind will be clear in the morning. I feel so tired right now in all dimensions so I can’t account for my words, thoughts or actions.