Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“Yup … we finished a whole bottle of wine, so … yeah.”
I nodded, keeping my hand on her thigh as I stepped on the gas, eyes back on the road as the car sped under a small bridge, and I didn’t take care passing other cars, pressing my foot deeper on the gas as the car accelerated.
“Uh, Elio…” Zahra’s voice was shaky as she inched back in her seat. “When I said fast, I didn’t mean—”
The car went a bit off course, and a sharp squeal left her mouth as I took my hand from her thigh and tried to steady the vehicle again; we emerged from under the bridge, passing cars that were veering away from us like we were about to cause a fatal accident.
“I think I’m gonna puke,” she squeaked out.
“Remember, the car is a rental.”
“You’re a terrible driver, and your license should be revoked.”
“Hm. I suppose I would be worried about it being revoked if I had one.”
She paused, then, “Oh God.”
In under twenty minutes, we arrived back at the compound. I flexed my shoulders, mentally preparing myself to ask her if she would be willing to give me a shoulder massage. I still felt body pains due to the fall earlier today.
Stepping into the house with her, I didn’t consider the darkness around the space too concerning.
It was all the different smells of perfumes, drinks, and food—the lights suddenly came on, and different voices yelled “SURPRISE!” before music blasted from speakers, and my eyes took in the people in my home.
All of Street, Casmiro, a few of my associates that lived not too far from the compound, strangers that I was supposed to know—and the lights—God, the lights were too bright, and I didn’t even register half of what was going on—people were walking up to me wishing me a happy birthday, voices were everywhere, strange, disturbing music—I think I was sweating, and my pulse was—
“Happy birthday, boss,” Casmiro said with a shoulder pat. “I feel bad that I always thought it was December third, and I always wished you well on that day, and you never once corrected me—but I don’t blame you; I should have known.”
His voice was light and a little slow, and something told me the drink in his grip wasn’t the first one he was having of the night. He raised a glass to Zahra, then walked away, allowing more people to approach me.
Everything happened in a blur, and I was forced to talk to different people all night long … drinks were passed around, people were invading spaces they should not invade.
I received so many gifts from everyone, including soldiers who dropped by for only a second.
Words from here and there told me Street had planned the whole thing.
Zahra had been away from me most of the time, and Elia was the one who kept me company even if I supplied one-word answers because my entire being was too tense to deliver more than that.
Elia had told me he just realized why I’d stayed extra hours with him on this particular day, and he told me I should have told him … To be honest, I could not comprehend the answer I gave him then.
I was having an out-of-body experience—emotions flickering between angry, sad, happy, bad, and angry and sad and happy and bad.
I was forced to eat the cake, even if it tasted good, and I think I told them so; I still wasn’t feeling my mind working properly.
It took almost three hours into the night before I decided I wanted to head to bed. People were already leaving, and just a few close people remained.
Zahra followed me. We showered together; I kissed her, lifted her, and pressed her back against the shower wall. I was inside her, lost in her; my mind was my own again; she was real, and this was real, and everything that had happened today was real.
Real, Elio, real.
Real shouldn’t feel like a time-lapse.
I was on the bed again, and she was in my shirt as she held a small box in her hand, a shy smile on her lips as she joined me under the covers, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Your present,” she said, and I lifted myself to my uninjured elbow, collecting the box from her and hoping the smile I gave reached my eyes.
“The whole party wasn’t your present?”
She chuckled. “That was mostly Street’s idea, and getting Casmiro and Angelo to authorize it was a pain. But they did because I kinda bribed them that it might put them in your good graces again.”
“Hm,” I said, opening the box to see a silver necklace. Almost the same pattern as hers, but the silver was darker, and the chain wasn’t as thin as the one I gave her; it was a little thicker. The pendant, though, was what made me stop.
“Do you like it? It took about two weeks, but it was worth it.”
It was the same shape as the tattoo on her shoulder, the heart and E shape, with the little M by the side.
I looked up at her. “This must have—this must have cost a lot.”
“No, not really … I had some friends make it, and it was discounted.”
I nodded. “It’s beautiful, Zahra, thank you.”
She smiled, taking the jewelry and pulling it out. The chain around it was long enough for the pendant to reach the midpoint of my chest. She hooked it around my neck and snuggled closer, quietly asking, “Are you happy?”
I pulled her close to me. “Hm. Yes, I am. Thank you for everything.”
“Shut up, don’t thank me, it’s kind of my girlfriendly duties.”
After that, we whispered between each other, her going off about how future birthdays would go, and then we slowly went off course, having an out-of-context discussion about how time flies and how far we will be in a matter of years.
I honestly didn’t know how the conversation morphed to discussing a possible future together or how we looked at possible reasons for why we would separate if we were ever to separate.
It was primarily meaningless bickering that took us hours into the night until she fell asleep, and my eyes remained wide open.
I hated it. I was so tired and worn out that I just needed to sleep it all off—that void, the out-of-body feeling that still plagued me, and even as I detached myself from Zahra, walked into the bathroom, and fished for my sleeping pills, it felt like someone else was controlling my body.
I popped two pills in my mouth, even though it was prescribed to take only one. But one was never enough to knock me out in a few minutes; it would have taken time before it started working—two did the trick. I swallowed them dry, closed the pill case, and locked the mirrored cabinet.
I returned to the bathroom door and stopped right before I opened it.
There was a silence.
There was a deafening silence inside my head, telling me my thoughts had indeed vacated. In fact, I stopped and tried to listen to myself, but nothing was forthcoming.
I was functioning solely on action and not thought.
Even as I stepped back from the door, once, twice, like my being was in reverse, going back to where I once stood over the mirror cabinet, watching my reflection and seeing a stranger staring right back at me …
I tried—I really tried to remember who that person was, or what I was, or what my name was, or how I came to be here, what I had done seconds before I came back here to stare at a reflection that didn’t reflect anything back to me.
Robotically, I raised my hand, opened the cabinet, picked up the pill case, and opened the lid before tipping my head back and throwing every pill into my mouth.