FEEL

54. Rivener

Rivener ~ a chilling hint of distance that creeps slowly into a relationship

~ The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows ~

~°~

The silence that comes when I step into the apartment is almost eerie. Cameron's doors aren't at all rusty, but I could hear every twist the hinges make as I push it shut. With the hours almost approaching the evening, the sun is still bright, cascading from the windows in the living room down into the hallway at the entrance.

My sneakers tap gently along the wooden tiles as I make my way in lead-footedly, each step creating a monotonous thumping that emenates across the room. The sound is ominous, like every step closer is a step towards hell itself.

The bravery that had come over me while I was talking to Mrs Pierce completely disappeared, replaced with a gripping wave of anxiety that tightens my entire body to the core.

When I make it to the end of the hallway, I find the living room empty. That is, if you don't count Gracie asleep on Cameron's armchair. I almost breathe out a breath of relief at the thought that he might possibly not be home - at the gym or perhaps out with friends. But then I see the sliding door of the balcony ajar and a tinge of cigarette smoke brushes along my nostrils.

Deep breaths, Aquila, I say internally, urging myself forward.

He deserves to know. This is both our mistake, not just mine. He would want to know...wouldn't he? If he got a girl pregnant, he wasn't the kind of man to just push her away, was he?

He isn't. I know he isn't. If any of the moments we've had are true, then he wasn't.

“Never think for a second that you know a man,” I remember mama telling me when I was twelve years old. We had to move from our nice house in the suburbs of Johannesburg to a small two bedroom flat at her home town in Uitenhage because dad had cheated on her, then thrown all of us out. “One moment, he seems willing to give you the world, the next he will snatch everything in yours until you have nothing left.”

I want to to cry, but I pull back the tears. Cameron isn't like that.

I enter the balcony and the whiff of summer breeze momentarily calms me. But then his scent mixes with it, along with the subtle one of the cigarette against his lips, and my body coils again at the awareness of his presence.

“Hey,” I greet him bashfully, staying behind him at the threshold. I refuse to come up next to him.

He turns his body to my direction. I swallow the gasp that almost leaves my lips when I see his condition.

Cameron Pierce never looked a mess at any hour after 8AM, but right now, his hair was a dark, disheveled nest over his head, his blue eyes dulled and a shadow casting beneath his undereyes. He's shirtless, but I know from the grey sweatpants that he was wearing yesterday that he hadn't showered.

He scans me up and down, impassive, but that would mean a storm might be brewing beneath the expression. His eyes stop at my own.

“I called you,” Cameron says without a greeting, “And texted you countless times.”

The tension alone tells me that now isn't the right time to drop any news on him. He's already too upset, too fired with emotions that anything else would overwhelm him.

“I'm sorry,” I tell him earnestly. “I went to Breanna's.”

His molars grind, but his voice is steady. “That doesn't excuse you ignoring my calls. Or leaving unannounced.”