Find me

18.

I woke up in a rich bed.

This particular night, I had slept comfortable after a long, long time. The bed in my apartment was hard wood compared to this. I didn't get out of bed for a while partly due to the dreamy comfort and partly due to my body feeling a bit weaker. But, I was okay, just tired.

It was odd for someone like me to be in this situation. This feeling was running in the back of my mind all the while but I kept pushing it further back so it wouldn't make me jump to conclusions. I checked the time on the wall clock and it said 8:04 a.m. I just covered me snugly in the duvet and closed my eyes. The next time I woke up to a familiar voice calling my name. 

"Wake up." said Neymar. His hand was on my shoulder and for a second, I got a mini attack because my defenseless mind was yet not over what he had done. I was more than contradicting my brain about my choices recently. 

"Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." He said.

"What time is it?" I asked, shrugging off the terrifying feeling that had suddenly engulfed me.

"Its a quarter to nine." He answered, I noticed he was only wearing his Nike shorts. Meanwhile, he walked across to the huge window and did something that made the curtains part. A huge block of sunlight rushed in and it was too much for my eyes. "Jeez." I shrieked whilst covering my face with the duvet. I heard his footsteps coming closer along with his giggles.

"Comeon, get out of bed. There's breakfast downstairs, almost ready." He explained. For a second, I felt like I was back home. My mother always used to come wake me up by parting the curtains and summon me for breakfast. I took a fraction of a moment to remember how it used to feel. Here, breakfast was a struggle. Either I just bought it from a cheap place or ate leftovers. Sometimes, I even omitted that meal from the day.

"Mira?" 

I flinched at his voice. But it brought me back from thoughts. "What?"

"I asked if you're okay." he was apparently sitting at the edge of the bed now, looking at me as if I was a crazy person.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Yesterday, you seemed pretty sick."

"Oh. Right.... I feel fine today, thanks." I uttered.

***

"Aren't you cold?"I asked while sitting down on one of the chairs.

"No."

"Are you planning on putting on a t-shirt?" 

He giggled again. "Why? Am I making you uncomfortable?"He mocked.

"Your tattoos are distracting me." I snapped

"You don't like them?"

"I think it'd be a good time to stop inking yourself up." 

"Fine. I'll cover them up." He got up and came back with his top on.

I had just started spooning down the porridge that his cook, Marcela had prepared for us. Down to the third or fourth bite, I started getting shadows of nausea in my stomach. "Is something wrong?" She asked me while stirring something in a pan. She could see me as she was directly across from me.

Neymar looked up at me first and then explained to her my situation yesterday.

"It must be the milk." I told her. She took away my bowl and instead gave me a fruit salad to eat with a passionfruit smoothie drizzled over it. It was quite fresh and citric and didn't cause me any trouble. It rather helped my nausea and I couldn't have been more thankful to her. Once we were done, Neymar finally put on the face of seriousness and dragged me to some other unfamiliar room in the house. It was yet again seating space, only dimmer in lighting and equipped with a fireplace.

"Does it ever get too cold here in Barcelona that you need fire?" I asked.

"Not really. It just came with the place." he explained.

"Listen, we haven't been able to really talk about what I had intended to do yesterday, since you got sick-"

"Neymar, I don't know if I want to-"

"Please, I can't keep fighting and making up with you."

"Do you even hear yourself? I'm not even sure if we qualify for friends yet and yet here I am in your house, living in it as if I was your wife or something. I don't understand why you're trying to shove me into your life." I may have sounded a bit ruder than I had intended.

"I'm not forcing anything on you, Mira. All I want is to make up for-"

"Yeah, I get it and it's fine. I'm over it. I've forgiven already. Give me some space."

"I already gave you enough space. What more do you want? And I don't want you running off to Marc again."

"Why? Are you jealous that I, a nobody, is giving more attention to Marc than you?"

"Why do you keep treating me like I'm some rich, stuck-up f*ckboy who doesn't give a sh*t about anybody?"

"That's exactly what you proved to me if you remember."

He didn't say anything and gave me an empty look for a moment. "No matter what I do, you're not going to let it go." his voice lowered down. "All I want to show you is that I'm not that person you saw."

"And I see it-"

"No, you don't." his voice started faltering. "If I could go back and change what happened, I would. But I can't..... F*ck, I don't even remember most of it. I don't know exactly how bad I hurt you. And that takes away my sleep every night." His look was burning straight through my eyes as he continued. "I can't explain it to you in any other words but I just wasn't myself. I don't know who I was, who I am. I just get so lost sometimes, I just want to trade away my life. And then I do stupid things...with consequences. Huge consequences... And I don't know what to do about them Mira? I certai-"

"Neymar." I had to stop him. His eyes were getting glossier by the second and I knew he wasn't just sad for what he did to me. But for other things as well. Other consequences that I had no clue about. For the first time, I felt genuinely sorry for him. "Its okay." I told him. His eyes told me that he really wasn't.

"No, its no-" before he could finish, I took him in an embrace, the kind that I desperately need all the time. It gave me the same satisfaction giving it to him. He was on the verge of crying and I wasn't prepared to handle that situation. Hence, I didn't let him speak any further. Thankfully, he didn't cry but another situation happened that I so was not equipped to handle. He unlocked himself from my hug slowly, his cheek brushing against my cheek, his hands still encaging my waist. Before I could prevent it, he kissed me. For just a tiny fraction of a second, I was calm. The next fraction, all of my body alarm systems went off and black horror seeped into the corners of my skin. My breath was trapped in my throat whilst my blood boiled itself. It was that same feeling again, me being in so much panic that I got temporarily mentally paralytic. I couldn't think, couldn't move. But eventually, I did push his chest away with my hands and backed away a lot of inches from him.

I wanted to just beat the sh*t out of him right that instant.

I could see from my peripheral vision that he was watching me. His darkened eyes fixated on me, he wasn't moving. I couldn't read his expression. He just stared and stared like a statue and I got scared and scared by the second of what I had gotten myself into. I was anticipating his next move. He seemed like a predator ready to hunt in that moment and I didn't have much time to run away.

***