Normal With You

Chapter 19

When your hands leap

Towards mine, love,

Why do they bring me in flight?

Why did they stop

At my lips, so suddenly,

Why do I know them,

As if once before,

I have touched them,

As if, before being,

They travelled

My forehead, my waist?

"I don't have a plan."

She was sitting beside him on the pavement in front of the garage shop, munching silently on the bag of crisp in her hand. It was the first time that she had spoken to him in over 8 hours and as she picked listlessly at her crisp, only then did she realise that she had just shot herself in the foot. "I have about R4000 in my account and that's it. I have nothing."

She began twisting the empty bag in her hands, crinkling the silver and yellow foil package before straightening it out again. "I don't know what I'm going to do." She could feel her knees bouncing madly the more she thought about it. It seemed so simple just a few hours ago. She would run away with him and be away from her brother but she had forgotten that she wasn't living a fairy tale. Real life was far, far different than books. She had no money, no degree, no job, no family she could count on where she was going. She had nothing except R4000.

And how would they leave her?

Her mother would make sure they found her. If anyone ever found out that her daughter ran away because her son was raping her- that would mean the end of her career as a judge. She would never leave Tasneem to go talking to anyone.

And her brother- Her brother was poison to her mother. He infected her mind like a snake, whispering and coaxing her into doing as he said. He was Death to her own decisions and it scared Tasneem to think of what he would make her mother do. "They're going to find me."

"Who?"

"My mother and my brother." She admitted, finally looking at him. His face was shadowed underneath the dim lights surrounding them. She still couldn't believe she was here with him. She was going to Cape Town with a boy she hadn't seen in over four years and she actually thought things would work out for her. "I need to go back."

"Why?" He looked down at her, crooking his eyebrow as he took in her state. She kept on twisting that silly little packet between her finger and her knees kept shaking and knocking against each other and in that second, she looked exactly as his mother looked so many times before. She would second guess herself and the idea of doing anything on her own accord terrified her too much into actually going through with it.

"They'll find me and they'll take me back and I don't..." She buried her face in her hands. She didn't want to imagine what her brother would do to her if he took her back. He must have been so angry with her already and when he was angry he made sure she knew that he owned her and she couldn't go through it again. It hurt too much- physically and emotionally- to go through it again. "I have nothing Riaz!"

She finally realised it.

She had nothing. What the hell was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to live? Where was she going to go?

"You can..." He bit the corner of his lip as he deliberated her words. What was he thinking letting her come with him when they really did have no plan? He had no actual money to help her- He was completing his internship and though they offered him a housing package, he wasn't allowed to have anyone else live with him.