Interrupted Heart

23 | RISKS

Tyson's temples pulsated rhythmically as his foot bounced; both just as rapid as each other. I couldn't keep count of how many times that I had tried to swallow. It felt as if all of the saliva in my mouth had evaporated and soon I would collapse from choking on air. I tried to make my inhales and exhales of breath as shallow as possible as it hurt to breathe. Last night, I promised myself to be strong so that's what I did. I fought back. He wasn't going to make me be the victim again. He had though. My back, wrists and neck were blackening from the pressure by the second. No amount of cosmetics would be able to make the marks invisible and the way that his eyes were boring into me from the other side of the room, I knew that he wanted to make me disappear for good. I attempted to focus my attention on my caregiver; my mother. Every bone and organ was aching from shaking in tension.

Normally everything that he did was controlled.

Not this time.

He had slipped up majorly.

My Mum, Justine, wanted to know the truth.

By the way that she was looking at me, I know that she was expecting me to come out with a childish answer. Something along the lines of a girl fight or Tyson was play fighting with me and took it too far. I figured it was the latter since she was peering over to him noticing his agitated demeanour. She was ready to yell at him. Ready to pounce. Then again, if she did pounce, I wouldn't know why. It wasn't like she loved us by choice. All I remember was her interactions towards us being done because she had to do it because she had given birth to us. No feeling or genuine motherly affection. Why would she care if I did tell her the truth?

"Nyla?"

"Nyla?" I jolted slightly as Ace touched my leg. "You good?"

We were in his car on our way to a location he had yet to tell me. I didn't even care where we were going just as long as it was a good time. Ace was swagged out in his new attire as usual so I decided to step my game up alongside him. Since I was feeling slightly better since my conversation with Tyson and Erica had revamped my hair, I was feeling brand new so I knew for definite that I had to have an outfit to match that.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just daydreaming." I responded, trying to clear my head.

"As usual." A second awkward silence filled the car. The initial occurrence was after the doorbell rang. The way that my heart sped and sweat developed from forgotten regions on my body, I was prepared to see Shae walking in through the door. Instead, it was a delivery man who was barely holding onto several bouquets of flowers. Ace's kitchen countertop was now decorated with all colours of the rainbow and he didn't comment on them at all. He left no clues as to if he felt a type of way or if he genuinely didn't give two damns.

I was surprised at the gesture. The last and only time that I had been gifted flowers from Shae was on our first date. After that, he himself had told me that flowers were an overrated, meaningless gift so I shouldn't expect them again. I always did though.

Foolish thinking for sure. That's what I get for being a hopeless romantic.

It's crazy how Shae had only given me vague snippets of real life romance yet I'm still yearning for that fruitful, everlasting connection. I didn't care how 'unrealistic' the love portrayed in movies looked, that's what I'm going to achieve even if it killed me.

"Did it make you second guess us?" Ace asked breaking the silence.

"What?"

"The flowers." I turned to him as his eyes stayed focused on the road.