Bittersweet Attractions

Chapter 3

Janet got a flat tyre on her way to campus. Very annoyed at her inability to change a tyre and for not carrying any money with her, she screamed and pressed down on the car honk. Stupid tyre. Stupid her. Her best friend, Paula was obviously having a class so she could not call for her help. And having no option, she took out her phone and called Bernice. She was swallowing her pride here.

  “Hey babe, what’s up?” Bernice’s voice came from the other side of the line. She was obviously happy to receive the call and she was probably thinking that Janet was beginning to come around.
She even spoke like a young woman now. Hey babe? What’s up? Seriously? Janet had almost forgotten why she had called and wanted to hang up because of how stupid Bernice sounded. Everything about Bernice annoyed her now. She closed her eyes and shook her head to calm herself down.
  “I have a flat tyre. I need you to come and drop me off on campus.”
  “Oh, where are you?”

Janet looked around before answering, “Rein road.”
  “Ok. Brian will be there soon. I’m getting a manicure so I can’t make it.”

Janet opened her mouth to protest but Bernice hung up before she could. Her shoulders slumped and she hit the back of her head in the driver’s seat repeatedly. She found herself checking her make up in the mirror. She was not wearing anything heavy, just some mascara and a light brown lip gloss. At that moment, she wished she had worn red or pink lipstick, it made her lips stand out. She hit herself on the forehead. Why was she checking her make up? Why did she want her lips to stand out? You want him to kiss you, a small voice in the back of her head said. You have wanted him to kiss you since you met him three weeks ago.

  “No. that’s not what I want. I don’t want Brian to kiss me. I don’t even want to see him,” she said aloud.
Five minutes later, Brian’s car parked next to hers and he got out smiling at her. He should have not done that because it almost erased her self-control. He was too gorgeous on his own and that smile. Oh that smile just made him look so out of this world. She was undeniably attracted to him and that was the last thing she needed. She did not need to be attracted to someone who would never feel the same way about her because he was attracted to another woman. And that other woman being her mother just made her feel like she was being drained into a toilet. Things like this had only started happening after Bernice had decided to divorce Ernest for Brian. This was all Bernice’s fault. Everything that was wrong in her life had Bernice written all over it. She had never been drawn to a man the way she was to Brian. She had no idea how to act around him. Her palms were sweating and she was not even siting in the car with him yet. He leaned into her car through the passenger window and said “good morning.”
She swallowed hard before saying a small “good morning.”

He smiled and she panicked. Why was he smiling? Did he see how nervous she was? Why was she even nervous? She wished the seat would magically open up and swallow her.
  “So, can we go now?” he asked politely.
  “Uhm, yes. Of course,” she said quickly and got out of her car. She did not want to be in the same car with him but she got into his car and forgot to breath a while when he got in just a small distance between them. It was pure torture. She should have sat at the rare sits, but that would have made her look totally insane.
  “I’m so embarrassed about the scene I caused last time you were at my house,” she said looking down at her stupid sweaty hands.
He shook his head, “No, it’s ok. I understand that you and Bernice have very different opinions of your mother. And I’m so sorry for asking you something so personal. Had I known it would upset you, I would never have asked”
She nodded and decided silence was the best thing in this situation. She did not want to talk to him because if she did they would start to know each other better and eventually become friends and she did not want that at all. She did not want to be his friend. That way her attraction for him might just fade.

  Brian looked at Janet briefly and then turned away before she could catch him staring. Although he had tried hard, he could not seem to get her out of his mind since he had met her three weeks ago. Her beauty was mesmerising. He had never seen such a delicate looking and strikingly beautiful woman like Janet. A couple of times he had even come to thinking it was love at first sight but he had tossed that thought away quickly. There was no such thing and he was not going to do anything to hurt Bernice. Bernice was such a wonderful woman and he could tell her love for him was true. But that did not stop him from lying awake for hours at night thinking of how sweet Janet smelt and how lovely her pouty lips where.

  They got to the campus and Brian got out to open the door for Janet but she opened it herself before he could. She got out, met him halfway at the front of the car, and thanked him.
  “No big deal,” he said genuinely, “I’ll get your tyre replaced and get your car home before you get there.”

  “Thanks again”, she said with a smile before giving him her car keys and walking away. The last thing she felt like doing was hold a smile. Scream and burry herself was what she wanted to do.

Someone nudged her so hard she almost fell. She turned and was about to send the person to hell when she saw that it was a very excited Paula.
  “Who is he,” Paula asked
  “Who?”
“Don’t play dumb with me; I saw the cutie that just dropped you off.”

“Oh him. He’s just someone I asked for a lift from because I had a flat,” Janet lied. There was no way in hell she was going to tell her friend that Brian was her mother’s boyfriend. No way.

Paula narrowed her eyes at her. She knew Janet was lying. They had been best friends since pre-school. They both knew each other like the back of their hands.

  “One in a thousand people in Attana would give a total stranger a lift. And you gave him your keys.”

That was true, Janet had to admit.
  “Ok, I kind of know him. Now let’s go to class, I even thought you were in class already,” Janet said and pulled her friend.  Janet was the more rational of the two. She thought before acting and she even played out whole conversations in her head before approaching anyone- just to make sure she would not say the wrong thing. She worried a lot about how other people felt and how their judgement of her according to her actions. Paula on the other hand did as she felt. She threw caution out the window and reason along with it. She would dye her hair yellow without thinking twice and not even considering her dark chocolate complexion.

  At three in the afternoon, Janet and Paula walked out of the campus’s main building. Their classes were over for the day. Janet froze when she saw a black Mercedes. What the hell? What was Brian doing there? And how had he known that she would get off at that time. Had he gotten out of the car a second later, she would have run back into the building. He smiled at her and she forced herself to smile back. Paula nudged her.
  “He is back,” she whispered.
“I see that,” Janet said through clenched teeth.
“I think he likes you.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Why? He is cute.”
He is beautiful, Janet admitted silently. And he is also my mother’s boyfriend.
Janet kissed her annoying friend on the cheek and dragged her feet towards Brian who had a boyish grin that turned her bones to marshmallow. He obviously did not know what he was doing to her and how he was making her feel or he would not have been smiling at her like that. Hell, he would have run away like she was some deadly disease.
She forced a smile to her face and politely said, “Good afternoon Brian. Did Bernice send you to come get me?”
  “Not really. I offered,” he paused and tilted his head a little to one side to read her expression,      “I hope it’s no bother.”
  “Of course not,” she lied with another forced smile.
  “Would you like to grab something to eat?”
Janet did not think she could hold anything down considering how nervous she was around him so she kindly declined the offer.