S A R A

Ch 41

41

Before reaching to open the cab door before arrival, the driver cleared his throat and tapped the meter.

I glanced at it to see that the final price, was nearly double of what I was first told.

"What?" I asked him.

"The weather," he replied easily as if it was obvious.

I sighed and paid him the cash, glad I took out more. At this point, I didn't care anymore.

It took me a few blocks of turning around and staring at my phone screen to figure out the exact location of his apartment, in which the front door seemed to be the back door and it was like it was created confusing especially on purpose in order to confuse the paparazzi.

Though the street was quiet due to the storm, which was more wind and less rain now, the inside of the apartment lobby was a flurry of activity.

So much so that I got into the automated glass front door easily, following a pizza man who called in.

Then though there were several groups of people in the lobby, standing around or waiting or talking or laughing or intoxicated, all around his age - even the door man - I went to the concierge. A little shocked by everything going on around me and this new environment.

The man looked up at me expectantly.

"I'm visiting someone. Floor 42." I told him simply.

He tapped the sign in sheet on the desk in front of me. An actual sign in sheet.

I pickup up the pen hesitantly and wrote my name and the time, 11:01pm. Thinking I should have used a different name only after writing my own.

"Thanks," he said, artificially, "do you need me to call you an elevator?" He asked me as I looked to the side to see that there was at least six elevators.

"No, I'll wait here, thanks." I walked away from the desk, thumbing at my phone, telling him I'm here and clicking send.

I looked up, trying to mask my anxiety. Everyone seemed richer and better looking ad more famous than me. Even some of the men seemed to have more symmetry in their faces than even him which made me wonder what I was doing there.

I half expected him to be hinting for me, since I messaged him only ten minutes again saying that I would be there really soon.

But I didn't mind. I eyed the elevators, and saw that one lingered at floor 42, his floor, until making a swift descent all the way down. I could feel my heart in my chest, and as the elevator door opened I caught my breath.

But it wasn't him. Instead it was another man, who came out to wait in the lobby across from me. I realized he was awaiting for someone, a girl who came in from the outside three minutes later. They hugged and he led her back up to the elevator.

I was starting to get nervous, constantly checking my phone for an affirmation, an excuse, anything. But alas, there was nothing.

I told myself to relax. I told myself I was being irrational. He messaged me less than half an hour ago.

I sat in one of the chairs in the lobby and watched some more as a group of drunk girls came out of one of the elevators, dressed up to go out. They sat in the chairs across from me, debating whether it was worth to call a cab or whether they should order pizza. The more they giggled, the more anxious I grew.

I noticed the concierge look up at me several times with an increasingly worried look on his face.

I tried to ignore him. Instead I typed up another text.

Should I come up?

I wasn't sure what was going on and I hesitated, my thumb lingering over the send button before pressing it. Was this modern love?

The next group to come out of the elevator was group of young, attractive men. Who, upon seeing the state of the weather outside, h\huddled together and probably had the same sort of conversation as the girls before them.

I was overwhelmed to see this amount of people my age and older, all looking for a good time, all beautiful and young and rich. The pool of these favourable genes seemed endless. It seemed like under the right conditions, I could fall in some type of love with all of them.

But right now, I was supposedly in love with Him. Haden.

I got up to the concierge, beginning to feel a slight sting of embarrassment that I had been here for nearly ten minutes now, unwelcome by anyone in the building. At least I was out of the rain.

"On second thought, would you call an elevator?" I asked him, trying to stay causal.

He pressed a button and told me to go wait for it.

Once again, I was sharing the elevator with a pizza man, a middle aged Chinese man who seemed nice and good humoured, even when forced to deliver pizzas in this threatening environment. I wasn't sure whether I mean the weather or this apartment. Probably both.

"Crazy weather, huh?" He asked me, trying to make conversation on the long ride up.

"Yeah," my tone did not match my insides which were slowly falling apart one second at a time.

His stop was halfway to mine, and as he got out he wished me a good night which made me feel terrible. As if what he and I imagined I would be doing and what I was going to be facing would be so disjointed. I was afraid that it was going to be nothing.

Where all these people were going where they were wanted, and sure of their place in the world, much less this apartment, I was being....rejected?

My cheeks were growing hot.

I walked out of the elevator, and passed several doors, behind each of which there seemed to be some sort of party.

Then, there it was, his door at the end of the hallway. The door behind which was everything I've ever wanted.

Maybe his phone was off. Maybe it was broken. Maybe he was waiting for me.

I knocked on the door. A few seconds passed, and I knocked again. Then I took a few steps back and looked at the door, feeling completely dismissed. Feeling that even if he opened the door now, how bad would it look that I waited for him and then accepted him.

In my mind, I played out how I would see him.

How I would smile and he would smile and we would hug, and maybe he'd even kiss me. Maybe even in front of all the people in the lobby.

In that minute, I prayed with every fibre of my body that he open the door. I knew that if he opened it now, I would only have to shift our meeting slightly. Feigning being a little mad, but relaxing once he explained himself.

I counted to ten, staring at that door so much I thought I would burn a hole through it.