Cursed By The Sun

Chapter 37

Lucy shakes her head as I finish recalling the events of the night.

"I am calling that construction company tonight and getting that asshole fired immediately! His name was Ray, was it?" She asks, tapping on her phone furiously.

"Fired!" She yells as she gets up from the coffee table and exits the living room.

"I'm so sorry, Sunny." Fatima rubs my arm comfortingly.

My tears finally dried up halfway through telling them about what happened. It helped because I was able to process everything. Lucy says Leo's probably just mad and that's why he took off but she didn't see what I saw. He looked so lost and I just stood there useless as always.

"So how bloody was it?" Fatima asks me and I look up at her quizzically.

"Sorry." She shakes her head, "I love UFC so this shit gets my blood pumping but I get that was bad timing. Maybe later?"

I let out a shocked chuckle and a smile forms on her lips.

"Finally." She releases a sigh, "Comfort isn't my forte but I'm great at jokes."

"Well thank you." I laugh at the odd girl with thick brows.

"I'm glad you and Luce are getting along. I keep telling her you'd be fast friends." I say and she smiles shyly.

"I was actually looking for you tonight." she confesses, "My life was also kinda falling apart earlier and I've never really had friends who weren't my sisters but since they all got married and moved away I was alone for a while until I met you... and I mighta sorta came up to your apartment sobbing pathetically." She rolls her eyes as the words leave her mouth.

"What? Are you okay? What happ-"

"It's okay." She holds up a hand, "Your friend was pretty frightened at first but she talked me through it. Russel's being an asshole again." She shrugs.

"You wanna reopen that wound?" I ask and she shakes her head.

"Okay next time." I rub her shoulder.

"So that's handled. And I got the building manager to agree to daytime construction." Lucy announces when she enters the room again.

Fatima looks at me with wide eyes and I shrug in response, "She could rule the world if she wanted to."

Lucy orders three unnecessarily large boxes of pizza and I set it down next to the half eaten cake from a few days ago.

I am worried for Fatima when I see her finish off her second slice of cake after having just finished her entire box of pizza and a third of mine but I don't say anything because she looks to be enjoying herself.

"Of course! I knew it! Didn't I tell you it would be a Coldplay song they'd reunite to." Lucy laughs.

"You were right." I shrug.

I've done great work by leaving my phone in my room so I won't bombard Leo with calls. This movie has also done an okay job at distracting me.

Fatima lays her head down on the armrest of the sofa and tucks her feet underneath her thighs.

"When she wakes up tell her I have an extra pair of pajamas set out on my bed." I say to Lucy when I begin clearing the empty boxes and dirty plates from the coffee table.

While loading the dishwasher my mind replays the somber look of Leo's face and the sound of bones crunching. It's awful and I nearly drop one of the plates getting lost in the memory.

The image of a little Neoma shooting off a gun was about the most violence I've seen in my life and it's about the only amount I care to. I know Leo wouldn't intentionally want to frighten me but I couldn't bear seeing him hurt somebody like that again.