36 Questions to Fall in Love...in 36 days!

Chapter 40: Pajama Intervention and Laying Down Your Life

As Mkhulu  drives us  back home I keep my eyes on the setting sun. Its orange flames simmer into the horizon signifying how close  we  are to the end of the day.

It feels like a hand has tightened around my heart. This hand will not relent, instead it gets tighter and tighter building up something within me and making every breath I struggle to take, shudder.

The drives I have with Mkhulu normally relax me but today my heart finds no sense of ease. The sky tints to a darker shade of blue.

I've never wanted to reverse time more than I do right now. I've never wanted to tell the sun to go back up like this.

Or at least make it stop.

To distract myself from the unease in my heart, I pull my phone out for a moment. It's been off for a long time. Once turned off, my heart almost leaps off my chest from the notifications I see.

17 missed calls from Olivia

The hand in my heart tightens even more.

Punishing.

My breaths don't feel like mine anymore.They're stolen each time like I don't deserve them but I clench my fists, strengthening myself.

I forcefully try to calm my heart, breathing deeply but nothing's working.

With the little strength I have left, my eyes drift to my grandfather.

“Could you pull over Mkhulu.”

His eyes go over all of me, concern etched on his face. “We're almost home, just this road then the next.”

“Please.”

“Leonardo,” he consoles, “ we're in the middle of the road.”

“It’s empty. Please Mkhulu, pull over. I need to breathe.”

He stops the car immediately, with a screeching sound. I step out of the car, welcoming the fresh air that surrounds me.

I'm standing at the back of the car because I don't want Mkhulu to see me like this. I’m heaving heavily, my chest having a mind of its own.

Is this what heartbreak feels like?

Is it always this dramatic, this world ending, this body shaking?

It's like my heart has been torn open and it's left bare, bleeding.

Bleeding for Olivia although she's very much alive but at this moment sort of dead to me.

I want to cry but the tears don't come. It's frustrating how the tears won't fall when I want them to.

You hear that tears!

I want you to fall now!

But it doesn't happen, instead this heaving continues like my very breaths are enough of a cry.

Maybe this is also a punishment. A punishment for all the suppressing I've been doing. Suppressing my tears, my pain and emotions.

Suppressing my love.

Suppressing.

I feel his strong hands on my shoulders before I see him. Mkhulu tightens his hands on my shoulders and unlike the hand in my heart, it doesn't feel punishing, it's comforting and present.

He doesn't say anything and I don't want him to but when I turn to face him, his piercing stare says it all.

I'm the one who caused this heartbreak. It might have started out with Olivia, and her pushing me away but I ended it. I sealed the matter.I pulled the trigger.