REDEMPTION

Chapter 2 : Hiding out

"I can't believe you abandoned me there like that!"

Sierra grit her teeth, she was damned if she would apologise again. Ella had been milking her cowardly desertion for all it was worth ever since she had stepped in through the front door and it was getting on her nerves. Truth be told Sierra felt bad for doing it, even at the time, but that didn't mean she regretted it.

Once she had gotten home to her small flat in Ealing that night, Sierra had analysed her actions and reactions and she had come up with some unsettling conclusions.

Maybe she was a coward, perhaps she had even acted a wuss as Ella had pointed out a few times already, but something far more perturbing was also glaringly obvious. Somehow that man had made her feel distinctly out of her depth, he had made her feel uncomfortable and not just by being so blatantly obvious.

Ordinarily she would have felt disgusted if someone had rubbed up against her like he had, even if it was for a scant second, but for whatever reason, she hadn't, in fact it had excited her, and for the life of her Sierra couldn't figure out why.

All those years of barricading her feelings and emotions behind an icy wall of indifference had crumbled in a damn second, and it was humiliating to realise that a few flirtatious words and come hither looks had been enough to accomplish that feat.

Bitterness, self loathing, cowardice, lust, neediness and a whole host of other feelings had warred within her that night, and it had made her feel strangely exposed, and that is why she had bolted, a mere twenty minute conversation in a crowded nightclub had shaken her to her core, dredging up her past and making her doubt herself.

She felt like an idiot for feeling this way, but she couldn't help it, and no amount of self recrimination had been able to completely suppress these feelings of inadequacy ever since.

Even now a day and a half later Sierra couldn't bring herself to think of him by his first name, all she wanted to do was forget Friday night, and shove it and her memory of a disturbing grey eyed stranger under the proverbial rug, as she did with anything and everything else that made her uncomfortable.

God forbid she ever had to lift that bulging mental rug, it was bursting at the seams with all the shit she had buried under it all these many years.

"I still can't believe you ran away like that, just because a bloke came on too strong."

Sierra cringed inside, distinctly embarrassed, not that it showed on her impassive face. She tried her best to ignore Ella as she did the dishes at the sink. She was not in the mood to discuss this, having just had breakfast all she wanted to do was lounge about in her flat all day in her stripped pyjama teddy, perhaps binge watch Netflix,  but that plan had been dashed the minute Ella had come bursting in half an hour ago like a mini hurricane, demanding an explanation.

Sierra had almost lulled herself into a false sense of security when her friend had miraculously left her alone for a while, as it turned out Ella had had too much of a hangover to bother her yesterday. And of course a telephone apology from her end had not sufficed. After a customary period of sulking, Ella had dragged herself all the way to Ealing for the inevitable confrontation, and like the fool she was Sierra had blurted out the real reason for leaving her friend in the nightclub, albeit an abbreviated version of events. She was now busy regretting telling Ella anything at all.

Unfortunately, it was always this way with them, Sierra had no one else she felt comfortable talking too, and sometimes she felt Ella took advantage of that. Plus she had a way of getting her to confess her deepest, darkest secrets like no other. Right now Sierra was really resentful of that fact as well.