The Girl At The Last

Chapter 80

Alex

Half of the words is all I understand.

Heirs. Richest. Elite. Elzina.

Our image from last night plastered across the newspaper. Glossy and savage in texture. Our fake smiles and the eyes shining with the flashes. The trouble and darkness behind them concealed.

The rest of the sentence that I read barely registered inside me.

I look up. My displeased gaze lands on the man in the head seat. The dining hall hosting no one else but Leonard White and i.

"You want me to read this? Why?" gently dropping the tabloid flat on the table I wait.

The resting nothingness in his face almost crumbles, but he manages to iron those creases as he meets my gaze in oblique manner. The fork and knife slices his food on plate. Clean and neat.

He holds the utensil in a vice grip, I award myself a glimpse at his act of nervousness. The ticking jaws in a while, the diluted blue eyes, the speeded up way as he tried to finish his breakfast.

Those actions were soothing to say the least. It was satisfying.

"You don't have any questions?" He asks.

So many.

"Should i?"

He better not provoke it.

"You escorted Elzi- Miss Winston yesterday. Were you aware of who she was by then?" he asks, the voice dropping darkly as it tested me.

"Yes" pushing back in chair, I lean. Casually I stared at my share of edible that was served a while ago by some help.

When my glance intersected as I looked up, I saw the numerous stirring question in his eyes. Yet he kept his enquiry at bay, acquainted by the fact that he won't be getting much out of me anytime soon. Not until I undo his sealed lips.

But not today.

"What are you wearing?" I found him staring at my clothing.

"Tux" I say looking down with pursed lip "from last night" I add for the effect.

"Where were you last night?"

At the park.

"Some cheap bar" I sniff the air around me tauntingly "Ah! It must be the beer"

His eyes hardens as he looks away. I wait for him to lash out, a punch to the table, a rattle of his roaring wrath. But hauntingly, a vase to my head.

My heart rate quickens, the palm dampening with sweat. He picks up a glass as I fix my eyes unforgivingly on it.

He brings them to his lips.

I close my eyes breathing in.

Old fears don't die.

Neither do the hostility. It was this morning when I was too busy stalling the night off in a bench at central park. Without a wink of sleep, a breath of relief. The seducing lights began to dominate the sky into early blue hue's as I laid there with my arm tucked beneath my head as I slept, watching the patterns in sky intently. Finding out figures like a kid.

Wishing I was a kid.

But then, my life was worse as one. So I gave up on that temporary longing too.

It was then my phone rang, it was father.

Not profusely confused I ignored it, similar to the calls from Edmund. I had bargained this time and moment alone to think, but substantially I had been doing every other thing than just that. Think.