Loving Him

Chapter 25

Another frantic knock on the door had Ama groaning and cussing out loud. It didn't really matter who it was, nobody messed up her mid day nap. Whoever it was better have a good reason, like the sky raining fire and  brimstone.

She scrambled up and stalked over to the door, unlocking it and jerking it open with more than necessary force, ready to yell profanities at whoever it was on the other side of the door. One look at her friend's deathly pale face with swollen eyes had the words muddling in her head and her mouth opening and consecutively snapping closed. Sleep the farthest thing from her mind.

On impulse, she pulled Sophie into a tight hug that lasted a few minutes before nudging her inside gently, taking the suitcase she was gripping on to from her and wheeling it over to a corner of the room. She turned back around to the sight of her friend sitting on the edge of her bed, her shoulders sagged and face in between her hands. She wasn't crying and Ama took them as some sort of good sign.

She looked for the right words to say but all that came out of her mouth was, "You look like shit."

Sophie laughed humorlessly, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. "Of course, you just had to say that."

Ama shrugged, walking over to sit beside her on the bed. She hadn't actually meant to say that out loud. "What happened? The whole birthday surprise backfired, didn't it?" There was no hiding the tint of worry that laced her words.

Sophie wasn't surprised Ama saw at first sight that something had happened, she knew she looked quite a sight at that moment. After she'd walked out of Alex's room, she'd gone straight to hers and started throwing stuff into her suitcase blinded by tears that were gushing out like a dam had just been broken.

After she'd haphazardly packed her belongings, she then ordered a cab and by the time the cab had arrived, she'd exhausted the tears but one look at her face and anyone could see it's aftereffect.

Raymond had looked lost when she'd gone down dragging her suitcase and headed straight for the door. He had tried to get some sort of explanation from her but she'd hardly been in any state to explain anything to him, unable to unwrap her head from how the whole thing had gone down with Alex and how he'd so carelessly trampled on her feelings.

Even the cab man on seeing her had given her a sympathetic look, which despite her state of mind had amused Sophie. What did he know that he was feeling sorry for her?

"Hey! Talk to me," Ama commanded quietly, coaxing and coercing her at the same time.

Sophie let out a sigh, flopping down backward on the bed, both hands under her head. Her mind had practically become numb by now, her sort of defence mechanism when she was feeling too much all at once.

"Sophie..."

"It's Alex," she couldn't help the slight crack in her voice and the quick stab of pain in her otherwise numb heart when she mentioned his name.

"I know that," Ama replied in an all knowing voice. "What did he do?"

It was hard, Sophie realized. She didn't want to talk about it. All she wanted to do was curl up and sleep and then develop amnesia and forget ever meeting Alex. But that obviously wasn't happening, not if Ama had a say in it. Was this how heartbreak felt? Like your whole world just crashed and nothing was right in the universe?

Ama was about to say something else but Sophie didn't let her as she let the words tumble out, stumbling over each other almost robotically.

The longer she listened, the more Ama's fists and jaw clenched and at the end, Sophie could literally feel the anger radiating off of her.