Chapter Ten

It was all too much!

Sheenah was still on her bed, numb from the pain. Her eyes were red and sore, her throat dry and hoarse and her body weak and drained. She couldn't cry anymore, she just stayed in the same position, feeling absolutely nothing.

That was an upgrade from the pain, right?

She had sounds, then laughter, but couldn't identify the voices. She didn't want to.

"That's crazy." Somebody said, making the others laugh. Soon the door to their room opened but she still didn't look up. She wanted to be alone. Needed to be alone.

"Hey Abigail," Lilly teased, and even with the fact that she loathed the name, she just wasn't in the mood. Kendy must have noticed because she was the first to materialize beside her, concern and worry on her pretty face.

"What's wrong?"

She jumped straight, no; 'are you okay?' Or 'is anything wrong?', which she would have in all honesty answered yes and no, respectively. Kendy was an observer, a very keen one. She had perfected it after years of having to take care of her younger sister after their parents tragic death. Her big sister mode was surely welcomed right now.

"Are you okay?" Lilly asked, all traces of teasing now gone.

"Of course she's not Lilly. Look at her." Tash said.

"Not now you two." Kendy scolded, going and sitting on Sheenah's bed, rubbing her back after making her sit. "What's wrong?" She repeated her question again, her voice much softer. Reminding Sheenah of Mam Rose.

"Anything good you touch gets destroyed. See Mam Rose for example!"

The words burned her heart, making her release a whimper. The girls surrounded her, worried about their friend.

"Jack." She whispered hoarsely, her voice rough from all the crying.

Sheenah was expecting the groans that'd usually come at the mention of Jack's name. The eye rolls and everything. But nothing happened. The girls remained quiet, waiting for her to continue.

Was she ready to talk? Did she want to talk?

"What triggered it?" Lilly asked, all too knowing since she had actually been the one who had rescued her best friend from the guy.

Sheenah thought about the trigger, "Reigner I guess. I don't know."

"Did he hurt you? That bastard." Tash cussed, getting defensive.

"No!" Sheenah defended, now feeling guilty. "Far from it."

"We were out on a butterfly pavilion, I kissed him but then the moment I did, 'you destroy everything good you touch' kept ringing in my head. I tried shutting it off, I really did but it wouldn't go, then boom, it's Jack all over again." She chuckled dryly, trying to lighten the moment. The girls just looked at her for a moment, no one speaking. They knew the story, they just never thought it was as messed up as it was.

Sheenah breathed in deeply, before recalling her story with Jack to her girls. They knew, but she wanted to talk. To speak it out loud. She wanted to hear how the words would sound like in her ears. So she spoke about it.

"...so when it happened for the first time, I thought to myself: he was drunk, he'll come around and apologize, then we'll go back to normal. But he never apologized. We never went back to normal. When it happened again, it was I think three days later. Funny thing, nothing triggered him. He just came at me. Insults after insults. I'd cry and hope he'd never do it again. But they became a regular thing. Jack became a drunkard and an emotional manipulator. Right before my eyes.

"Sometimes I'd want to walk away, but I couldn't. I was so invested in that relationship. In us. In him, that every time I would want to walk away, something would just call me back. Stupid I know. And then there was how he made feel like nobody would ever want me apart from him. He had sang 'you're worthless' and 'you're cursed' to me so many times that I believed them. The evidence was all around me, how could I not? My own parents tried to kill me for Christ sakes!

"If it wasn't for Lilly that day she came and found me on the floor. If it wasn't for her kicking him out and threatening to sue him, I don't know what could have happened. Maybe I'd still be with that man, or worse, dead. God forbid!" Sheenah laughed it off, breathing heavily.

Man, talking was great!

"I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to be another girl whose messed up. When I'm with Reigner, it feels great. I know we barely know each other but I would really wanna give this a shot. But then I'd start wondering, what if I mess it up also? Because I'm pretty good at doing that. What if I destroy it? Because, Reigner is a good thing. That's what triggered me, I kissed him and my mind screamed at me for trying to burn him, so I had to run away with my fire. From him."

"Jack was wrong. Everything he said was wrong. Please Shee don't believe him. Don't let him win." Lilly appeared wounded, eyes pleading with her best friend.

Of the reasons Lilly was afraid of commitments, the experience Sheenah had had with Jack was among them. She had witnessed first hand the brutality of Jack's words, and how they had affected her friend. If Jack who had seemed to be hopelessly in love with Sheenah could do that, who else couldn't? If the 'match made in heaven' relationship could end that tragically, she wasn't going to risk a try. She wasn't as strong as the girl in front of her.

"Can we cuddle?" Sheenah requested, making the girls smile bitterly.

They got into her bed, and even though Tash's jeans were becoming uncomfortable for her, that moment was precious, so she suck it up, like she would have told anyone who'd have complained.

***

That night, as their tradition, Tash prayed, "Dear Lord, may we find happiness, and thrive in it. Amen."

***

Sheenah didn't go for her morning run come Monday morning. She wasn't in the mood for a run. Plus it was also Easter Monday. She got up early as usual and read something from her phone. Her brain also deserved some feeding, just like her body and soul.

Soul.

The other girls woke up, and found Sheenah's nose buried deep in her phone. Lilly yawned and rubbed her eyes, stretching while at it.

"Hey, good morning guys." Tash greeted.

"Good morning."

"Hey."

"Morning."

The other greeted back, and they settled for silence, probably not to disturb Sheenah's reading. After a while Lilly got up to use the bathroom. "You didn't go for your run?" Kendy asked. Sheenah stopped her reading, putting her phone aside. "No, I wasn't in the mood for it." She answered.

Kendy nodded, and there was silence once more, before Tash spoke up, "we should hang out. Do something together before Kendy leaves. We are gonna leave Mombasa without taking a group photo."

"Yeah." Kendy agreed quickly. "Sheenah, are you free?"

Sheenah felt a little bad for the question. Since they had come to Mombasa, she was always hanging out with Reigner. The realisation that she had somehow neglected her girls made her a little guilty. "Yeah, I'm in for the idea."

"What idea?" Lilly asked, plopping on her bed.

"That we should hang out." Sheenah answered the same time Tash replied, "it doesn't involve you." Lilly laughed at Tash, showing her her tongue. Tash in turn rolled her eyes, muttering 'childish' under her breath while stifling a smile.

"Yes we should. We are gonna leave this place without thoroughly exploring it."

"My thoughts exactly." Echoed Tash. "Let's start today. It's Easter!"

Kendy uncurled herself from her bed and sat up, resting her head on her open palms. "Where do we start from? Do you even know this place?"

"That's why there are Google maps sweetheart." Tash replied cheerily. "Now everyone get up. We have exploration to do."

"Like get up now now? It's too early." Lilly whined but did as told anyway.

***

They had gotten ready, which took them long enough, had breakfast at the hotels restaurant and off they went for an exploration day.

The Google map app came in handy and Tash exquisitely maneuvered through the city like it was her home, with the help of the tuktuk drivers that helped them through out their exploration of course.

As they moved from the Mamba

Village Centre, riding on horses and watching crocodiles feed to the Mombasa tusks, which seemed to be inviting them to the city's CBD that seemed to be a slow motion version of the Capital. People here were not in such a rush like Nairobians.

Sheenah's highlight of the day was however when they went to the South East side of the city to set foot on Old Town. The buildings which were located opposite each other, with a narrow street separating them called her in. Not that they were magnificent or anything, but the mixture of old Arabian, Portuguese and old British and Asian architectural designs attracted her. They were appealing. She absolutely fell in love with the raised balconies, wooden windows and the many large Arabian doors.

"Why do they need so many doors?" Sheenah inquired curiously, not understanding the need for so many doors. They were a lot.

The tuktuk driver they were with tried explaining, rather vaguely, the reason and Sheenah did not understand a thing. Maybe it was his thick Coastal Swahili that was so different from the one she was used to speaking. At that moment, she wished they had a proper tour guide. She had no time to inspect up close the carvings on the curved wooden windows because Tash was dragging everyone away. That was among the reasons she hated travelling in a group. You had to consider everyone in your endeavors, even when you just wanted to relax, slow down and savor a place or thing.

While walking away from the curved wooden windows her mind fleetingly thought of Reigner. How he wouldn't have rushed her and would have - she then felt guilty for even thinking about him and hastened her steps to catch up with the girls.

"Where are we going?" Sheenah asked trying to block the sun using her hand.

"Fort Jesus." Tash answered, busy typing on her phone.

Sheenah halted in her steps, causing the other girls to also stop. "What's up?" Lilly inquired. Sheenah was tired and thirsty and in all honesty wanted to go back, but she wouldn't deny the girls a chance to finish their tour. "I have already been to Fort Jesus. You guys go ahead. I'll just stay here and when you're done we can all leave." She answered instead, swallowing the whining that had earlier been at the tip of her tongue.

"Are you sure? You won't get bored?"

"No Kendy, I'll be fine. Plus I still have to see the first post office which is here."

"Yep the historian in her is out. She'll be fine." Added Lilly who was already leaving. Sheenah just smiled as she went in the opposite direction.

***

Sheenah was seated at a coffee house, going through an old magazine while sipping on juice. After she had had her fill of Old Town, finally thoroughly savoring the place and loving every minute of it, she had gone to the coffee house to mainly relax and also grab something to drink. The sun had been relentless. There was nothing interesting in the magazine and she put it down, deciding to instead observe the people around her. They were interesting enough.

Mombasa was generally warm. From the weather to her people. They moved in what looked like calculated slowness, a vast difference to the Capitals fast life. She blinked, bringing herself from the day dreaming she was in. She grabbed her phone and lazily jumped from one app to another eventually finding herself opening the messaging app and clicking on her chats with Reigner.

Hi

She typed and deleted it almost immediately. That did not sound right. After running from him and probably freaking the guy out, a hi wasn't the way to go.

Hey. I hope you are good. Sorry for running out the other day. I can explain...

She deleted the message again. Maybe it was better to just call him. Texting was just hard. She was already bad at expressing feelings, and now trying to do that on text, pure disaster. She closed the messaging app, took a deep breath and hoped her voice wouldn't betray her. As her fingers hovered on his name, she wasn't sure of what she would tell him or how he would react on seeing her phonecall. She was just about to click on the name when her phone ringtone's blared through the quiet room making her cuss silently.

Talk about wrong timing.

***

Hey everybody.

The description of Mombasa's Old Town are from a 'site' known as bonita-on-safari (I'm not sure if I have the name correctly but I sure hope I have.) You can check her out for more exciting places to visit while in Kenya! :-)

Also this chapter and the one where Sheenah and Reigner go out are my dedication to local tourism in Kenya. As a native I'm thoroughly and awfully ashamed of myself that I have never set foot in any of the places I've written about. (I've been to Mombasa but did not thoroughly explore the place and for that I'm embarrassed). I hope these two chapters may encourage and entice my fellows and even foreigners who would want to visit Kenya. We have a lot to offer!

Karibu Kenya!

Tembea Kenya!

Okay bye :-)