Chapter ~007

~I don't relate to you~billie eillish

I could feel the warmth radiating from his defined body. His broad shoulders were hunched due to his crouched position. I could see the shape of his muscles through his tight top. He had a model like build,firm and toned, but not overlying muscular.

I could feel his heated gaze on me. I could not tell whether it was because he hid his emotions well but I was unable to read him.

I could not without doubt define his character or make assumptions about his intentions.

He seemed calm ,unfazed but a bit disconnected. I could identify a restless soul when I saw one. It was a feeling I had experienced firsthand. One that I had seen in my mother's eyes a look of being transient. Lost.

I was never one approach others or converse with strangers. I had struggled to talk to my mother and she birthed me and therefore struggled to have relationships with everyone else. My relationship with Tris was not of my own doing. She had found me struggling trying to find a semblance of stability and she took me in and she was around ever since. So this was a new a experience for me. I rarely talked to other people unless they approach me.

I could feel the anxiety gripping onto my throat suffocating. The reality that I was in a strange house with a man I could not recognise was frightening. I felt confined, trapped within my own anxiety and the fear of the unknown of uncertainty. I was never one venture into the unfamiliar territory. I was always conscious. I preferred and at times confined myself to environments and situations that was accustomed because then I would know how to react. I would know what say how respond without feeling as if I’ve said or done something strange or abnormal.

This situation satisfied the fundamentals of my deepest fears. I could feel myself begin to hyperventilate. It felt as if the very air I was trying to breathe in was suffocating me. I could hear distantly the sound of a voice calling out to me but I could not quite discern it.

I could feel myself begin to lose consciousness. Although my sight was already blurry , the edges began to darken. I felt someone pick my shaking body from the soft surface of the bed. I felt the person cradle me in their arms. The filling of warmth filled my body. The scent of the strangers cologne overcame my senses. It reminded me of the scent of light rain and jacaranda trees. Deep, dark with a slight hint of home. My mother used to love flowers. She would spend hours on end doing the garden. I remember when she would come back with plants wrapped in tissue. She would put them in water until roots begin to grow and then she would plant them in our tiny garden even though the was little to no space.

I began to calm down and the voice in the background begin to make sense.

“ I need you to breathe love” The voice was soft but had a deep cadence. It husky and warm. “ I understand that you scared right now but I promise that you are safe”.

The stranger said whilst rubbing soothing circles on the lower part of my back. My vision began to clear and I found myself staring into the silver depths of the strangers eyes. I could remember his voice from the encounter and the memory of him saving me from those men allowed me to calm down.

“Who are you?” I asked my voice soft and slightly course. “Where am I?”

He looked into my eyes before frowning and pulling me closer to his chest. I know that I should have felt uncomfortable with the prospect of being in the arms of this unknown stranger but I could not help but find safety in them. He held me in a way that only dad had ever held me with such care close but not too tight. His grip was soft and light giving me the option to leave at any moment.

“I’m Ardon” He said softly almost as if he was trying not to startle me.I could feel his his breathe lightly against me ear. “ We are in my house near Hunt Avenue in the forest area.”

I could recognise the name of the road. I passed often on my way to the university in the central city. I was not aware that the were people living in the forested area. I had never seen anyone apart from a few impala’s and springbok crossing from the one side of the forest to the other.

“ How did I get here?” I just did not understand why he could have not taken me to the hospital or called the police. That would have undoubtedly been easier. I did not know whether to be afraid or to wishfully thrust that this man had no bad intentions.

I began to feel uncomfortable with the fact that I was curled in this strangers arms whilst knowing nothing about him besides his name. In panic I moved out of his arms onto the bed. I shuffled back until I hit the wall. I grabbed the soft cotton blanket and wrapped around my body and settled myself into the corner of the room on the bed.

I looked up to find that he had not moved from his position. He had a deep frown , his eyebrows were etched closer and his jaw clenched tight.

He looked at my frightened body, curled up in the corner with my large brown eyes peaking out from the cotton blanket covering my body. He let out a sigh before running his calloused hands through his onyx black hair. He stood up from his crouched position on the white mat next to the bed and sat on the edge of the bed closest to me.

“You were on the brink of pneumonia when I found you almost unconscious on the side of the road”He responded. His tone losing its initial warmth. He seemed haunted whether by the memory of how he found me or by something else I could not say. “ Your arms and neck were covered in dark bruises and your body was shivering from the cold.”

“ You could hardly breathe”

Amberia