CHAPTER 64: NOW

Aaliyah's soft hands were still caressing my chin, even with my eyes closed, but sleep had not yet overtaken me. I would say I was happy to have her here; it was fun, but with her boyfriend around, and the fact that I was already feeling the depth of her inside my heart, I knew this was no good idea.

"Is he alright with this?" I questioned, knowing so well I was probably the side piece.

"Shhh," she just shushed me, and I went silent and carefully removed her soft hand from my cheek, my eyes still shut.

"Do you love him?" I questioned in the lowest tone, hoping she would hear me. I didn't even know why on earth I was doing this. Us being like this. Being together on the same bed, with Aaliyah's man on the couch.

"Shh," she slightly stated, scooting closer, making me feel her warmth a little more intensely.

I wanted to wrap my hands around her and just be safe, but I couldn't. I just couldn't evenly feel safe with her here, so in a slow, not-hurting motion, I shifted my whole body onto the other side, to the wall, as I felt Aaliyah hug my back and slightly felt her breathing near my neck. I was sure I was getting weaker with each breath, but the thought of sharing her consumed my mind, making me feel overly pained. I did not want to share her, despite not ever dictating words of making whatever we have official.

"Are you okay?" I heard her whisper in my ear, and heaven help me if I did not outburst emotionally.

"I think you should leave. The rain has stopped," I stated slightly loudly, hoping she could hear, and indeed she did, for the little arm placed around me was already gone before I could turn around and tell her 'sorry' for telling her to leave.

On turning, she had already reached the doorknob, and we gave each other one last eye contact, and for real, I sensed a twitch of sadness and guilt in her face. I did not want to label Aaliyah a player, but I was sure she had already 'cooked' me.

"Babe, I think we should go," I heard Aaliyah tell her boyfriend, in the living room.

'Why wouldn't she just leave him?' my thoughts questioned, as I jumped out of bed, with the idea of Aaliyah leaving taking the best of me.

"Are you guys leaving?" I questioned right when I reached outside my room. They were already at the apartment door, fully attired with their shoes on. Aaliyah still had my hood on.

"Yeah, we gotta go. The weather has changed," the boyfriend stated, as I felt a twinge of sad lump rise from my stomach to my throat. I did not know what to say but a little talk with Aaliyah would maybe do.

"Aaliyah, can we speak?" I stated confidently, despite knowing my voice did not depict confidence, but maybe lots of desperation.

"What for?" the boyfriend questioned, as I saw Aaliyah slightly stop him and come towards me. I showed her my room, and we both entered, not noticing her boyfriend following her and standing at the door.

"Dude," I stated, clenching my jaw, knowing he was literally invading our privacy.

"She's my girl, man. Show some respect at least!" the boyfriend roared in a thick English accent, which I hadn't detected at all. I never even noticed he was somehow related to the English lands.

"I'm sorry," I added, feeling bad for him, he did not deserve to see this. So, I just used my hand to show Aaliyah she could leave, and walked myself out of my room, slightly brushing my shoulder with the boyfriend. I was hurt, and I was hurting further because of all this that was happening. However, the fact that it was Aaliyah, and the guy's label was still 'boyfriend,' made things even more interesting for me; Chasing wouldn't be a bad idea right? I guess learning is a word most men don't know, especially men like me.

Nonetheless, the two left, and I lay on my couch alone, but Aaliyah sent me a quick message right when they left:

"I will text you when we arrive." Another line followed: "I'm sorry Hayzen, can we talk about this later??" She added two question marks after that second text, but I did not reply. I just tossed myself, as I let my mind freely gaze into its own labyrinth of imagination. 'What were we?' was the first question that lingered in my mind. Like what really was happening between us. 'Did she love me?' was another. 'What's happening to me?' was the next question. 'Why am I obsessing over her?' was another. And my mind would give me lame answers, like the latter was the best-answered question. It had dictated that the sex had made me much more attached to her. But I knew this was not even about whatever we had. It was about something else.

At the moment, with my mind crazily resonating with Aaliyah, I did not realize I was obsessively staring at her Instagram post of her and her friends the previous night. It had popped up, as people you may know, so I decided to suddenly check all her posts, and everything she ever loved and cared for, as depicted by her posts.

The girl had a handsome amount of almost thirty thousand followers, while I was struggling with seven or ten. I barely posted anything on Instagram, social media to be precise. The only place I found solace was Twitter. At least there, I would just let my thoughts flow. That escalated after my breakup with Kate. I just went there and poured out my emotions, day by day, until the aches became random scars. After that, all I posted were health-related things, diets, surgeries, and all that.

She had nice pictures; in some, she wore almost no clothes on beaches, others she was casually dressed, and others she was officially dressed. Her profile stated that she loved traveling, reading books, and trying out new things. Her favorite food was chicken pizza, and she was totally disgusted with drive-thru meals (true, I detected). It stated she enjoyed KFC French fries, though she felt they were a little small in amount. Most of her Instagram photos were with random friends, and others with Elvis. Only one was taken alone, in addition to her profile picture, in which she seemed to be looking at a passing plane. The cameraman really did a good job, capturing the plane and her in the process. "Wow," I said.

The urge to stalk her even on TikTok and Twitter, plus any other platform she might be using, excited me. I directly went to TikTok, clicked on my contacts, and her name popped up. Her TikTok account was also full of videos, but all they depicted were pictures of book quotes and artworks from different authors. The urge to like all of these posts drowned me, but fear indulged me, especially the fact that she would notice I was stalking her. After finishing the TikTok stalking, I noticed her love for romantic books and her urge to one day have a boyfriend who would love her as romantic books do. Then, I went to X to search for her, believing she might be using her Aal_22 name, as it was her username on both her Instagram and TikTok accounts. And yes! Exactly what I needed.

On X, the girl had a handsome amount of followers, but it did not surpass mine. She did not tweet daily, just sometimes when she might remember she had an app for tweeting her thoughts. Her latest tweet was '#partyholic,' and I noticed it was posted the previous day. The next was almost a week earlier, which stated,

'I miss him sometimes.'

This almost made my heart wander, wondering who she was missing. The comments were insane, with different men stating 'they can replace' and others asking what happened. The previous tweet, which she had actually pinned, was

'Why does he do me like this?' followed by a flower emoji and then 'best night ever.' I almost teared up after reading that. She was, of course, talking about her boyfriend, whom she mentioned they had broken up with for a while.

The nervousness in me, was already clear, as I just stopped my stalking and locked my phone, as my hands nervously tapped onto the couch. The fact that she had posted tweets of her boy made me anxious, like.., didn't I mean something?

The idea of calling her illuminated me, and without thought, I had already dialed her number, and it had already started ringing.

"Hayzen," she answered in a low tone, almost a whisper.

"Are you in class?" I asked, almost worried that I had actually disturbed her studies.

"No!" she now stated quite clearly.

"Aaah, are you free?" I suddenly questioned after a long pause since the truth was I didn't even know why I was calling her. I just wanted to hear her voice.

"Yeah," she added.

"Can I pick you up?" I questioned, already shifting from the couch to standing up and pacing through the room like a madman. God! This is not me.

"Yeah." She just stated.

"I was just bored, and I thought..." Silence, stuttering, "I mean, I, I just... Larry, he isn't there, right?" I finished my awkward phone stutter, suddenly outside my balcony.

"He is not here." She added, and I almost screamed. I did not need her with anyone.

"Okay, aah, in a minute. I promise. I..." I didn't know what to say. I was a little bit too happy. "Bye!" I finally composed myself and finished, as I heard her slowly chuckle at the end of the line before I hung up.