Chapter 42

I woke up the next day with a blinding headache. It was as though the sun had decided to shine directly on my eyes

“Uh!” I moved on the soft bed beneath me. I stopped, puzzled for a moment. The more I tried to think about how I got to the bed, the worse the headache got. “Please turn of the lights.” Iumbled to no one in particular.

Slowly, memories from last night came flooding through my mind.

“I’m sorry for coming late Ally” his words rang through my head. I opened my eyes, now wide awake, even though I wanted very much to go under the blanket and hide from the blinding lights.

“Ben” I nearly cried, standing up from the bed. He finally came back.

More memories of how gently he carried me from the ground came to mind. I smiled ‘He really did care about me’ I blushed at that thought.

I moved to the door, stopping a bit to let the world stop spinning before moving again.

The door opened revealing me with...

“Elias?” I looked at him. Confusion written all over my face. “what are you doing here?”

The world had stopped spinning at this point, in fact, it was more than stable at this point.

“you passed out on the kitchen counter. You shouldn’t he up. You should be resting.” He moved closer to me but I moved away immediately .

“Ben carried me from the kitchen. He apologised to me about being late. He is here” I made my way to the door.”

“Allison” he said in a tone that told me to listen. “look, have this first” he shoved a filled cup my way. “it’ll help with the hand over” he explained further, seeing my hesitation to take the cup from him. I nodded taking the cup from him. “how are you feeling?” he asked seeing that I took a sip from the cup.

It was cinnamon tea with a hint of milk. The hot beverage wakened me up a bit, causing me to be a little more awake.

“better”

He looked relieved at that. “you sounded.... hurt when I heard your voice on the phone, so I thought I’d take a break from work and see you.” I nodded, not knowing what to say.

“Ben, he is”... I looked at him, my interest picked after hearing him say that.

“Ben, what about him”

“he is fine. He’ll be back when he wants to.” I eyed him warily.

“you know his whereabouts, don’t you.? You know where he is” I went to raise my voice but immediately stopped since my throat was dry and itchy when I raised my voice.

Elias seemed to have noticed this since he prompted me to take more of the beverage. “you threw up quite a lot last night. It’d help if you took something warm.

“where is he?”

“Allison, believe it or not, I am a friend. I know how we got of wasn’t the best way since I mean to you.” I scoffed at that. Mean was putting it lightly. He was horrible. Attacking me, making me feel less of myself and whatnot. “but I can assure you, I only want what’s best for you now.”

“fine, what do you think is best for me?” I stared at him daring him to say what I thought he was about to say.

“chasing him this way us only going to let him move further away from you.”

I scoffed. “you don’t know him the way I do. He’s been through a lot, hence his attitude and honestly, he is the sweetest man ever.”

“If he truly was the sweetest man, you wouldn’t be going out of your mind looking for ways to find him. He would be here with you. If he was the sweetest man, you wouldn’t be crying at night for reasons unknown to me” I felt the embarrassment cover my face in form of a blush, there was no way I was going g to accept that.

“You don’t know what your talking about” I said turning away from him to hide my embarrassment.

“really? Cause I’m really sure I do. Especially since we shared a wall at some point.”

“You.. how..” I was getting flustered, not knowing what to say. “You know, if you don’t know what to say or know anything about my life I believe you should stay the hell out of it!!?” I yelled, walking out on him.

He didn’t call me back, he didn’t chase after me. He left me instead to do what the hell I wanted, or so I thought.

“call him.” He said from behind me.

“What?” he looked flushed. Not from anger though, from something else

“Call him. If he picks your call right now then I would leave you alone. But if he doesn’t, you have to allow me help you.” He looked desperate, to help me, it confused me as to why.

“I can’t find my phone either ways, so I would have to look for it.” He nodded, giving me his phone.

“Use mine” I eyed him warily again. “it wouldn’t matter whose phone is used, all that would matter is him picking up right? To know he is safe” he prompted, shoving the phone further into my nanda, forcing me to take it.

I dialled his number.

I looked at Elias with an I told you so face.

“I told you he wasn’t going to...”

“Hello” the call was answered, it was answered by someone who I didn’t expect it to be.

“hello? Elias? Ben isn’t here right now, what’s up?”