The front door opened and shut with a bang. Someone's guffaw echoed in the large room. A soft, feminine voice. The woman laughed some more before screaming, "Stop it!"

Edward's muffled voice spoke incoherently.

"Oh..." She screamed again. "Put me down, you're drunk. You'll drop me."

Edward's deep laugh filled the air matching her loudness. I tried to listen in, but the only thing I could hear was their muffled voices and their loud laughs.

It was midnight on a Friday. Usually, I would have been asleep, but I was waiting for Edward hoping that we would get the chance to talk. He had made it his point to avoid me. We no longer had a conversation. When I was awake, he was asleep and while I was asleep, he was gone.

I had become my greatest fear, a cliché. In a week, I had gone from worrying about surviving to desperately wait for him to walk into my room. It wasn't gradual, it was abrupt. Like when you are engulfed by fire, suddenly you are consumed.

Curious of the woman he was with, I threw my novel on the bed and got up, forgetting about my healing leg. In less than a second, I came crashing down on the floor, excruciating pain coursing through my veins. A scream tethered between my tongue and teeth, but I held it back down. I was a self-deprecating masochist, but the humiliation was too much for me.

I dragged myself across the room and grabbed a new bandage, tightening it around my ankle. I crawled back into bed and popped a few painkillers. Tossing and turning, trying to sleep, I waited for the pain to subside. The laughter from downstairs seemed to increase the pain I felt. The louder it got the more my throat tightened. Angry thoughts plagued me into the early hours as soon as the house became quiet. Eventually, I fell into a fitful, exhausted sleep.

Mama Wanjiru walked into my room as I was popping another set of painkillers. The forty-year-old chubby woman had a basket full of clothes and curiosity on her face. "Nini? You look like you're in pain."

I was in pain. My leg throbbed all through the night. I couldn't ignore the pain any longer because if I did, I was afraid my leg would get worse. I stretched out my swollen leg towards her in difficulty, wincing.

"Should I go to the doctor?"

With cold hands, she held my leg. "It's very swollen. What happened?"

I shrugged, embarrassed. "I fell."

"I told you to call me whenever you need something. I was afraid this would happen," she scolded me, reaching for the pocket in her flowery dress. "Let me call Mr Abuchi right now."

I jumped up from the bed and grabbed the phone from her hand. "No! Please don't call him, he's busy at work. There is no need for us to disturb him. We can call for a taxi."

She looked at me suspiciously for a few seconds before walking out of the door. I breathed a sigh of relief. Edward was the last person that I wanted to see. I wasn't ready to answer questions he would ask. I had misread the situation and thought there was something between him and me when there wasn't. I had romanticized a situation that wasn't there, and the burden of that disappointment was on me.

Mama Wanjiru did more than allow me to borrow some money. In less than fifteen minutes, she helped me get into a dress and put me into a taxi that drove me to the hospital. Luckily, I found Doctor Ken at the reception chatting with one of the nurses. As soon as he spotted me limping into the hospital, he came rushing to my rescue and scooped me into his arms.

"How did this happen?

He sat me down on the examination bed in his office.

"I was being careless." It seemed like the only good explanation. I saw the doubt that flickered in his eyes as he stared back at me. "I always forget that I'm no longer wearing the cast, so I become careless."

He took my leg and examined it. "It's not so bad just swollen because of pressure put on it. I'll get you some stronger pain killers and call in the orthopaedics. You know Dr Adari is never around unless he has appointments."

"Thank you."

Ken left for a few minutes and returned with medication and a glass of water. "These should do. Dr Adari will be here in an hour at most."

"I can wait for an hour."

Ken took my leg again and placed it on his chest. He put a little pressure around the swollen area. "Tell me where it hurts."

In the silence, I could hear my heartbeat. A solid thud. I didn't feel any pain at that moment. I had lost all senses bestowed upon me. It was mesmerizing how his eyes gazed into mine, radiating. This intense feeling of heat; something I couldn't define. A solid ground to stand on. I focused on the cruel disfiguring, touching his neck, spreading to his arm. Rumour had it that Ken was a burn survivor, but I never dared to ask him what had happened.

His chuckle was light and laced with a hum of amusement. "Maria, do I bore you?"

A heaviness settled in the pit of my stomach. "Bore me?"

"I mean, you always zone me out when I talk as if I'm boring. Which is okay because I've been told that I'm a bit boring on several occasion."

There is a fundamental difference between a peacock and a butterfly. Both are beautiful creatures. But one strut proudly and the other flutters quietly. Edward and Ken were both fundamentally different. Edward attracted women because of his confidence and assertiveness but there was something about Ken's subtleness that left me mesmerized. I knew he wasn't insecure, but he wasn't arrogant enough to think that he could get any woman he wanted.

"No, you don't bore me," I explained. "Quite the opposite."

He glanced at me. "Yeah?"

"Come on, Ken. You know you're one of the most interesting men I've ever met."

"I am? You've never told me that."

"Some things are kind of obvious."

He chuckled. "You women... why is it that you think all men can read minds?"

I leaned forward, brushing the hair away from my face. "Not all, just the ones we want to read our minds."

A smile crept on his face. He leaned closer to place my leg back on the bed. His eyes wandered over my face and settled on my lips then rose back to my eyes. There was a twinge of chaos in them. The door opened before Ken could say what he wanted to say, and Edward walked in. As if caught doing something wrong, Ken moved back.

"Edward," he stretched out his hand.

"Doctor," Edward took it and shook it.

"I'll leave you to it," Ken said and walked out.

Frustrated, I took a deep breath and blew it out. Just like Edward, Ken left me so effortlessly like a feather floating away in the wind. And now I was slipping. It felt as though I was stuck in a forever falling world.

"What happened? Why didn't you call me?"

For a split second, I had forgotten he was around. "I didn't want to be a bother."

"You're in the hospital and you thought calling me about something like this would have been a bother?"

"Can we not have this argument now, please?"

"We aren't arguing. I'm simply asking questions that I require answers to," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

"Are you joking? Explain to me how I'm required to answer you."

He stared at me without blinking. "Calm down, what's going on? Did I do something wrong?"

The nerve he had to ask me that with a straight face.

"Listen, we've already crossed too many lines and I didn't want to cross more. You made it very clear where you stood this past week and I respect that. I made the decision not to involve you in something unless it required your attention. It's not a big deal."

Edward loosened his tie and took a seat on a chair next to the bed. "I'm confused, you have me at a great disadvantage. Slowly and calmly explain to me what is going on."

Nothing irked my spirit more than being told to calm down when I was calm. "Edward, you brought another girl to your house last night and she was loud enough for me to get the message. We don't have to talk about this again."

Caught off guard, he gaped at me. "I can explain that..."

"You don't need to." I raised my hand to stop him from speaking. "You're a grown, single man and you have the right to do whatever it is that pleases you."

He leaned back on the seat and studied me stoically.

"I know having me around is an inconvenience for your dating life. Soon, my leg will heal, and I'll get out of your hair. In the meantime, we have to have some boundaries if we're going to live together."

"What kind of boundaries?"

"I don't know, I'll come up with several rules."

He watched me as if waiting for an admission of hurt that he dreaded to hear. I couldn't give him the satisfaction of admitting that I was hurt when I discovered that there wasn't much to us than a kiss.

"Listen about last night...," he scrambled to explain.

"I don't care."

He sighed. "I'm trying to make things right."

Anger suddenly pumped like adrenaline through my veins. Rude, arrogant, cold son of a ...beast. I corrected my thoughts.

"You want to justify your actions because you think you hurt my feelings and to be honest, you didn't. We kissed, and just because I thought there was more to it doesn't mean I shattered when I discovered there wasn't. We're grown and I knew from the get-go what a man like you has to offer me."

He scoffed. "A man like me?"

"Yes...A man like you."

He chuckled, slowly rubbing his beard. "You're skilled at ripping a man apart."

"Don't let my smile fool you. I'm not a pacifist."

He got up from the chair and thrust his hands in his pockets. "I'll wait for you in the waiting room and drive you back home."

The finality in his statement was enough not to make me argue.

***

Home. The thought slipped into my mind the minute Edward's gate came into sight. A place of refuge. It was strange that I felt at home in a house that I was a guest in.

As soon as the high gates shut behind me, my body relaxed, and a sense of peace pervaded my soul. All I wanted was a warm shower, Mama Wanjiru's hot cup of tea and to finish reading Half of a Yellow Sun by the pool.

Edward turned off the engine, jumped out his car and walked toward a woman standing outside the door. Curious, I followed him to see who she was. The woman from last night?

"I was in such a hurry this morning. I completely forgot my documents in your room," she said smiling, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. "I have that stakeholder meeting in an hour, and I had to rush back for it."

The rant I often had in mind about beauty being subjective was out the window. I wasn't sure if I could say that she was classically beautiful, because I had never seen anyone who looked like her. Her cheekbones weren't especially high, and her nose was a little too long to be perfect, but there was undeniable symmetry to her features and that's what held me so captivated. She was tall with glowing dark skin. Her long legs were enviable especially in the neon pink pencil skirt that hugged her slim body.

She smiled brightly and glanced at me. Her large liquid brown eyes held such intelligence that it would be impossible not to be held prisoner by them. "You must be the girl Edward talked to me about, the one he hit with his car? Maria! It's nice to meet you," she stretched her hand. "I'm Valentine."

"Pleasure is all mine."

"Aww, you sound so educated too," she cooed at me like I was a child taking me by surprise. "He's such a sweetheart for not leaving you to starve to death, don't you think? Talk about moving from rags to riches, lucky girl."

Edward grabbed her arm in warning. "Val."

"What?" A flirty smile danced on her face as she held onto his arm. "She's as cute as a button. Why didn't you tell me?"

His angry eyes met mine but only for a split second.

"Forgive him, Edward doesn't know when to shut up or when to speak."

She tittered infuriatingly. "You're funny, Maria."

Limping past them, I opened the door. "Excuse me, I'm tired. I want to get some rest. It was nice to meet you, Valentine."

Behind closed doors, I dumped myself on the bed. I wanted to scream, cry and punch someone in the face, but I couldn't do either, so I opted for a good cry in the shower.

Edward sat on my bed waiting for me. The air was thick. "Get out."

"I wanted to apologize for earlier."

"For humiliating me by telling your one-night stand about me when you know you shouldn't have been?"

"It's not like that, listen to me I can explain..."

"I don't need an explanation from you, I could care less. What I need is for you to leave me alone. I barely slept last night. My foot is killing me, and I need to tie the stupid bandages all over again. So, forgive me if I'm not in the mood to placate your ego."

I jumped to the bed, sitting behind him. He stood, walked to where I was and took the bandage from me. He sat on the floor and grabbed my leg.

"Why would I ever think you could listen to anything I ask you to do?"

He massaged my foot with the ointment the doctor gave me and wrapped the bandage around. He stood and looked at me. "Can we have the conversation now?"

"No!"

He threw his hands into the air. "You're the most stubborn woman I have ever met in my entire life."

"I'm stubborn because I choose not to sit around and listen to you humiliate me in my towel? What a chauvinistic thing to say?"

"I want to apologize."

I didn't notice the tears running down my eyes until he sat next to me and wiped them away.

"Don't flatter yourself, this isn't because of you. This is because I'm frustrated." I tried to move away from him, but he grabbed my face in his hand and lowered his head.

It was like a bolt of electricity shot through my body when he kissed me. I tried, with all my might, to push him away because I knew better but I couldn't. His strength and determination outweighed mine and soon after, I stopped fighting.

Edward pulled away with an abruptness that had me reeling. "I was drunk when I talked to her about you. She has been a good friend of mine since my wife..." he paused for a while before going on. "I didn't mean to and she wasn't supposed to ambush you like that."

I stopped myself from touching my lips. "Like I said you don't owe me an explanation, whatever you do on your free time is your business just don't talk about me. Never make me feel like a desperate charity case again. I didn't ask to be here."

Under his touch, my body betrayed me. He whispered, "I'm sorry, please forgive me."

"Why me? Why were you talking to her about me?"

He looked at me with one eye closed, gauging my reaction. "I don't have an answer for that. I was drunk and you were on my mind. To be honest I don't remember what I was saying."

"What am I to you?"

He rubbed his hands on his head, frustrated, and stood. "Why does everything with you have to so black and white?"

"Because I've lived in the grey area all my life and I don't want to anymore."

He paced around the room nodding his head as if he were deep in thought. "It can't be so simple for me. My life is very complicated, Maria. What I do know is that I'm very attracted to you. I haven't thought of anything beyond that."

He was honest, I had to give him that. I didn't do well with lies, but I could handle hard truths.

"I'm sorry but I'm more than just the back of my jeans and a body that can keep you warm at night."

We glared at each other.

"That's not what I want from you."

I laughed. "You don't know what you want."

He walked towards the door. "We should have this conversation when you're not in a towel and my head..." he mumbled the last part as he walked out.