Chapter 9

Temi P.O.V

I stare at my laptop screen, looking at my poetry blog that has remained inactive for over a month. This has to be the longest I have gone without posting since I started the blog a year and a half ago. But even now, I can't bring myself to post anything.

There are comments from my usual subscribers asking about the lack of new content in almost a month, but I don't reply to any of them. Instead, I exit the tab on my laptop and stare at the blank page of an essay I'm supposed to submit in a couple of hours.

I open a new tab to write an email to my Professor asking for an extension, when I sneak a glance at Isa.

Isa is sitting a couple of tables away from me at the library, but facing me. She has a magazine open in front of her but doesn't really look invested.

At that moment, Isa glances up, catching my eye. I send her a glare and glance away. She will not let me out of her sight. Not even when I tell her I am just going to the library to do some work and I am really getting sick of it. The only time she isn't within a 50 feet vicinity is when I am in class, and that is only because she can't come into classes, seeing as she is not a student at the University.

An idea suddenly pops into my head. I stand up from my desk at the library and begin packing up my things. From the top of my eye, I can see Isa rise from her seat as well and start walking towards me.

"Heading to class?" she asks, even though she already knows the answer to this, as she knows my entire schedule.

I nod my head slightly and brush past her, not bothering with a verbal reply. I don't want her to think we have a relationship or anything just because I spoke a few more words than usual to her during dinner last night.

As usual, Isa keeps a steady distance behind me, and I watch her stop in her tracks as I enter the building where I have my philosophy class. I rush to the nearest window and watch Isa from there.

Isa is standing with her hands in her pockets for a few moments, staring at students as they bustle about before she turns on her heels and walks away. I know she will not be back till my class period is over, which is the perfect opportunity for me.

Waiting a few moments longer, I exit the building and walk in the opposite direction of Isa. Skipping class is not anything that I'm not accustomed to. However, in the past, I had hardly ever skipped class because I always got too anxious that I would miss out on important stuff. But dire times call for dire actions. Of course, there's also the fact that I'd rather not sit in a class that revolves around existence and the meaning of life when I am currently contemplating existence and every other thing that comes with it.

It's not long before I have exited the school main campus and I walk for about fifteen more minutes before I arrive at my destination.

It is the Forever Bridge. A bridge in town with a tradition where people put padlocks on the fence. It's believed to make relationships last forever. I walk on the overpass bridge looking at the various padlocks that have been locked to the fence of the bridge over the years. It does not take me long to come upon the padlock Grace and I had put there when we first moved here for college.

I take the padlock in my hand, turning it over carefully to see Grace and I's initials inscribed at the back. I smile despite myself, reminiscing about the first day that we had come up here together. We had joked about how cheesy things like these were, only for us to return a couple of hours later with a padlock of our own.

A lone tear rolls down my cheek and the sadness I have come so familiar with over these past weeks takes hold of me once again. I sit at the corner of the bridge, wishing that things could be different. But I know that no amount of wishing is going to bring my best friend back.

I don't want to go back just yet and I find my feet taking me to a bar around the corner. It's still early in the evening, so the bar is pretty empty.

"Hello, what can I get for you this evening?" the dark-haired, skinny bartender asks as I settle on the stool in front of him.

"Whatever it is you recommend," I say.

The bartender hesitates before asking for my ID. I pull out my fake seeing as I'm not yet 21 and hand it to him.

He returns a few moments later with my drink, and I thank him before I take a sip. I think of how awkward it will be to come here after I turn 21 in a couple of months and he finds out I'm not really 'Aleeysha Shaw'.

The drink is sweet and has a sharp tang to it. I sit in silence sipping from my glass and watching people interacting with one another in the dimly lit bar. It's not long before I start to feel relaxed. A state that has been foreign to me these past few months, but I know that this feeling is only an illusion. It's only temporary.

I don't know how many minutes pass by until I glimpse the clock on the wall to see that my class ended more than an hour ago.

Shit. I quickly rise to my feet, gather myself, and head out of the bar.

The walk back to my apartment is not as fast as it should be given the circumstances. I'm not drunk, but I am a little tipsy and the weight of the situation I am in does not seem that serious in the state that I am in.

I arrive back at my apartment in about 20 minutes.

"Isa." I say once I walk in, but there's no response. I wonder if she's looking for me on campus, seeing as that is the last place she saw me.

For a moment, I wonder if I should go looking for her but decide against it. She'll have to come back to the apartment at some point, and when she does, she will see that I am alive and in one piece.

I'm about to walk into my room when I catch sight of a large box spread open on the living room couch. I walk closer and my eyes instantly widen once I realize what it is. Weapons. No doubt, it belongs to Isa.

There are all sorts of weapons. Ranging from simple things like batons to complex weapons I have never even seen before.

Without thinking, I reach out and grab a hold of a gun. I have no idea what type of gun I am holding, but it is smooth and the dark metal feels cold and heavy in my hand.

At that moment I hear the front door of the apartment open and before I know it, Isa appears before me.

There is a brief moment during which we just stare at each other, before Isa speaks:

"Temi," she says, her voice eerily low, "drop the gun."

It's then that I realize how I appear.

"No, Isa I'm not-"

"Temi... Drop. The. Gun." Isa's voice is not low like it had been the first time. It's still calm, but there's a frantic edge to it. I look at the woman in front of me. Her long hair that has been packed back in a ponytail this morning is now scattered across her head. She's panting hard, as she stands a little distance away from me.

For some reason unknown to me, I think of how weirdly attractive she looks. The thought passes through my head briefly and I am caught up on wondering why such a thought about Isa would even cross my mind in the first place when I am suddenly tackled aggressively.

I don't even fully realize what is happening until I hit the ground. Hard. Isa uses her hands to protect my head, but my back still takes the impact. My breath is literally knocked out of me and I am forced to lie motionless as Isa kicks the gun away that has now slipped from my grip before proceeding to lay her full body weight on me, restraining me completely.

"What the fuck do you think you're trying to do?" Isa says from on top of me, her voice dangerously low.

"Isa..." I pant, "it's not what it looks like."

"Bullshit." She replies angrily. Her face has to be an inch away from mine. Her eyes are blazing in anger, yet all I seem to see is her full lips right above mine.