Chapter 10 Perdue

ANONYMOUS

"Hello---Aleema, it's past midnight now---call me when you get this." I cut the call and dropped the phone next to me on the chair I sat. I had called Aleema's number for the sixteenth time with no response from her, I got tired and decided to drop messages on her voice mail. I also checked her whatsapp and found out she hadn't been online since before we left home in the morning.

"Aleema," I gave a heavy breath out, "where are you?" I said to myself.

I picked my phone up to dial her number. "Hello! I'm sorry I didn't---ha! Gotcha. Please leave a message."

"Damn voicemail," I said, "hello, Aleema, why aren't you picking up--- you're having me worried. Please call as soon as you get this." I said then hung up.

Now the time was 1:30 am. After pacing around the apartment expecting her call at any moment, but there was nothing. I went to the fridge to have myself a glass of water, after which I sat on the couch looking at the ceiling.

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"Wow! You look pretty in that dress girl. Are you a model?"

I looked at the light skin lady who asked me the question. "Noo, I'm not." I said staring at myself in the mirror.

"With a body like yours, I can get you into a modelling agency." She said.

I looked at her. "You look like a model." I said.

"I am." She said smiling at me with her slim lips with black lipstick on them.

She held me by my hands and faced me. "I know why you're here. What happened?" She looked at me like she was staring into my soul, she looked like she really cared to know what happened to me.

"Let's go to my apartment." She said, leading me out of the store.

When we got to the apartment, she gave me food.

"Why---why do you care?" I asked

"I'm Aleema, and well I care about women a lot--women like you."

She took me to her family's house in Kanata to meet them. She and I eventually started working for a modelling company downtown.

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Next morning when I woke up, I noticed I had crashed on the couch in the sitting room. I picked my phone which was now on the floor. "Shit." The time on it was nine. I stood up to check the room. Maybe she came when I was asleep, but she didn't. She was not in her room.

I tried her number again but still, it went into voicemail but I immediately cut before it directed to voicemail. "I hope nothing bad happened." I said rubbing in between my eyes.

"Vmm --- vmmmmm--vm--"

"Hello! Who's this?" I said when I picked, hoping it'll be Aleema. "Hello...hey." I realized the person had cut.

I decided to go to the restaurant where we met Marcus. "You?" I said when I saw the waiter who came to take their order before I left.

"Me?" He said looking at me surprisingly.

"Yes you! Can I see you for a second?" I asked him.

He looked around. "Uhh--OK I'm coming." He said approaching me.

"I'm sorry for your time but, can you remember me? I came here yesterday with my friend---can you remember?" I asked bringing out my phone and showing him a picture of Aleema, "I see you going in before I left---like in the private dining--"

"I remember you, I remember your friend won that white bearded man. She wore uhh--a blue crop top was it?" He said holding his chin.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! She did!" I said with joy as I held his arms while shaking him.

"She left, she with the man...although she did seem drowsy, but I know they left almost as soon as you did."

"Okay," I said smiling, "thank you!" I gave him a tip to show my gratitude and left.

By this time I was scared. They left almost immediately and yet, Aleema was drowsy. I knew for sure she didn't drink, so how come? I became even more troubled and began to fear the worst. Maybe my friend was in danger, I had to do something if I got home and she wasn't still back. I had to involve the police.

When I got home Aleema was not back, I also tried her phone which still entered voice mail. I was sure something was wrong by this time. Aleema would never want to even spend the night outside without telling me, we're like sisters.

"Maybe wait one more day," I said walking into the bathroom to shower, "Aleema, I hope you're safe."

As the water ran through from my head to my feet, I began to cry. Why? Why do people I'm close to leave me in the most tragic way, I thought. "I shouldn't think like that." I said to myself.

"Aleema is alright."

SUSAN

So when I refused Aiden's proposal to marry me, I felt I needed to leave Ottawa to get the life I crumbled back. And now part of that life had come to haunt me again. I stood up from my chair in my kitchen to my work desk at home. I remembered the past two weeks I was supposed to help an intern student in the firm to sort some files and then send them back.

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I was in a club in Toronto the night I got there, just drinking and trying to forget all. When my favorite songs came on I stood up to dance in the crowd and then went back to have my drink, for the first three nights, this was my life. My life was a party and at the end of the day I would go home with a man to satisfy my hormones. I made sure they were rich.

But the fourth night at that same club, I was sober, even with all the songs I just could not get into the groove.

"Hey." A man said when he approached me.

I looked at him. "Aiden!" I said with a smile on my face.

"Sorry?" He said looking confused, "you must have me confused with someone else."

"Yeah, I'm not interested in you. Go!" I stood up to make my way out of the club.

When I got out, I almost tripped but a hand quickly grabbed my arm.

"Hey, hey, watch where you're going pretty." She said.

"I'm sorry," I smiled, "I'm just so drunk---thank you."

"Are--you sure you can get home?" She asked.

"Sure! My hostel isn't far from here." I replied.

"Okay, bye." She said releasing her soft grip on my arm.

The next day, I was about to leave the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel, then I pumped into a dark thick lady whose eyes were on her phone.

"I'm sorry." She said.

Wow! Such a deep voice she has I thought to myself. "No problem." I said. Her curves and pretty face made me admire her. And her voice was a plus.

"Wait!" she said looking back, "do you remember me?" She asked.

"Uhh noo. Have we met?" I asked.

"Yeah---last night, remember you almost fell and I happened to catch you before you did."

I paused a little before I replied. "Yeahh," I smiled, "I do. I'm so sorry I-- I was so damn high and sober." I said.

She chuckled which made me also chuckle nervously. "I'm Clara." She said stretching out her hand for a hand shake.

"Susan." I said smiling, stretching my hand to receive hers.

"Pleased to meet you, so this is the hotel you're lodged in?" She asked.

"Yeah it is."

"I'm here too. Do you mind if---wait," she said, putting her hand in a purse and bringing out a card, "here. My card, call me, I'll love to see you again."

I stretched my hand to collect the card. "Sure, I'll--contact you Ciara."

And from there she and I became close friends. Luckily she and I studied the same course in University, Law. So we had a lot in common. We went to parties, got drunk, and went to our rooms. It was so for the two weeks I came, until she told me she was on break from work and that she'd be resuming back at work and would have to go back to her apartment there in Toronto but in a different city.

"You're leaving." I said when she told me.

"Yeah, tomorrow morning." She said as she reached for my hand.

My heart began to beat really fast, I didn't know why. "What?" I asked.

"What?!" She repeated and chuckled, "I'm---gonna miss you."

"I'll miss you too." I said then hugged her.

She smiled, her smile was always so beautiful. "Bye." She said then she left my room.

Immediately she left, I dropped on my bed covering my face with my palms. I realized I was shaking when she left. I wanted her, I needed her. But how would she take it if she knew I did.

ANONYMOUS

The house was so quiet and boring. I picked up my phone to look at pictures Aleema and I took in London. I started crying till I slept off.

I had a dream that day.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"You never loved me." I screamed at the elderly woman who stood in front of me.

"Young girl what are you doing alone?" A fair complexioned lady asked a dark young girl.

"We'll see through this together---okay." The same fair complexioned last said to that same dark girl.

Then I saw Aleema smiling. "I miss you my friend. I should have listened."

"It wasn't your fault." I said trying to hold her but she went further away.

"I know why you're here," I heard Aleema say so I turned back and saw her talking to me, "what happened?" She asked.

I started crying. "I don't--I---I don't know. Where did you go?" I tried hugging her but she disappeared, after which I woke up from my dream. I picked my phone up to check the time, and it was just seven in the evening.

I stood up to take a stroll on the street, as I walked I asked people if they had seen her. I used her pictures on my phone to ask around. After the long hours it was ten in the night, when I got to be building, I sat on the staircase waiting to see if she'd come. Then suddenly my phone rang, I looked at the screen to see who it was. "Yusuf." I said. I didn't know whether to pick or not, till my phone stopped ringing, again it started ringing it was still him but I still didn't pick so it stopped.

"I better go inside." I said to myself, then my phone made a ding which indicated a message. It was a message from Yusuf which read: "Hey I've been calling my sis throughout today and she hasn't picked up, then I call you and you also do not pick up. Is something the matter? Please if she's with you, tell her to call me, it's urgent."

I took a deep sigh of distress. "I'll tell him tomorrow."