The Ripmender

Chapter 10

"How did it go?" Aldytha asked as we walked to the res.

"It looked like it got kind've heated for a while there," Zama remarked.

Tenley sighed. "And then he looked like you told him he had only two days to live."

Of course, it must have looked weird to outsiders.

"He understood," I said. "I told him that it would be better if we didn't spend any time together in the future. It might be too hard on him to be around me when he can't have me."

Maybe I should take up amateur dramatics as a minor qualification. I was a brilliant actress.

"Did you know that one of those girls wanted him to sign her butt!" I said, hoping that would get them onto another topic, and I wouldn't have to go through the conversation blow by blow.

"At least she didn't flash him," said Tenley. "Someone did that to my boyfriend Michael at a party once."

"Was he the one with the really cool car?" asked Zama.

The conversation moved onto safer things.

"Oh well, at least one of us could have gone out with an international rock star," Zama said as we walked into the lounge to see if there was anything on TV.

"Look who it is, Cathy," Aldytha winked.

He made the lounge look like a room in a five star hotel just because he was on the TV screen. It was his Madison Square Garden concert from the year before. I had saved both my birthday and Christmas money to be able to buy that DVD.

His sensitive fingers stroked the guitar strings as he sang a love song. His voice was tender, yet had a rough, sexy edge to it. His well-defined muscles were flexed, as he held the guitar like it was a lover. The stage lighting cast patterns that played with the folds of his shirt, and threw one side of his face into shadow, making him look mysterious and sensual. I'm sure that every girl in the room longed to make love to him.

He finished the song on a high pure note and smiled.

The kind of smile that would make any woman who watched it believe that she was the only woman in the world for him. Only last month, I had paused the DVD on that very smile, and imagined what it would be like to have him smile at me that way.

I couldn't stand to look at him any longer.

"Cathy, what's the matter?" Aldytha's voice followed me up the stairs as I ran up to the room.

They all gathered around me as I lay on my mattress on the floor and cried. I couldn't help it. My idol, my dream had disappeared, and in his place was a frightening reality that I didn't know how to handle.

"Cathy?" Aldytha whispered, stroking my arm.

"I'm sorry," I said, sitting up and wiping the hair out of my eyes. If I wasn't going to tell them the truth about Nathan, then I should pull myself together. I could see that they were really worried about me, and I didn't want to hurt them by acting all weird.

"Are you having second thoughts about him?" Tenley asked. "Do you wish you had said yes?"

"No." I managed a weak smile. "I think all this has been too much. The thing in the woods, and last night, and the questioning, and then Nathan asking me out."

"You need a good burst of normality," Aldytha said, nodding. "How about a few hours of work on our sketches, followed by lunch in Durban?"

I gave her a smile that wasn't so weak this time. Being still only seventeen, I didn't have my driver's licence yet, and hadn't left the varsity campus since I got here three weeks ago.