Birds of A Cage

"Fate is a fickle whore"

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."