You call this fate?

Chapter 44

I bit my lip as I stepped into a corner besides a counter, out of the way of the running people. I tapped the heel of my flats on the ground in an attempt to give my toes some space. The shoes were incredibly cute, with a giant bow and multi-coloured cartoon elephants on a black background, but sadly slightly on the snug side-though who cared?

My heartbeat was starting to spike and I could feel an inexplicable tremor in my extremities. I had a feeling that I almost knew what news it was she was so excited to tell me. It was like that cloud of premonition that sometimes engulfs you, the idea that you just know what's going to happen, though you are hesitant to accept it even to yourself. My mind refused to string the words together, refused to conjure up the pictures associated with it, but my chest was starting to feel horribly hollow.

"Zara..." Tasha's voice was almost too silent for me to hear.

My ears were starting to feel hot. "What happened, Tasha?" I asked, my voice barely decipherable to my own ears, the words leaving my mouth almost without my say so. "What is it?" The room was starting to swim along the edges.

"He's awake."

My breath hitched in my throat and froze into a fist.

I ran.

It took me nearly an hour to get to the hospital through the congested streets, and the only reason I knew that was because I kept glancing at my watch as the terribly difficult to attain taxi, when finally on the move, stopped so many times that I was ready to just brave the distance on my feet come what may. But I knew that once we did get out of the traffic, the remaining distance was too long to travel on my own, and hailing a cab from that area was going to be nigh on impossible.

So I sat through the excruciatingly slow movements of the vehicle, alternating between biting my lips, biting my nails, and tapping my foot so fast and hard that once I did stop, I couldn't feel it anymore. In addition to the frustration of it all, I was suddenly assailed by a storm of contradictory feelings as well, like I didn't have enough to think about already. I was going to see him, but should I? Why did I feel so eager, like a bird about to fly for the first time, like a fish finally released into the lake again?

Driving along this street of thoughts, my mind would suddenly brake and start to backpedal. I shouldn't be so eager. I should have just completed my shift at the café before I left. What had gotten into me? It wasn't like he was going to waltz away anytime soon. It is not my place to be eager. For all intends and purposes, I was nothing more than a friend to him, if that even.

But if I am a friend, it was alright for me to feel this way...right?

I groaned to myself, making the cabbie look in the rear-view mirror with morbidly expectant curiosity.

I couldn't reconcile my feelings. What was happening to me? Why was I so unsure of myself? I couldn't think of a moment in my life where I had been unsure of my position, of who I was...but now? Now I knew seemingly nothing. It was like there was a chuck of space in the world where his and my life connected, and it was always stormy there, always a tempest brewing over the horizon. There were moments when the sun shone, when the flowers felt its warmth over their desperate faces, but the clouds of uncertainty were always nearby, always ready to cast everything into doubt again.

No matter the train of my unsettled thoughts, the moment the cab stopped before the hospital, I all but threw the money on the driver's face as I tore the door open and ran inside. I could hear his confused exclamations, rapidly descending into profanity, follow me through the doors-till they shut behind me and locked everything out, that is.