He shuddered curling his knees against the sheets that itched and scratched his bare legs and pressed them into his abdomen to relieve the aching pain in his stomach. The room had grown unbearably cold in an instant with electric heater had been unplugged from its socket. A draft of cold air from the slit of door hit his form which raised goosebumps on his naked arms and thighs. He shivered, tugging down the hem of his polo shirt to cover his thighs that had been at the mercy of his shorts. The mattress shifted beside him, and he further curled into himself pressing his balled fists into his stomach as fingers snaked into his hair. Sweat poured out of every single ounce of his body at the touch and he felt the sheets completely drenched beneath him. Fingers scratched his scalp that made his skin crawl and his stomach churned at the unnamed sickening feeling. It must have been her but his mind didn't register any sign of familiarity between the two sensations. The fingers glided to the nape of his neck which disturbed his body into spasming with fear. Cold deep breaths ghosted over his face and chest, fleeting touch of cold hands that tingled his numbed toes and he felt sick in his stomach. He moaned, incoherent words tumbled from his quivering lips which meant to be the name of girl. Ice-cold hand rubbed side of his neck which closed around his bobbing throat and his body shot up in a defensive mode as his instincts kicked him awake. His eyes snapped open and he frantically searched around his empty bedroom. Beads of sweat ran down his back, sticking to the base of his spine. Black hair were plastered on his forehead and neck. Grey shirt was clinging to his drenched torso as if he had been running a high temperature and suddenly doused with a bucket of cold water. The chill in the room made him shiver and he wrapped his arms around his body.
"Lanie..." Rohan spoke to himself or rather into the emptiness of the dark room from the absence of the girl of his concern. He reached to touch the side of the neck. It had felt too real in his mind and he wondered if he had been really dreaming or his mind playing tricks on him because of the medication. He stood up from his bed and stumbled inside the bathroom, shakily fumbling with the switch to turn on the light as giddiness got worse of him. The light blinded his eyes that burnt like acid and nausea finally hit him .He staggered inside the bathroom to empty his stomach in the bowl. He threw up the eggs and soup, medicines that he had had before taking afternoon nap.
"Melaine..." He coughed and spat his saliva, desperately trying to call for the girl but met with a nerve chilling silence. His entire body convulsed before he leaned over the bowl and threw up bitter liquid one more time. His chest heaved, wheezing he clutched his aching ribs and rested his light head against the bath tub in exhaustion.
"Melaine?" Rohan covered his eyes with arm and clenched his stomach hard enough to dig his fingers in the taut muscles. He met with another silence in the house that could have upset his stomach again.
Thinking that the girl must have been out, he pushed himself on his aching feet and made to the washbasin to clean himself. He washed his face with lukewarm water that calmed down his agitated nerves and took in his reflection. He looked like a real mess, he thought, examining his pale pallor like a ghost . He looked like a patient of anemia; dark circles under his eyes that could have been taken as symptom of insomnia but he had been sleeping most of the hours of the day. Medicines were to put him to sleep to recover faster and give him peace of mind. But nothing seemed to help him with his nightmares that had started to come back. He felt himself constantly being watched by someone inside his own house and the idea of it which was unnerving tied knots in his stomach again. Rohan wished Melaine were here with him to talk him out like she had done before to have him convinced.
'It's pure paranoia', she would say, that there's no one in the house or rather it is what she had wanted him to believe. He knew that she must have known, ought to have known something but refused to tell him. He's sleeping most of the day, always slipping into realm of unconscious with unexplained tiredness and drowsiness without remembering much before sleeping as if knocked out with an anesthesia which he didn't question but had suspected too often to be suspicious about. He brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth thinking about the strangeness of Melaine's absence who wouldn't leave him alone especially when he's asleep given his condition.
'Something urgent must have come up'.
He sighed and removed his sweaty shirt, throwing it in the laundry basket before stepping into the hot shower to help him against the cold in his joints and muscles. Maybe, she's right that he's paranoid which could be the best explained that it was nothing but after affects of his medication that wore him down.
By the time he returned to his warm room in bathrobe, he noticed the heater was on much to his surprise, being plugged into the socket filling the room with hot air which he swore wasn't at the time when he woke up. He stood there surprised, being recalling whether it had been off before or had he turned it on himself. He discarded his thoughts and decided to change into warm clothes first before catching a cold and question himself later about the heater. He was yanking his sweater down when he heard the simultaneous opening and closing of the two doors. He stared at his door, perplexed if he had heard two doors exactly at the same time .
'Was someone inside the house? Or it's draft of air that slammed the doors shut?'
"Melaine" It must be her, he thought coming out of his room into the hall. He checked into the other rooms and called out for her.
"Must be the air, then." He muttered slipping inside the kitchen and opened the cabinet to get the bottle of his tablets. He opened the cap and dumped a pill on his palm. The tablets always made him sleepy and nauseous, even if they were to relieve the headache and he hated being prescribed on them by his doctor. He put the pill back in the bottle, slamming the cap on its mouth in anger and decided to ask Melaine what they were exactly for since they helped less and caused more agitation. The ring of the phone shattered the haunting silence of the house and he went straight to pick up the handset from its base.
"Rohan?" It was Melaine's voice.
"Yeah"
"Why is your cellphone going off?" She questioned and he wondered if he had heard his cellphone ringing or he must've put it on the vibration, neither of which he could remember clearly.
"I don't know", he shrugged as if she could visualize him through the receiver by his nonchalant tone.
"Where are you?" He asked massaging his throbbing temples.
"I'm at the pharmacy. You were burning hot and I needed to ask your doctor for..."
"When are you coming back?" He questioned again resting his forehead on the cool wall whose paint smell seemed to calm him down.
"Rohan ...are you okay?" She didn't sound like asking his well being or perhaps he's getting insecure about their relationship concerning his mental issues following the hospital incident when he had been assured that there's no drug in his system for the purpose of rape. Besides, he could not have remembered if he had been given one.
"My stomach hurts."
"Did you take anything?"
"I- I just threw..." He squeezed his eyes closed and it's then heard the front door squeaked open and shut again. He peeked his head out of the kitchen staring into the empty hall.
'Was someone inside the house'. He hung up on Melaine for a second and took cordless handset with him as he approached towards the door. He pulled aside the curtain to look through the glass of window and caught a glimpse of figure in umbrella stepping down the road. He squinted his eyes to adjust to the blinking dimmed light of the wet evening and leaned forward to get a clear vision of the figure.
"Damn it!" He cursed aloud when the figure turned around the corner of street. Rohan gritted his teeth enough to hurt his jaw and immediately pressed the button to end the call tossing the handset in the corner. He rushed to put on his black coat and long boots before grabbing his cellphone and umbrella to go after her. There's no way he could have mistaken her blonde hair for anyone else.He gritted his teeth in anger that she had been inside the house entire time but she didn't bother to reply to him. But what aggravated him most that why did she call him to make him believe that she was at the pharmacy for his medicines.
'The hell is she up to?' He reflected trying to control himself from cursing aloud and shouting out for her rathe chose to follow her where she had been going.He waited for her to get off the main lane and he opened his umbrella to follow her. She had been in long dark blue coat, her hair were hidden under a scarf and he could tell she had been on phone talking to someone or rather she had been talking to him. He put a good distance between her and himself, to avoid being suspicions since what he had learned from the past encounters that she's blessed with good instincts and high sensations. The inky sky of the late hour of the evening darkened and drizzle turned into heavy downpour. She got off the street and took a turn to her left, disappearing behind the old buildings of the block and he fastened his steps not to loose sight of her. The rain fell like a mist over the buildings creating a screen of mist and making it hard for him to see anything. The splash of his boots in the puddles of water gathered in the street disturbed the silence of narrow alley and he wondered if she hadn't already heard him behind her. He wanted to call out for her, confront her about lying to him but a part of him wanted to follow her further where she had been going. The silhouette of the figure kept on taking different turns and he felt himself lost between the old towering buildings. She took another turn to her right and he turned around the block into an alley behind her. It's then he noticed something odd about the figure which made him stop dead in his tracks and drop his umbrella letting the rain to hit his form. It took him a second or two to recover from the shock when he ran after the figure and put his hand on the shoulder turning the person around to face him.
'It can't be'.
He stared at the face of the person deadpanned as ran sprayed his face. It was a guy whose sharp electric eyes pierced into the back of his skull and bored right into his soul in half- surprise and amusement to his shocked reaction.
"Do you need anything?", his deep voice sent a cold shiver in his body. He dropped his hand from the person's shoulder completely soaked to his bones in the rain.
'It can't happen'.
He stumbled back being shocked. He could swear that it's her whom he saw leaving the house with half concealed face and blonde hair. He hadn't lost her sight in the alleys then how could he end up following a wrong person.
"Are you feeling okay?" The person asked again removing his mobile from his ear and Rohan didn't know whether to shake his head in affirmation or negation because he could no longer believe his eyes and ears.
"S-sorry I mistook you for someone else", he tried to form an apology on his tied tongue.
"Sure you did", the person looked up at him through his half rimmed glasses before turning his back to Rohan and walking away. Rohan back stepped from there and slumped against the wet wall fisting his hand in his hair. A raw shout erupted from his throat which was already sore from the vomit, got engulfed by the sound of thunderclap in the sky. He knew it's Melaine, he knew that it's her not the guy he ended up chasing. He knew he didn't take pills before leaving house, he wasn't in half- conscious state. It wasn't an hallucination, illusion or mirage to his eyes because of the rain. There's no one except them two, then how could this have happened?
He bit onto his fist muffling his shout to remind himself through the pain that he had been fully awake. The throbbing pain in his hand was real, everything he witnessed had been real than a mere slip of his conscious. His cellphone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled out to check the caller ID. 15 missed calls, 2 text and a voice message from Melaine. Rohan swallowed hard and clicked open the voice message.
"Rohan? Where the hell are you ? I'm at back your place and you aren't at home. Why aren't you even picking up your phone. Call me ..."
He cut off the voice message and sagged against the wall shivering as temperature of his body started dropping. He knew he wasn't wrong about the figure leaving his home was anyone but Melaine. How could he lost sight of her when he's right behind her. Even if he went after the wrong person, how could he explain him at his door. It didn't make any sense, everything started to stop making a sense in his life and one way or another it always led back to her.
"Fuck!" He slammed his fist on the ground groaning. If only he could ask Melaine to answer him but the last thing he wanted to talk to her at that moment. He swiped open the wet screen of his phone and without a second thought pressed to call Annie hoping his cell could work and signals won't get mixed up.
"Hello?"
"..."
"Rohan?" Instead of answering, he nodded before realizing she couldn't see him.
"Yeah"
"Your voice is shaking. Are you alright?"
"No..."
"It's too much noise in the background, from where are you speaking?"
"I don't know", he answered closing his eyes and shuddered against the cold.
"What do you mean? You aren't at home?" She sounded panicked than he had expected of her.
"No"
"Rohan, you need to tell me where are you?"
"..."
"Rohan?"
"Block 6B and I don't know what street?"
"Stay where you are. I'm coming to get you"
"..."
"Rohan?"
"Okay"
"Okay, I'm coming."
Annie cut off the call and ran to grab keys of her car before settling behind the wheels and driving to the 6B block. His voice sounded tired and broken, as if he's unsure of himself to call her or not.
'What the hell he has been doing out in the rain?'
Annie's first resolve was to call Melaine and question her sense of responsibility as so called girlfriend who wouldn't allow Annie to be near him but she knew Rohan mustn't have wanted to have her known about him. If he had called her up than his girlfriend, it must be something he only wanted her to know. She stopped at the red signal, jiggling her leg in impatience and didn't waste any time in speeding down the road when the signal showed green. She stopped at the block and thanked her brother who always had kept spare umbrella in the back of the car. She opened the umbrella and crossed the street in her slippers that got soaked in the rain, not that she cared about her cold feet than well-being of Rohan. She darted from alley to alley trying to find the boy before he could die of the cold. She's getting out of the breath and stumbled upon a forgotten umbrella in the middle of alley. She gasped and pulled out her cellphone to call Rohan, hoping he would be here somewhere. The ringtone of his mobile reverberated through the walls and she immediately darted to the source of its sound. She took a turn to left and her eyes landed on his form curled against the wall, barely covered by the metallic sheet at the top of building that provided him shelter. She skidded towards him and fell on her knees in front of him.
"Rohan?" She put hand on his knee that made him jerk up at the touch.
"Mhmmm", his head lolled to side and his eyes fluttered close.
"What the hell you did to yourself?" She tipped his chin up in horror taking in his pale face and purple lips because of the cold. She supported his head up and took off his drenched coat. She removed her jacket quickly and draped it around his shoulder. She touched his forehead with the back of her hand that had already been burning up because of the fever and he hissed at the coolness of her touch against his feverish skin. He looked at her for few seconds then let his head drop on her shoulder, shivering badly.
"Can you stand up for me?" She spoke in his ear rubbing his back and he barely nodded before she draped his arm around her shoulder and hooked her arm around his waist to support his weight and carried them both to her car. She settled him in the backseat, taking off his shoe and wet socks and got behind the steering wheel.
"Do you want to go to your house?" She questioned him looking over her shoulder.
"Rohan?" She asked again and he didn't give her any response.
"Okay, do you want me to drop you at Melaine's..."
"No!"
She was taken aback by the intensity of harsh tone and she nodded turning her attention back to the road, as she clutched the gear and ignited the engine.
"I'm taking you to my place."