Anyone who has ever lost some kind of power knows all about the dangerous after-effects of losing that power. It had taken so long—7 months to be exact for Troy to completely strip Sera of her power, but it was only after that night that she consciously started to feel the after effects of him having taken her power. She felt bare, naked and exposed...vulnerable.
Sera could feel Abimbola's eyes on her during the entire car ride, but she didn't budge. She refused to budge. She just kept her eyes looking forward with her jaw locked whilst slowly reciting a mantra inside her head to avoid losing her mind.
***
Abimbola:
Abimbola was going through his second mid-life crisis. The last one had barely left him breathing. So he knew he had to find a positive way out of this ordeal. He knew Sera was sad. He just didn't quite know how he could fix it, or if he could fix it. He never was able to fix Tatiana, but with Sera it just felt different. Maybe this was his fate. Maybe he was doomed to only meet troubled women until he could find a way to fix them, or at least love them back to happiness.
He reached for the car radio, and turned the volume up because the silence was killing him. A loud, earsplitting opera song blasted from the radio, knocking him out of his thoughtful trance. He reached back towards the radio, turned it down and then braced himself to have what he liked to call "the talk" with Sera.
"It's not my place to say any of this, but I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't say it anyway. " There was a pause before he continued. "You remind me a lot of someone that I know...someone that I used to know. She too had a tendency to bottle up all her negative emotions inside, only to blow up, once her body had had enough. More often than not, she tried to sell the public this idea that she was perfect...flawless." he chuckled, wiping his chin with the palm of his hand. "But no matter how perfect she presented herself to be, every so once in a while she came undone. When that happened, I usually took her out for a ride, and when she was ready to let go of everything, she just stuck her head out and screamed, for minutes on end. "
"And did it help?", Sera replied.
"Well, I would think so", he chuckled. "She always had the biggest, goofiest smile on her face once she finished."
"Mmh"
"Mmh?"
Then there was silence.
"Tell you what?", Abimbola proposed, whilst opening the roof of his car. "If you get up, and scream whatever is making you sad away, then I promise you can play your own music, and I won't bring up anything you don't want to talk about tonight, deal?"
"Like...I must scream?", Sera asked, seemingly trying to follow his thought process.
He nodded. "You have nothing to lose."
"Let me get this straight...I must get up and start screaming randomly? And that's all its gonna take for me to be in charge of the music?"
He nodded again, a hint of amusement written all over his face. He knew his music was lousy, but he loved seeing Sera's reaction to it, and even more so her reaction to the suggestion that she had the power to change the music.
He watched proudly and amusedly as her face sparked, going from sad, to daring. He couldn't hear her thoughts. But if he could, he assumed she would be thinking something like: 'Fuck it! You only live once!'
He liked that about her. He loved how she could be sensitive and sassy at the same time. That was all the power she needed.
She bit her lower lip, unbuckled her seatbelt, looked over in Abimbola's direction and whispered "Challenge accepted."
***
Sera:
Abimbola didn't seem to be moved by her bold declaration. Instead, he continued watching her intently, as though expecting her to fail, or back out. But Sera was determined to win the challenge she had so boldly accepted. So she stuck her head out and took a deep breath in, making sure to take in all the air.
She could feel the wind blowing in her face, and that helped her to feel more relaxed and care- free. Yet, try as she did, she couldn't gather up the strength or the courage to scream. She stayed on the roof of the car for a few more seconds before she finally decided she was ready to face Abimbola again. She slipped her head inside and clasped her seatbelt, a heaviness in her heart.
Abimbola continued staring straight ahead as though he were waiting for Sera to say the first words. There was an uncomfortable silence in the car, though it may all have been in Sera's imagination.
"I can't do it, okay? I just can't.", Sera finally said after a while. "I don't know why, but I can't do it"
He smiled understandingly. "I apologize if you felt pressurized. I was just trying to help you relieve some tension. But you don't need to do anything, alright? There is no pressure. Everyone is different...maybe screaming isn't for you."
Sera nodded, clutching her purse, and fixing her hair.
He shifted awkwardly. "Besides, no one ever quite gets it right on the first try. Hell, it took Tatiana two to three tries before she finally gathered up the courage to do it." He chuckled heartily before turning to look at her. "After that, she was an expert."
She thought about asking "Was?", But then decided that was too intrusive a question. Maybe they were separated. Maybe they were divorced. Maybe they were going through something. Either way, it was none of her business.
So, finally, she settled with: "Is that her name? Tatiana?".
He turned to look at her, and for a moment there was a deep sadness in his eyes but then he nodded.
Sera's heart sank, but despite that, she forced herself to smile. "She sounds lovely."
They drove in silence for a while before he said. "Take the aux cord."
"What?" Sera replied.
"We had a deal, and I plan on keeping my end of the bargain."
"Oh no." Sera replied uneasily. "The deal was that I had to scream to get the aux cord. I didn't scream, so no aux cord for me, today."
"Serendipity" he said. His voice was firm, and commanding of attention but also had an element of softness to it.
"Abimbola", Sera replied mirroring his tone.
"Take the aux cord."
After another moment of hesitation, Sera finally reached for the aux cord and connected it to her phone. The car was immediately filled by the sound of 90's RnB music blasting through the speakers.
"A little low-key...Not bad." Abimbola said after a while of listening. His eyes were now back to being fixated on the road, but even so, there was a distant look in his eyes that Sera wasn't quite sure how to interpret.
"Low-key?", Sera replied.
"Your music... It's very classy."
"But?"
"It's also very sad, but in a low-key way." he finished, and as he said that, his hands loosened around the steering wheel.
She looked over to the man in the driving seat, and tried to process everything he had just said as well as everything that had happened. He spoke lovingly of his wife: Tatiana, as he had called her. So she couldn't quite imagine what was driving his desire to cheat on her. It didn't make sense to her.
But then again, that was the path she had chosen. She had chosen not to give him a chance to explain himself, and so she knew she had to live with all the questions running through her head.
Sera also found that it was quite easy to forget how young Abimbola still was because of the way he carried himself in general, but even more so in professional settings. But right then, in that moment, watching him from the passenger seat, with his eyes solely focused on the road, and watching him subtly bop his head to her choice of music, she was reminded that he too was going through the same phases that everyone else their age was. So, even though she was still in denial, little, by little, and slowly but surely, she felt herself being dragged into his world.
"I don't think I have ever met anyone in their 20's who is not sad in a low-key way, to be honest."
***