When Sera finally came to, she was lying down on the passenger side, in the front seat of Abimbola's car with the car seat half down, and a seat belt tightly clinging around her waist. She looked down and noted that Abimbola's blazer jacket was now wrapped around her body like a blanket.
The car was going at full speed, and that only aided in making her feel even more sick than she felt initially. Her vision was still a bit blurred, but she could still hear somewhat clearly.
"Well, can you contain it or not?", Abimbola asked whoever he was talking to on the phone. His voice sounded calm, yet panicked all at the same time. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his hands were tightened on the steering wheel.
The person on the other end of the line replied, but Sera couldn't exactly hear what they were saying. Judging by the expression on Abimbola's face, however, she guessed that it wasn't good news.
"Well, if you can't do your job properly, then let me know so I can find someone who can!" Abimbola roared before dropping the phone, cussing out loud, and then running a hand furiously through his hair. Then, as if the car wasn't already going fast enough, he stepped on the accelerator, making the car move even faster.
And that's when Sera finally decided to speak.
"Just out of curiosity...Are you trying to kill me with this speed?"
Her voice came out sounding very weak and hoarse, but that was the least of her concerns. She hadn't been awake for long, but her body was already threatening to shut down again.
Abimbola was visibly startled, but despite this, when he turned to face Sera, his face was filled with both worry and distress.
"Hey...I was starting to get worried", he said whilst slowing down the car. "And sorry about that...I was just trying to get to the hospital as quickly as I could."
"No hospital." Sera replied firmly despite her weak state.
"What?"
"No hospital."
"But you're hurt...you just passed out. What if you're bleeding internally?"
As he spoke, it dawned on Sera that even though she had only known Abimbola for a short period of time, most of their interactions had only ever revolved around her being in some kind of trouble, and him saving her, and even though there were a million things for her to worry about in that moment, that particular thing was worrying her the most.
"I'm curious, why do you keep saving me?"
"What?"
"Why do you keep saving me? Why did you save me just now?"
"Uhm...because you needed me to save you?"
She knew she was reaching, but that didn't stop her blood from boiling.
"Do you think I'm some damsel in distress who needs a man to come and save her?"
"I'm not quite sure where this is goi-"
"It's just...you seem to enjoy saving me a lot, Abimbola. Am I some kind of project to you? Is this entertaining for you? Seeing me like this?"
"Sera...some random guy was attacking you in the bathroom, what was I supposed to do? Let him?"
"YES!"
"That's crazy. Why would I do that?"
His unusual calmness only aided in fanning her anger.
"Because I know that guy and I had everything under control!"
"Really? And how exactly did you have it under control?"
"I SAID I HAD IT UNDER CONTROL! YOU NEED TO STOP TREATING ME LIKE A FUCKING EGG, ABIMBOLA!"
"Oh, you mean like how you had it under control when you tried to blow your own brains out earlier on? Like that? Is that what you mean?"
"Why do you care what I do with my life? It's my life! Mine, not yours!"
He sighed exasperatedly.
"You're a lot to deal with, Sera. Any normal person in your position would be thanking me right now. I don't understand what I did wrong."
"Ha! So that's what you are looking for? A thank you?! Alright then, thank you, Sir Abimbola, for saving my royal ass twice in one month. I am eternally in your grace and favour."
His jaw tightened. "Stop it."
"Or what?"
He opened his mouth to speak, but then seemed to debate against it. An uncomfortable silence filled the air, but then after a while, he took a deep breath, but kept his eyes straight ahead.
"You know what?", he said. "You are right. I had no right fighting your battles for you. At this point in time, I'm just gonna drop you off at home, and then go about my evening. Is that okay?"
Sera nodded uneasily, suddenly unsure of why she had just attacked him or why he was taking it so well. In that moment, she wanted to take all her verbal diarrhoea back, but she didn't know how to do so without looking mentally unstable, so she just kept quiet, and she let him drive.
An extremely uncomfortable and awkward silence filled the air. It stayed that way for a while too, and Sera found herself wondering if either one of them would ever find the strength or the courage to speak to each other directly ever again after all that had just happened.
Sera knew she was in the wrong, but did not know how to mend the relationship, especially using her own words. Words really seemed to be failing her.
So, after what seemed like ages, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath in, got up, balanced her feet on the car seat, stuck her head out the car roof and screamed for what felt like hours on end. She found that each time she opened her mouth, a sound came out, though she did not recognize the sound coming out of her own mouth. When she finished, she sat back down and looked at Abimbola.
He didn't turn to meet her gaze though. Instead, his eyes remained fixated on the road, an unreadable expression on his face. Sera had no doubt he was regretting acquainting himself with her. She knew she was acting crazy.
."You know...I wasn't actually going to kill myself", Sera said, finally breaking the silence.
"You weren't?", he replied, his eyes still glued on the road.
"I wasn't", Sera confirmed.
She wanted so desperately to explain to him what had been going on in her own mind, but she found there were no right words to explain it.
"It's a metaphor", Sera said, scrambling for words. "You hold in your hand the object that holds the power to destroy you, thus giving it the power to destroy you. But instead of actually letting it destroy you, you take back the power. The gun cannot go off unless I pull the trigger. I was in control the whole time. I had the power."
There air was filled with silence.
"Storage compartment", he finally replied after a while.
"What?"
"Your neck is bleeding, Ms-Sera-John-Green ", he said with a hint of mockery in his voice. "You can find some wipes in the storage compartment."
Sera looked down at her hand, and surely enough it was bleeding lightly. There were some light nail marks around her wrist where Troy's nails had been digging into her skin. But other than that, she didn't actually feel any pain.
"So you just enjoy teasing death?", he said again, after a while, this time with his voice sounding a lot more serious than it had before.
"Have you ever felt powerless?", Sera asked. "Like, have you ever had someone take away something or someone that belonged to you? Like without your permission?"
He shook his head. "No...I can't say I have."
"Well, you're very lucky", Sera replied. "People have been taking from me my whole life. But what hurt the most was when they took my sister away from me. I blacked out, out of fear...just like I did now. And just like that, she was gone forever. I was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to be the responsible one, but instead I blacked out, and now she's gone, and I'm alone."
"What was her name?"
"Grace", Sera replied. "She was beautiful, you know. She was beautiful, and smart and funny, and she was a much better person than I could have ever hoped to become. She was going to become someone."
"And how long ago did she leave you?"
"She died three years ago."
Sera almost choked on the word 'died' because it still seemed surreal to her now that she was thinking about it. One minute Grace had been there, and the next she was not. She was just gone, leaving behind a cold, lifeless body in contrast to her warm, loving personality.
"Is she the one you told me about the first night we met?"
Sera nodded. "I can't believe you remembered."
"I could never forget anything you say, Sera. Everything you say is said with such intense passion and feeling. You command attention, so it's quite difficult for one not to take notice."
Sera smiled weakly in response, and then placed a hand on top of his. She was not quite sure why she was doing it, but it felt right, so she did.
"Before Grace...passed on, I held her in my arms, and I sang her to sleep. You know what she told me?"
He shook his head 'no'.
"She told me that she didn't ever want me to be sad. She told me that she wanted me to be happy and live life even without her there. Then, she made me pinkie promise to live for the both of us. What I'm trying to say is...my sister made me promise something to her on her death bed, and I don't plan on breaking that promise anytime soon. Besides...everyone knows you can't break a pinkie promise."
He squeezed her hand, slightly, and she took that as a sign to continue.
"Anyway, I have never really been good at this whole emotion feeling business, and honestly speaking? Emotions scare me. I don't like losing control or feeling powerless...but unfortunately I'm human so I have to feel all these things. So, whenever I feel any overwhelming feelings, I write. I write as a way to cope and make sense of it all. I use writing because it's the only time I ever feel powerful, because every other action I take in life just feels controlled and manipulated, you know? So, I write as a way of taking back my power, and I write to create an outlet to let my feelings out, because the alternative is emotional numbing, or killing myself, and I can't do that because I made my sister a promise. A promise I can't break because I owe her that much. The gun you saw earlier on just helps me feel closer to her, and reminds me of the promise that I can't break."
The minute Sera let everything out, she felt a sort of relief. It was almost like a huge load had been lifted off her shoulders. She was also quite surprised at how easy it was to talk to Abimbola. He had an inviting energy, was a good listener, and seemed to know all the right questions to ask to get her to open up.
"Well damn, Seme.", he replied after a while, whilst letting out a suppressed sigh. "You're kind of a bad ass."
Silence filled the air.
"Do you know what I like about you?", Sera said after a while of silence
He smirked playfully. "What do you like about me, girl?"
"I like that you listen to understand, and when you do understand, you don't pass judgement. You have seen all of me in my pure naked and most vulnerable form and yet you are still here looking at me with not pity, but admiration, like I'm the greatest person to ever live."
He smiled, turning to look at her. "Well maybe that's because I have never met anyone who is as proud of their scars, as you are. It's so refreshing to see a person who actually embraces their scars instead of trying to forget them or wipe them under the rug, so to me...you are the greatest person to have ever lived. The world is yours, darling. The rest of us are just accompanying you."
There was a moment of silence before he turned to Sera with a devious look in his eyes: "I have an idea...but you can't question it."
"Okay?"
"Put your seat-belt on."
"May I ask why?"
"Hey...you can't question me, remember?", he said, but then he must have changed his mind because just then he turned back to Sera and said. "You look pretty sad to me. Somehow I don't think Grace would be too happy about that. Also...since you refused to go to the hospital, Dr. Abimbola is going to be taking care of you tonight. Basically what I'm trying to say is: We are about to kill two birds with one stone."
Sera frowned, and she guessed Abimbola must have seen this because then he added:
"Tonight we are going to take all the sadness away. We are gonna honor one of Grace's final wishes." he said.
Before he even finished his sentence, he stepped on the accelerator, which caused the car to jolt before moving at full speed again. Sera held on to the edge of her seat, eyes wide open in horror, but that didn't seem to faze him. Instead, he turned to her with a devious look on his face and said: "I thought I told you to keep your seatbelt on."