Chapter 16

“How did you know I was here?” I asked

“I didn’t” His tone seemed accusatory, as if I’d done something wrong. I wasn’t sure what though.

“I woke up this morning and you were gone…’ His voice had an undercurrent of desperation.

I nodded and was about to explain myself, but he wasn’t finished.

“I looked for you. I couldn’t find you.”

Now I understood why he was angry, I should have left a note and told him were I was going and that I was okay.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you-“

He cut me off angrily, “Damn right you should have told me Zara! I was worried about you. I thought you might have gravitated towards another life threatening situation or something.

“But I didn’t,"

He continued, ignoring my last statement,  “And then I thought that maybe you had simply woken up and had… had…” His voice trailed off and he ran his hands through his hair. He composed himself, “Had run off again and turned into Jekel once more. That you were going to tell me you didn’t remember what happened again, or  wake up and treat me like I meant nothing to you again.”

His last statement hurt- he meant something to me. He meant a lot.

He kicked his foot in the dust, “Honestly, and when I thought about it, I wasn’t sure which one was worse. That you might be in danger, or that you might push me away again.” He shrugged his shoulders, looking deflated and sad, “I didn’t know what to do, so I just came here?”

“Why here?”

“I come here sometimes, when I want to be alone and think, you know. You could say it’s kind of a special place I guess.”

I smiled at him knowingly, “This was my mothers and I’s place once.”

His eyes widened as he looked at me and then at the tree and back to me again, something was dawning on him.

“ZB, Zara Bennett. And the SB, is Sarah Bennet, your mother,

I nodded

“You have no idea how many hours I’ve spent looking at those letters and wondering what the story behind them was. They have intrigued me since I first saw them. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve made up in my head about them,” And then a strange look past over his face,  “This is going to sound really weird, but I’ve always felt so drawn to them in some way. I can’t explain it.”

A moment of silence descended on us as we both thought about how serendipitous this situation was. In a way, we had been connected long before we met.

“She said it was so we could be together forever.”

Riaan inched closer to me and sat on the other rock a little way away, “That’s beautiful Zara,”

I ran my hands over the letters again, this time they meant more to me, not only were they were a connection to my mother, but a connection to Riaan as well.

“So you’re not Jekel today? You remember what happened last night, and what you said to me and you’re not going to… to-“

I shifted over and patted the rock next to me.

He looked up and smiled, “Are you telling me to sit next to you, or do you just go around patting rocks like that?”

My smile was so big I could feel the muscles in my cheeks straining, I couldn’t help it, he had that effect on me, “Sit next to me please.”

He got up and slid onto the rock. We sat shoulder to shoulder for a while before we both, as if told to by a voice that was speaking in both of our heads, turned and looked at each other. Our faces were so close. The voices in our heads must have told us to both smile at the same time too and then blush. They must have also told us to fiddle with our hair like nervous school kids and to then look away quickly before locking eyes again.

“I remember everything.” I finally said through my giddy smile. “I remember the kiss, the way you held me, everything."

Riaan looked particularly coy, “And you remember what you said to me?”

“That I liked you,”

“You said ‘A lot’. Don’t forget the ‘A lot’ part.”

“I havn’t” I said with a smile almost as coy as his.

Riaan sighed. It was loud and his shoulders rose and fell with it. And then he did something unexpected, he got up and walked over to the tree and leant on it.

“What’s wrong?”

“I… I need to tell you something before this goes any further.’

Panic seized me with its invisible hands, “What is it?”

“It’s about you, or the way I think about you, or thought about you or—“ He stopped talking and let the confusing sentence hang in the air like mismatched puzzle pieces.

“I don’t understand.” I didn’t know what to think, this conversation had taken such a strange turn and I was worried it was about to go down a very unpleasant path.

“The first time I saw you,” He smiled slightly, “In your underwear like that, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. To be completely honest, you kind of took my breath away for a moment there. And I liked you, immediately- I don't know why really, I just did. But then you opened your mouth, and it was like I was teleported back to this place of bad memories,’

I shook my head,” I don’t understand.

“As soon as you started speaking, I knew exactly what and who you were. Or thought I knew.”

He paused for a moment, as if he was about to launch into some kind of story, one that held great weight and significance, “I’ve been in your world before Zara, I’ve known girls like you, I’ve dated a girl like you and I loved a girl like you very much. It didn’t end well though.”

Nothing that was making sense yet, I thought as I listened intently.

“Her name was Giovanna, she’s Italian. Very beautiful. Wealthy, moved in your kind of circles. And I did too for a while. My job was good, I earned good money and I knew how to spend it too- that’s for sure.”

The sudden image of Riaan as a flashy high society guy seemed completely incongruent to the person that was standing in front of me with the khaki clothes, scruffy hair and that dust mark on the side of his face.

“But there was always something about that lifestyle that never sat right with me. It always felt so meaningless- except for her, she was my everything. Or so I thought she was.  But she was also the only thing keeping me there. I wasn’t getting any satisfaction from my job and my heart belonged here, in South Africa. So when I decided I wanted to make a change, stop working and go back home to find the thing that would fulfill me, I proposed to her. I had this romanticized image in my head of us moving to Africa, you know, “I dreamed of Africa” that kind of thing. I thought we could make a life for ourselves here, with kids. I thought I could find something to do here that would be meaningful and fulfilling that wasn't just about making money and buying expensieve cars."

I knew exactly what was coming next. “But she didn’t want that kind of life. She liked the money and everything that came with it.”

He nodded, “It was as if she only liked me if I was one way. She didn’t love me, she loved my image and all that it meant. And if I wasn’t the person that she wanted me to be, she looked down on me. She flipped that switch so quickly that it make my head spin. One minute I was proposing and telling her about my dreams for us, and the next minute she was gone.”

He knelt down with his back against the tree, picked up a stick and started running it through the sand.

“When I was younger I had one of those moments you experienced the other day with the elephants. It had always stayed with me, and I’d often thought back on it over the years. So when I came back to South Africa two years ago, I decided that this," He gestured with the stick at his surroundings, " was what I wanted to do. I admit there was an element of running away and hiding. I know that. I wanted to be as far away from her and that life as I possibly could...and what could be further away than this.”

“Tell me about it,” I quickly added with a knowing chuckle.

“Then you arrive, and I have this strange feeling immediately. Like I know you, or we’ve met. And I like you, right off the bat. Right there and then for some reason I like you, and then you opened your mouth and it was Giovanna all over again.”

I hung my head at the thought.

“The condescending tone, the bitchy, shallow attitude….Sorry, I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m just trying to explain.”

“I know,” I said, trying to swallow through the lump that had developed in my throat.

He continued, “And in that moment you represented everything that I have been trying to forget.”

He looked up and met my eyes, I wasn’t sure what he was feeling this time. I couldn’t tell. Maybe he didn’t know what he was feeling either.

“And then on the first night, despite the rocky start, we have this amazing time together. I thought we clicked and suddenly I told myself that I was right to like you straight away. I’d been wrong about you. Suddenly you were the exception to the rule--- ” His voice trailed off.

“And then the next day …” I offered

“Yes. The next day you destroyed everything good that had happened. And you’re like her again. You’re rude and judgmental and shallow and all the things I despise about her and that life."

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was feeling so uncomfortable by this conversation I wanted to crawl out of my skin. He was holding up a mirror to me and the reflection was not a very complementary one. It was a very accurate description of the kind of person that I am… NO, that I was. I had changed and I wanted the chance to show him that.

“But then over the next few days I keep seeing moments of that girl that I kissed and something told  me not to give up on you, even though you’re treating me like a piece of shit. And of course there is a part of me that is screaming that I’m making a huge mistake, that I am going to get hurt again, that I am being a fucking idiot for letting myself feel something for you. But I can’t seem to help it”

He scribbled over the drawing that he'd made in the dust and threw the stick down the hill.

“And then last night…everything changed again. When I pulled you out the car the thought of losing you was terrifying. And then suddenly you’re that girl again- vulnerable, beautiful, sweet and you tell me that you like me and I get my hopes up again…. And then I wake up this morning and you’re gone.”

I moved across to him and reached for his hands and I took it in mine, “I’m right here.”

“For now?” His rhetorical question had a bite to it. I wasn’t sure how to respond, he had every reason in the world not to trust me and every reason in the world to think I was just like his ex. I knew there was nothing I could say right now that would convince him otherwise. In this case I might have to let my actions speak louder than my words.

“Thank you for finding me last night,”

“It’s a pleasure,” He looked up at me this time and his fingers curled around mine.

“You know you could have died last night Zara. I’m not sure if you realize how dangerous what you did was? What the hell were you doing anyway? Where were you going?”

In the light of day and with my wits about me- like I’d never had wits before it all seemed so insane “The Lost City”

“What?!” Riaan exclaimed loudly.

“I just had to get away, after that day, after it felt like I couldn’t do anything right and that everyone hated me and then finally that video and...”

“I saw it and I read the article. I’m sorry. It must be hard living your life under constant public scrutiny.”

I nodded, sometimes it was. Sometimes the attention was too much and too overwhelming, even if I pretended that I liked it, or that it didn’t affect me. But the truth was that half the stuff written about me was grossly exaggerated and a lot of it was down right nasty. But in order to survive you have to act like you don’t care, like’s its water off a ducks back.

“Our lives are pretty similar in a way,” I said.

“How so?”

“Well, we both came here after something bad happened to us. I got sent here against my will and you—“

He jumped in, “Came to hide here.”

“Yes. And in a weird way this place kind of connects us, even before we knew each other,” I ran my hand across the engravings in the tree again.

Riaan nodded, “I guess so.”

“So now what?” I asked him. The question didn’t refer to the here and now, the question was much bigger that that.

Riaan shook his head (Damn that nasty headshaking) “I cannot let myself like you anymore if you are going to....” He was searching for the word.

“Go all Jekel on you.”

“More than that. I can’t like you if you’re going to turn out to be everything that I hope and believe you’re not. You are so much more than the act you put on, underneath all the shiny shit and bitchy attitude you might be the best person I’ve ever met, but the only way we could ever have something, is if you actually believed that about yourself. And stop destroying yourself’

I just kissed him.

He responded instantly by wrapping his hands around my face and pulling me closer. The moment was perfect. We pulled away and continued to look at each other; everything between us had changed. I had changed.

He reached up and touched my face, and his fingertips seemed to start drawing lines across it.

“What you doing?”

“Joining the dots,” He ran his fingers down my neck and across my chest.

“I know. I got eaten alive last night,”

“Have you taken Malaria tablets, or had a shot before you came?"  He asked rolling up my sleeves and looking at my arm.

I shook my head, I didn’t even know what Malaria was.

“I think we better get you to the sick room, we have some medication there,”

“What is it? Is it serious?”

“Malaria- it’s from mosquitos, and it can be very serious, better to get it treated now.” He pulled me up off the ground in one fell swoop.

“You know, this will be he third time you’re rushing me off my feet and rescuing me.

“What can I say, I like you. A lot.”