Chapter 10

Chapter 10: In which she has someone to take care of her.

Monday morning was hell in a lot of different ways.

Firstly, although I had fun last night with Nikki, I hadn’t reached home until 3.45am this morning and although I had set an alarm, but I must have turned it off and gone back to sleep, since when I opened my eyes again, the wall clock blinked 12.57pm.

Secondly, I tried calling Tina but the office phone seemed to be having a trip to LaLa Land. Even my cell had zero balance, today of all days and thanks to my shady neighborhood, I would have to go out and get my phone recharged from a centre ten minutes away. I didn’t even have any wifi and my oh-so-generous landlord charged extra for the password. I was already living on the bare minimum, so I had skipped the $200 per month for unlimited wifi package.

And thirdly, I had a high fever. Guess staying out in a graveyard until 1 in the morning, with the cold dew falling over your head, sounds exciting only in creepy vampire romance novels. At least in those novels you have a hot guy offering you his jacket.

To say that I was tired and frustrated would be an understatement. I couldn't even get up to make breakfast. I tried getting up but I had hardly put my feet on the floor when dizziness washed over me and I fell back on the bed, with my feet dangling over the side, and that’s how I fell back asleep. When I woke up the next time, two hours later, I was still in that same position. Why did I feel like I was dying?

So when the bell rang, waking me up from another one of my naps, I wasn't surprised to see that it was 2.30 in the afternoon.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" I managed to mumble out tiredly.

I wasn’t supposed to get visitors since no one knows where I live and I just moved to Seattle. I don't have that many friends either, okay...so no one visits me except my brother, and when I finally do get one visitor, they decide to choose the day I'm brain dead to come and say 'hi'!

That annoying bell just kept on ringing as I slowly sat up and placed my feet on the ground, and this time successfully, stood up. But the instant I did, my head started spinning and my vision blurred.

This can seriously not be good. I thought this was a fever and it might be due to the stress or staying out all night in the cold wearing a thin dress, but it couldn't be. My only hope of recovery was to get to whoever was outside my door and ask for help. I didn’t want to be found dead in a crappy apartment wearing a worn out pj’s!

My vision hadn't improved; instead it kept blurring further, so I spread my hands out in front of me and tried to reach the door. It shouldn't have been hard since my apartment was small, but black sports were now forming in my vision.

Gasping in deep gulps of air to keep the panic at bay, I finally reached the door and with much difficulty, managed to open it, thankful that the person on the other side hadn't given up on me and gone away, but the knocks had become increasingly frantic instead.

The last thing I remembered was opening the door and mumblings out a barely audible 'help me', before everything was engulfed in darkness.

*

*

Nathan’s P.O.V:

"And she hasn't called either?" I asked Tina, who was fidgeting nervously as she stood on the other side of my desk.

"No, Sir. I tried calling but she isn't picking up and her phone got turned off half an hour ago," she replied nervously.

"Alright, you can go now,” I signed as she walked out of my cabin.

"Where are you Savannah?" I mumbled as I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.

I had been too harsh on her these past couple weeks, especially yesterday. It wasn't planned, honestly. I hated when clients changed their demands last minute. They thought it was just a simple favor they were asking for but we had to consider all our previous sales records and how much their demands would impact our future sales and also, all the legal aspects involved with it.

And then I’d seen Savannah walk in wearing a dress and I had been so stunned. I thought that she had a date or something and I had been overcome with sudden jealousy. She has changed a lot in this past five years that I hadn’t seen her, to the point that I hadn’t even recognized her the first time we had met. She used to have braces and freckles and her hair used to be short, to her shoulders. Now, it was a whole other story.

She didn’t have braces anymore and her makeup hid her freckles well. Her hair was now to her lower back and the colour had lightened from a honey brown to light brown. She was like a completely different woman. She also liked to curse a lot, because her room wasn’t soundproof and I would often hear her cursing at me.

Truth was, I have had a crush on her since high school, but I had never admitted it to myself because I was the jock, the ‘it’ boy. I wasn’t supposed to have a crush on the nerd, I was supposed to bully her and date the cheerleaders. It was after I left for Harvard and after my parents died that I realized how stupid the social pressure of high school made me a puppet of the stereotypical system. If you were hot, you got accepted into the cool club, otherwise, your life was living hell.

Savannah coming back into my life now, felt like a sign that maybe there was a chance for us. Opening up to her that night in the restaurant wasn’t planned, but after that I just felt like I’d made myself vulnerable to her, and I didn’t like feeling vulnerable. I had been focusing so much on taking care of my parents company and living up to my older brother’s name that I hadn’t noticed I might have pushed Savannah away.

What if yesterday had been too much? What if she wants to quit her job now?

As soon as these thoughts came to my mind, I was striding out of my office and towards the elevator. On my way out, I called out to Tina to cancel all my appointments for the day. She gave me a wide-eyed stare since this was the first time I had made such a request, but she nodded and made the calls.

I called Roan and told him to drive me to Savannah's house since he knew where it was. He looked just as surprised as Tina, but didn’t complain. These two people only knew the person I am now, not the person I used to be. And maybe, I needed to loosen up a bit too.

Another twenty minutes later, I was standing in front of her door, both nervous and excited to see her and find out what was going on. I took a deep breath and exhaled audibly and waiter three more seconds before I rang the bell.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

Thirty five.

I rang again....and again and again. Each time, waiting a few seconds before ringing the bell again so I didn’t seem too desperate.

Something wasn't right. She shouldn't be taking this long to open the door. Was she not home yet? She did say she was going somewhere late last night. Hadn’t she returned yet?

My hands became frantic as I kept ringing the bell repeatedly, fear starting to creep inside my mind. Is she sick? Did someone break in?

I was about to break the door down, when the door was suddenly pulled open by a very tired looking Savannah. Her hair was a mess and her PJ's were wrinkled. She had dark circles under her eyes and they seemed unfocused as she lifted her hands in front of her, as if trying to hold onto something.

"Help me…" Her voice was barely above a whisper and then her eyes rolled back in her head and I rushed to catch her just before she hit the ground.