Page 83 of Pillow Talk
‘Can we get out of here? I think we need to talk,’ she whispered.
He looked directly at her face.
‘Alright,’ he said.
Shona stood up to go and say goodbye to her friend, but Anni had been watching and gestured for them to go.
‘I love you, Sho,’ she called out as they left the bar.
Once they were in the parking lot, Sen asked where she wanted to go, to which Shona replied her apartment. They drove in silence and, even when they were in her living room 15minutes later, they were both quiet.
Shona slipped off her heels. Sen stood with his hands in his jeans pockets.
‘I saw you kissing a woman outside a restaurant in Durban,’ she quickly said.
‘Did you stick around to see me push her away?’
Shona plopped down on the couch. She didn’t care that the hem of her little black dress had ridden up her thighs.
‘I didn’t think so,’ Sen added.
‘I—’
‘It was an ex-client’s stepdaughter who wormed her way into a lunch meeting and then she kissed me. Yes, we went on a fewdates years ago. It didn’t go further than a drink or two. After my reaction to the stunt she pulled outside the restaurant, I don’t think she’ll ever cross my path again,’ he explained.
‘Okay,’ Shona replied.
‘Shona, I feel like when I take a step forward with you, we end up going two steps back. Perhaps you’re right. This arrangement isn’t working anymore,’ he said.
Shona nodded.
‘I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want you to hurt me but it’s starting to get too intense,’ he went on.
She nodded again.
‘Can we agree to walk away as friends?’
Another nod.
‘Then I think I’m going to leave,’ he said.
Sen took one more look at her and left her apartment.
Shona lay back on the couch and pretended it was for the best.
Sen didn’t mean a single word he’d said to Shona two nights ago. It was about self-preservation. She was willing to throw away their friendship and relationship without even talking to him. That was enough to tell him that she didn’t care about him.
He lay on his couch and thought back to a hot summer’s afternoon when he was around 13years old. They were lying on their backs on a grassy spot under a tree overlooking the lake.
Breaking the silence, Anni said, ‘I hope the lake is here forever.’
‘It’s not like the lake can just get up and leave,’ he’d teased.
But Shona, now sitting bolt upright, had said, ‘But it can dry up or someone could buy this land and drain it to build a block of flats.’
‘That must never happen. I want to come here every summerwith you two,’ was Anni’s reply, a look of alarm on her face.
‘Do you think we’ll still be friends when we grow up?’
