Chapter 3 : Questions, Stares and a Name I won't Forget
1073 Words
The car smelled like leather, mint, and something expensive I couldn’t place. Not the ordinary kind of expensive either, but the sort that whispered of tailored suits and people who never argued over change with bus conductors.
I sat stiffly, eyes pinned to the window, pretending the ride wasn’t messing with my heartbeat. The city blurred past, shops and kiosks glowing under the late-afternoon sun. The hum of the engine was steady, but inside me, everything buzzed like a trapped bee.
He broke the silence first.
“So… what’s your name?”
His voice was low, calm, velvet-smooth like he wasn’t just giving a ride to a stranger he met by the body wash aisle.
“Zora,” I replied, glancing at him briefly.
He smiled, one hand steady on the wheel. “Kamari.”
The name rolled off his tongue rich and warm, like a melody. Kamari. Even the syllables felt expensive. A name that carried heat, depth… and maybe a little danger.
There was a beat of silence, then he asked, “So… what were you going to do if I didn’t show up at the counter?”
I laughed lightly. “Cry and leave my groceries behind. Maybe eat biscuits from my roommates’ stash until next week.”
He chuckled, a soft, rumbling sound that made my skin tingle. “You handled it well. I would’ve panicked.”
I raised a brow. “You? With that car and that calm voice? Please.”
He shrugged. “Calm voices panic too. They just do it inside where nobody can see.”
His honesty surprised me. It made him feel less like a stranger in a shiny black car and more like someone human, someone reachable.
We drove in easy conversation. He asked random things,what I study, what I do when I’m not drowning in lectures, if I liked birthdays or hated the attention. His questions weren’t invasive; they were curious, thoughtful, as if he wanted to see past the surface.
I answered carefully, aware I barely knew him. Still, his calm presence disarmed me. Somewhere between my nervous giggles and his quiet laughter, I forgot that we’d met less than an hour ago.
Before I knew it, the hostel gates came into view.
And that’s when it happened.
The moment he pulled in,sleek black car, shiny rims, dark-tinted windows heads turned like magnets to metal.
A group of girls chatting by the gate paused mid-sentence. Two boys leaning at the canteen doorway pointed and whispered. Even the security man, who normally barely looked up from his phone, straightened his posture, trying to look professional.
Kamari parked, unbothered. I, on the other hand, wanted the ground to open and swallow me whole.
I reached for the door quickly, desperate to escape the spotlight, but his voice stopped me gently.
“Thanks for today, Zora. I… I’m really glad I met you.”
I paused. My hand froze on the door handle.
“Me too,” I said quietly. And I meant it.
Then he gave me that smile. Slow. Unfair. The kind that should come with a warning label.
“I hope we meet again soon.”
And just like that, I was undone.
I slipped out of the car, clutching my grocery bag like a shield, wishing my cheeks weren’t burning. The air outside was cooler, but the stares on me? Blazing.
I walked fast, keeping my eyes forward like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. As if fine men in black cars dropped me off every day.
Inside the room, the world exploded.
Clara was mid-sip of yogurt. She choked so hard she almost sprayed it everywhere. Becky’s mouth fell open like a character in a cartoon. Tina,always dramatic sat up as though someone had shouted her name in a dream.
“Zora…” Clara croaked, clutching her chest. “Who. Was. That?!”
Becky pointed to the window, still wide-eyed. “Please tell me you didn’t just come out of that car.”
Tina crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow so high it almost reached heaven. “We’ve lived together for how long? And since when do you casually get dropped off by men who look like walking danger wrapped in silk?”
I dropped the grocery bag on the table, trying to act unfazed. “He just helped me pay for some things. It’s not that serious.”
Clara grabbed my wrist like I’d just committed treason. “Don’t you dare downplay this. That man looked like money and mystery had a child, and you’re standing here telling us it’s not that serious?”
“And why did he look at you like that?” Becky added, her tone half accusing, half envious. “Like you were a walking poem he wanted to memorize.”
I groaned. “You guys are exaggerating!”
“No, we’re not,” Tina cut in. “Did he ask for your number?”
“No.”
“Did you get his number?”
“No.”
The three of them groaned in perfect unison.
Clara flopped onto her bed dramatically. “I hate you. I can’t believe the romance gods finally answered our prayers, dropped a fine stranger into your life, and you let him disappear.”
I rolled my eyes, unpacking the bag slowly, pretending I wasn’t smiling inside.
But the truth? I wasn’t thinking about my roommates’ teasing. I wasn’t even fully present in that room.
I was somewhere else. Replaying everything. His smile. His voice. His name.
Kamari.
The way he said it felt like it wouldn’t be the last time I heard it.
That night, long after my roommates had gone quiet, I lay awake staring at the ceiling. My phone buzzed with Clara’s playlist humming in the background, but I barely heard it.
Instead, I kept replaying that moment at the door, when his words lingered in the air like something unfinished.
“I hope we meet again soon.”
It shouldn’t have meant so much. It was just a sentence, spoken in a calm, velvet voice. Yet something in me believed it,believed him.
And that belief was the scariest part.
Because life had taught me one thing: timing is rarely kind.
What if fate was playing a trick? What if Kamari was just a fleeting dream in a supermarket aisle here today, gone tomorrow?
Or worse…
What if this was only the beginning?
- Writer
