Wanderlust

December 1: Chapter 8

They were sitting on the beach, Nicholas had grown out his hair. It was pulled up into a manbun, the tips dyed blond. He sat on his towel, watching as Minenhle ran down to the sea. She wore a white full piece swim suit; a plain white surfboard was under her arm. She turned back to him and smiled. Wide and happy, her legs dipping into the blue. She rode the surfboard elegant and graceful. She knew exactly what she was doing, and he sat there, paint brush in hand and a small A4 size canvas on his lap. He was painting, a smile spread across his face.

She came back to shore, running back up to him. She noticed something about her that he didn’t before. She was looking at him, like she did right after she kissed him. Blissful.

He had caused that look. He had caused it.

She stuck her board into the sand and sat down on the towel beside him.

“How’s it going?” She asked. He was transfixed by her face that he almost didn’t hear her question. “I hate it when you do that.”

“What?” He asked her, a look of confusion on his face.

“Stare.” She smiled, a sheepish and blushing smile.

How could he not? He had been avoiding looking at her, so much that his mind had kept finding ways to view her and keep her in mind. Not forgetting her.

“Stop it.” She told him again.

“You’re too beautiful to not stare.” He said. She rolled her eyes and pecked his cheek with a kiss. She sat and stared at the sea. He couldn’t focus on his painting. He kept looking up at her.

“Why won’t you look at me?” The dream around him shifted and he was sitting there at the beach. Eating a sandwich. Minnie sat next to him on her own towel. There were grey clouds overhead and the sea looked restless.

She wasn’t looking at him, she was looking at the sea. She was in her tan orange bikini, like the one she had worn the first day she met him on the beach.

“I don’t know.” He replied, looking at her.

“You do. Why won’t you look at me?” She asked again, looking at him. The eyes that caused him wonder, looked dead in the dream. They looked lifeless and empty. As if she was nothing. It unsettled him and pulled at his stomach.

“I don’t know.” He said to her.

“You’re scared.” She told him, shaking her head. Her braids moved against the soft skin of her back.

“Of what?” He asked, he didn’t feel scared. Just a heartbeat in his head and sweaty palms. He wasn’t scared.

“Of having feelings for someone, of being happy.” Minnie answered. She faced the sea once again. “You’re scared of what I make you feel.”

“What do you make me feel?” He questioned. Dream Minnie didn’t answer but he knew the answer. She made him feel alive and special. She made him feel what he didn’t want to feel. It was like the poems and songs had described it. It was all madness, what he felt for her. All the sparks and electricity. He barely knew her but there he was.

“I make you feel.” She said. “I make you feel.”

And the world caved in on itself.

****

Minenhle was careful, between Zinhle, the hotel girl, and Nicholas she had been talking to zombies. Both were more and more exhausted by the day, both refused to tell her why, but she found that one was not as bad as the other. One smiled at her and was chirpy.

The other wouldn’t look at her.

It was Saturday. Nic was meeting her at the beach again. She was mastering the art of surfing, she was riding waves on her own without his help and she was starting to hope that he would realise how good she was becoming.

But they weren’t alone on the beach that day, Michael, Nic’s friend had decided to come along. He sat on the beach as he let them go about in the sea and even he knew that his friend was acting weird, but he didn’t acknowledge it. As if it were natural behaviour.

“You’re good.” Michael complimented her when they came back to the beach. He was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a white wife beater. He had muscles that rippled underneath it, but she had no interest in them. He didn’t just sit on a towel, he placed himself on a blue camping chair posed underneath a blue beach umbrella. He had sunglasses that blocked out his face but when he stood up, his height was recognisable. The tattoos that curled up and down his arms made him easy to spot.

“Thank you.” She gave him a friendly smile.

“Jy ken hoekom he’s not sleeping?” Michael nodded towards Nic who sat down on his blue towel. Slumped and tired as he always was.

“Nee, ek ken niks.” She sighed, picking up a water bottle from the towel. She sipped it.

“Jy praat Afrikaans?” He didn’t look surprised at all or maybe it was the sunglasses disguising it. She wasn’t sure.

“Nog ‘n bietjie.” She told him, she was a Zulu girl who took it until metric alongside Isizulu and she had gotten distinctions for both. Not that she knew much about the language. She could hear from the way Michael spoke that his Afrikaans was less direct than the one she had learnt at school.

“Painting all night again?” Michael returned to the topic of Nic.

“Yes, he said his brain couldn’t shut down.” She explained, shifting her weight foot to foot. Michael nodded in contemplation.

“You wanna come to the party with us?” He asked.

“No, I don’t want to intrude on anyone-” She started up before he cut her off.

“You can just say you’re his girlfriend, save him the torture of teenage girls.” She liked the idea of being Nic’s girlfriend but if it was all pretend she didn’t want to do that, if it lead to her having to lie about it.

“I don’t think he’ll like that.” She frowned but Michael continued.

“Just come.” He told her, impatient. She shook her head. He gave her pleading eyes and she knew that she wanted to stay around Nicholas no matter how dead and asleep he may have been. She gave in, quicker than she wanted to admit was good for her.

“Okay, let me go get dressed.” Mike gave her an approving nod before letting her go off to change.

She dashed up to her hotel room. She had never pulled a pair of jeans on so fast in her life. She wore it with a plain white top and her denim jacket with floral patches. She pushed her braids into a ponytail and Converse tekkies onto her feet. She grabbed a small leather backpack, her keys, phone and sunglasses. Locking the door after her.

****

The party was held in at someone’s backyard in Wynberg. It was a braai for a girl’s sixteenth birthday party. The house was a regular house with a well-kept yard. The house was two stories with white walls. Minnie didn’t know what to expect from it, it looked like a house. The boys didn’t knock but rather walked right in as if they lived at the house. The living room was a medium size room that held a flat screen Samsung tv mounted on to one wall and a brown leather couch in the shape of an L on the opposite side of the room. There was a brown wooden entertainment unit and a lot of noise coming from the back of the house.

Nicholas had changed as well into a pair of jeans and a long sleeve navy blue V-neck. His hair lay against his forehead damp from it’s improvised towel dry. He looked handsome, as he did, but his eyes were surrounded by eyebags and wrung with exhaustion. He walked slow, he told less jokes and barely spoke when he was at that point, but Minnie still hoped that it wasn’t her fault. She hoped that he was okay, even though just by a glance anybody could tell that he wasn’t.

They walked through the granite kitchen and out onto the patio. It was tiled like the kitchen floors and the walls were painted the same colour as the rest of the house. A wooden four-seater table and a matching lounge chair decorated it.

On the lounge chair was a pile of birthday presents, wrapped in gift-wrap or placed inside giftbags. There was no actual decoration for the party. On the green grass of the backyard, were more than a dozen camping chairs, all different colours. There was a braai stand off to the corner of the yard where a dirty blonde stood over it, a dog the colour of his hair at his heels.

“That is Damien.” Michael pointed out to Minnie. She looked at the blonde man is he turned around to face them. His face even from a distance was handsome. He was proving the theory that beautiful people attracted beautiful people. He had a clean-shaven jaw that was as good as his two friends and he was tall. He had eyes that looked blue but as he got closer turned a pale grey. He had something odd about him, the way his skin wasn’t tan and the way he didn’t give his friend Nicholas an odd for looking like a sleepless zombie. Did he do it that often that they just ignored it? Would he ever sleep again? She had met a wake Nic, that gave her a small smidgen of hope.

“Waar is die miesies?” Mike asked in clear Afrikaans, faster than he usually spoke around her and Nic.

“In Nikita se kamer. Hulle is baie besig om ‘make-up’ te sit op hulle se gesig.” Damien seemed to cringe at the thought, his Afrikaans clear and just as fast as his friend. She got the just of what he was saying, and she could hear teenage girls squealing over make up. “Who is this?” He asked in perfect English, his Afrikaner accent moulding in the words.

“This is my new friend, Minnie.” Michael introduced the two. “She is here from Durban for holiday.”

“Hi.” She gave him a warm smile and wave. He returned it and his teeth were a blinding white.

“I don’t think you would ever get a girl, Michael.” Damien joked, his smile turned playful.

“I’m not his girlfriend.” She shook her head, smiling.

“She’s mine.” Nicholas wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Her face heated up as she felt the weight of his arm around her. She didn’t shake the smile off her face.

“Ah, I should have known.” Damien chuckled, shaking his head. “Girls don’t ever go for Mike.”

“Yeah and they go for you, Damien neh?” He stood up for himself, chuckling as well. “Or is just the fifteen-year olds up in your sister’s room.”

“I’m focusing on my studies.” Damien smirked, looking at them. “Where is the present?”

“We are the gift.” That was the first time Nicholas had cracked a glimmer of a smile in at least three days. It looked refreshing, but it was only a shadow, his eyes were still half done.

“I don’t know, Niki doesn’t like boys who reject her.” He looked straight at Nic for his answer, a slight angry glare laying on his face.

“I told you, she was hitting on me and she’s your sister.” Nic explained, defensive. He pulled Minnie closer until she was tucked into his armpit. The smell of the salt and sea attacked her nose as his body was warm against hers.

“I know, I’m just not letting it go.” Damien looked down at his feet. The dog was licking his shoes and bare legs. “Nee, Unicorn. Ek wil nie met jou speel nie.”

“You named your dog unicorn?” Minnie looked down at the large ball of energy. He was moving quick and frantic, begging for his master’s attention.

“It was Niki’s idea.” Damien shook his head, disappointed. “I wanted to name him Damien.”

“Because you’re a dog.” Michael smirked at him, she didn’t want to say anything, but she could tell that Damien wasn’t the boy that you fell in love with. He was a heartbreaker, the smirk and the way he was dressed said it all. The eyes had a dangerous air to them, not in the same way as Nic’s but in a one chance manner. “That’s not something to be proud of, bruh.”

“Eh, I’ll take it.” He shrugged, unbothered. “Close to a compliment I’ll get from these two.” He told Minnie, hush and secret. If she wasn’t under Nic’s arm, she might have melted from how intense and dangerous his eyes were but his wasn’t the right kind of danger. Not the kind she was fond off. “Anybody want a beer?”

“I’m driving.” Michael shook his head.

“I don’t drink.” Minnie smiled, sadly. She did, in fact, drink but she didn’t know what she would say when she had one too many and she didn’t want to find out how bad she could embarrass herself. Damien turned to Nic and she spoke for him too. “No, he’s already passed out.”

“I’m still awake.” He argued, patting her shoulder.

“Barely, he nearly drowned today.” She shook her head, she didn’t want to entertain a drunk and exhausted Nicholas. She didn’t know what would happen if someone that tired had one too many drinks and she didn’t want to know.

“I just forgo-” He started before she interjected.

“How to swim.” She managed. “You’re not drinking anything.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be nice to your boyfriend?” He asked, a humour that Nicholas from a few days ago would have got him an eyeroll but it sounded so weak that she couldn’t manage one.

“Not really, no.” She answered. Mike and Damien were watching the conversation, waiting for what was going to happen.

“Oh, come on, princess.” He urged her. “Just one.” She wouldn’t let her resolve fall but it was shrinking.

“I’m not falling for that.” She held her head high and turned back to Damien. “Can I please have a glass of water please?”

“I’ll be back.” The blond went inside the house. The three left behind sat down on the chairs surrounding the table. Nic and Minnie sat opposite each other while Michael sat to her left, facing away from the house.

“Princess?” He questioned, eyebrows quirked up.

“Yeah, I’m a pirate and she’s my captive princess.” Nic had a lazy drawl to his voice and a lazy smirk towards her. Michael laughed.

“Is it some crazy roleplay he pulled you into?” He asked, looking with humoured eyes at Minnie. “I knew he was a freak.”

“f**k off.” Nic mumbled, glaring at his friend.

“How is it?” Michael didn’t seem to hear his friend, keeping his focus on the girl.

“What?” She c****d her head to one side, raising an eyebrow.

“s*x with Mr pirate daar.” He nodded his head in the direction of the surfer, his smile glued to his face.

“We haven-” Minnie shook her head, she hadn’t even let her thoughts wander that far. Something always stopped her, and she would never just hook up with someone. That wasn’t how she did it. Nic coughed, it stuttered and seemed to not want to speak of such a topic. She didn’t look to see his face, but she could feel his gaze on her.

“No need to hide from Uncle Mike.” He didn’t seem to recognise the fact that she was being one hundred percent honest about it.

“She isn’t lying, we haven’t done that.” Nicholas said, leaning back further into his chair. Mike looked between the two, confused.

“What are you waiting for?” He asked. Minnie shrugged. She didn’t know. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore.

“I don’t know.” Nicholas answered. If he didn’t know then who did?

Michael looked between the two again, he was about to say something when Damien came out of the kitchen, holding a beer in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He took a sip out the cold bottle, handing Minnie the bottle.

“Thank you.” She smiled gently at the blond.

“It’s my pleasure.” He returned the smile, sitting on the only empty chair at the table. He gave brilliant smiles to the ‘couple’. “Tell me, how did you guys meet?”

The ‘couple’ stayed silent, their gazes strayed far from each other.

“Come on, I won’t judge.” He nudged, sipping on his open beer.

“I was down by the beach and he was there too. We started chatting and he asked me out.” Minnie explained, she could feel all the eyes at the table on her, but she choose not to meet anybody’s but Damien’s. They were intense closer, deep and grey. On a regular day she would have found that his gaze would have been more tempting and dangerous but compared to Nic, at that moment, it was as scary as a child wearing a sheet, pretending to be a ghost.

“That’s it?” Michael questioned.

“Yeah.” She nodded, focusing back on her water. The table fell silent. The only sound that could be heard was the sound of a group of teenage girls giggling and shrieking, the way Minnie and her friends used to and still do. But she wouldn’t admit that she still acted like a teenager. Unicorn barked from the same direction. Damien drank from his beer, the sound of it against the wood was echoed in the peaceful silence.

At least the silence between everybody else except between Nic and Minnie. She wanted him to say something, anything about the kiss they shared. Had it been a bad kiss? Did she have bad breath? Was she a bad kisser? Did she read the signs wrong?

But nothing was said, they both stayed silent about it.

“Damien?” A shrieking voice came out from inside the house. Behind it came two girls, one with the same hair and facial structure as Damien and pink braces whilst the other girl had long auburn hair that cut straight off at her waist. They both wore the same grey crop top that left their midriffs for everyone to see and a pair of black leggings with Nike Airs.

“Ja, Skye.” He sighed, drudging to look at the girls. The blonde girl, whom Minnie assumed to be Nikita, looked at Nic with a slight swoon before glaring at her.

“Ons nodig jou.” Skye answered, flicking her auburn hair.

“Vir wat?” He asked, sipping his beer. He looked suddenly tired.

“Unicorn eet die gordyn.” Skye said, shaking her head impatient. He groaned in pain and got up off his seat. The girls dragged him away.

“I’ve got a feeling that Unicorn isn’t eating anything.” Michael got up of his seat and stepped back into the house. “I’m going to help him.”

“Okay.” Minnie sipped her water, looking over the yard. She felt eyes looking at her, but she ignored them. There was only one person left out there with her and she didn’t want to let him know that he was affecting her. She took another sip of her water.

“We have to talk.” Nicholas said, breaking the silence.

“About?” She asked, keeping her eyes over the yard.

“The kiss.” He answered, her eyes jumped to him. She regretted it as her heartbeat raced.

“What is there to talk about?” She said, leashing her emotions. There was no way she could allow herself to be lulled into his half-awake lap.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was soft and gentle, his eyes flicked with discomfort. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. What was he sorry for? What was there to be sorry for? She was the one that kissed him, or had he forgotten?

“For what?” She raised the water bottle up to her mouth to sip before his words make her throat aching dry and her mouth unable to drink the water.

“The kiss.” He answered, it was his turn to look away. His gaze shifted to the green grass of the yard.

“I kissed you.” She reminded him, her voice as soft as his. She gathered the courage to sip the water once again.

“It’s not your fault I’m irresistible.” He joked, his smirk and spark missing. She glared at him. It wasn’t the time for cracking jokes. It wasn’t the time. Was he playing with her emotions? “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What?” Her eyebrows furrowed but not in confusion. She knew where the conversation was going, and she didn’t want to let it get there.

“I don’t want to string you along for something you aren’t ready for.” Nicholas explained, he didn’t look at her. “You’re young and you’re going to leave when summer ends. Just like I am.” He was breaking up with her, whilst not even giving her a glance. “I don’t do summer flings.”

“Is that what you think this is?” She asked, gulping back a large lump that had grown in her throat.

“What else could it be?” He returned a question. She didn’t answer him. She didn’t have anything to say to him after that. She didn’t want to say anything to him. She looked away to the green grass.

“What else could it be?” She repeated the question. He didn’t answer but when she looked up at him, she saw something that hadn’t been in his eyes before and flicked away right as she noticed it.

It was fear.

Of what she didn’t know but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to care.

“I understand what you mean, Nicholas.” She assured him, a small smile on her face. It was as fake as Kim Kardashians ass, but she couldn’t care. Care was something that didn’t pay off, especially when it came down to boys.