Chapter 3. Nightmare

The sun rays made their way into the compartment and filled it up with some radiant energy. Tiana and Lewis were still sleeping, when she began to roll on the bed with the flashes of sunlight penetrating the room. Finally opening her eyes and not being able to see anything, her head was still banging hard from the hangover that she was having the previous night.

Still laying down on the bed for some few minutes, her gaze had become clear and she had realized that she was in an environment that was unknown to her. Struggling to get up to sit on the bed, she had not noticed that she was sleeping with someone on the bed as her head was hurting while she tried to decipher where she was.

“Where am I?” she asked in confusion as to the place she was, which had no resemblance with her room. Holding her head and thinking of going down, she felt a sharp pain in her private part which made her yank on the bed, and by so doing, she touched Lewis, who was still deep in his sleep, causing him to turn from the other side and to face her.

“A man in my room?” that was the first reaction she had before finally drowning in her thoughts. Tiana went down from the bed, and with her eyes shedding tears, she could not believe that she had spent the night with a man. Looking right deep into his face, she felt pained and used, but her thoughts had immediately run back to her friend who was nowhere to be found.

Filled with so much resentment and pain in her heart, Tiana immediately picked up her dresses and left for her apartment, where she had in mind to confront her friend about what had happened to her. Reaching outside his room and heading out of the lodging, her heart is torn into millions of pieces and all she hoped for was to get past that ugly scenario that had taken place.

While Lewis was still in bed, his phone commenced to ring out, and the continual ringing from, made him roll on the bed towards the direction of his ringtone. His eyes were still closed, but he had to pick it up as it would not stop. Searching for his phone on the table where he had left it, he finally held off it and picked it up, the voice he heard Clark’s voice asking how his night was and when had plans to leave for the airport and Lewis telling him that was departing soon, his head turned to check up on the person he had spent the night with and to his outstanding surprise, Tiana was no longer in the room.

Lost at the sight of it, he told Clark to hold on as he was going to get back to him soonest, and Clark, understanding that he might have something going on, told him okay and hung up the phone. Lewis had stepped out of bed thinking that Tiana was in the bathroom, but when he got there, she was not inside. Returning to the room, he noticed that she had left the space, as her clothes and things were nowhere to be found.

In winter, he wanted to make sure that she had not stolen anything from him but he realized that there was something reddish brown on the bed and it had stained the white bed sheet giving it a somewhat dirty look. When he went closer with his right hand pulling off the bedspread, his reaction was priceless as his tips exclaimed,

“She was a virgin!” Standing there in total confusion, Lewis had no idea what to do, nor where to look for Tiana or even her name. He had no address nor information about Elodie and all he could do, was to ask his friend to go back to that snack bar every day to look for her because he had fallen for her already.

Reaching home, Tiana was so mad at her friend for betraying her as to leave her with a total strange but she was even madder at herself for trusting Elodie that much. The deed had already been done and there was nothing more she could do but avoid Elodie because she was not going to forgive her. Wiping off her tears, she decided to bury that ugly past of hers and to make sure that her mother never leaves of it else, it would not bring more problems to her so, entering the shower, she opened up the barrage and sat under and teeing the waterfall on her, she felt like it was washing her sins away and that was precisely what she needed.

***

One month later…

Tiana was already at the office, and her new job was so delightful. Elodie had been affected to the other side of the building, which made things easier for her as she did not see her often. It was a Monday, and the office was busy, following the announcement of the arrival of the CEO of the company. Everyone was alert and they were waiting for him to make his apparition.

Tiana was enthusiastic and hoped to see the genius behind such a great organization finally, and though she felt sick for the last few days, she still wanted to be present, at least for her job, as she had to be a good employee.

“All rise for the CEO of Phoenix Enterprise as he is here after a business trip abroad for some weeks now,” the manager let out and everyone began to clap. Tiana was happy to meet her boss but suddenly, her eyes began to blur causing her to lose her stamina.

Her other female colleagues were all over the place as they wanted to have a hold of the boss, forgetting that they were at the office, but She heard them clap and scream. It entered her ears like echoing. Noticed that everyone was going forward, but Tiana was only standing in one spot, one of her colleagues walked up to her and asked what the matter was, but she only became weaker

“Welcome sir, we are happy to have you here,” the words kept on coming but Lewis, who was looking at every corner of the office, sighted Tiana who was not feeling okay, and left the others to catch her up since he saw her almost going down, She had just felt someone hold her and when she opened her eyes, with the little strength left, they both spoke out at the same time,

“You?” and that was the last thing she said before passing out.