Chapter Eighteen

D'ziko isn't at school most days. He hasn’t sent a hawk or letter to me at all. His indifference is most troubling. He ignores me more than I can pretend to be ignoring him. He doesn't try talking to me, or pay me any attention at all. It's simply as if I don't exist to him anymore. For all I know, he never thinks of me at all.
I don’t know what happened to him but I think he went back to wherever Gods come from, back to his life and his family.
I know wherever he is, he thinks Toto's my boyfriend. That’s if he’s thinking about me at all.
How can he just assume and not ask?
“We’re doing drinks tonight,” Toto says when he walks in with Kaseke. My brother nods once at me and goes straight to the fridge. He rummages until he finds a half empty bottle of merryz flavoured whiskey.
Why is he so grumpy?
“It’s Monday,” I remind them.
“Since when do you care?” Kaseke asks.
Did he have a disturbing vision? Who or what was it about?
I shrug and look out the window. I can't help but wonder if D'ziko is okay. Where did he go? What has he been doing these past few weeks?
Kaseke looks at me like I'm unfathomable. “I can’t believe you’re still moping over that guy, he was harassing you for F300 remember…?
A lot of guys harassed me in the past before but it didn't hurt like it does now being away from them. I see exactly where I'm headed. I'm already in too deep. Everytime D'zikoi imagine the future I only see one possibility -- D'ziko and I together. He is my lifemate. The image is so concrete, so clear. I can't stand to see this. I cannot bear it. I try to banish it from my mind, try to see someone else, anybody else.
I can't stay away from him, not any longer. I'm a lost cause.
My head falls into my hands.
“No, not him,” I lie. "I haven't received any orders from the Royal palace. Business is really slow." Another lie. I look up.
He looks relieved, weird, I expected worry.
“You prefer we starve?” I ask. "You hate the idea of me dating D'ziko that much that you'd rather be poverty stricken?'
He seems to come to his senses immediately.
“Steel, c'mon, I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all. Guys like that are usually very controlling and possessive,” he says.
How would he know? He’s never dated a guy.
I go back to staring out the window. Looking at the various hawks sending messages, none of them even look my direction. So D'ziko is still angry at me.
Sleep finds me on the windowsill, my back pressed up against the cold, mold striken wall.
This is the first time this has ever happened to me.
It's morning again. And it's already 7:30 am. I should be half way to school already. I'm already late and I hasten to wash my face. I don't have energy nor motivation to do much else except my necessities.
A hawk is sitting at the tree looking at me when I walk out the front door. Immediate relief washes over me and I fly down the porch steps to it. The smile is so huge that it makes my cheeks hurt. I plant myself directly in front of it. I'm here, where's the message?
It angrily launches at me. I don't realise until I'm trying to break free that it was just taking a nap. I've just disturbed it.
There’s no message from him. Maybe I have to let this crazy idea of him and I go. He's just not into me. My heart sinks.
I don’t know why I’m torturing myself like this.
I make it to school just after 8am.
I stop right next to the spot we had lunch on. The table looks so empty. I can just smell him. Is he even at school today?
To think I found him annoying at that time and now I’m hurt and confused and thinking about him all the time.
But I’ll get over it, I know I will. By the end of the week I’ll have forgotten about him. He’s probably already forgotten about me. My eyes sting. I don't want to cry. I have no reason to cry. I have no right.
No Imani, this is not who you are.
If I get burnt then it’s fine, I’ve survived many things before including losing the one person I loved most in this world, Commodore. I've watched people die, babies die. I’ve won, I’ve lost, I’ve failed, succeeded.
The compulsion to be near him is stronger than ever before. It's like a calling. It tightens my muscles and fills my heart with a void. I close my eyes, trying to concentrate through the yearning of his presence that rages inside me. I've lost the battle. There's no reason to keep resisting what I really want.
What am I standing here for?
I beeline for the main entrance. I have to find him.
If this is me being stupid, then so be it. I don’t care anymore.
I spot a hawk and rummange in my pockets for some rice. Find D'ziko, I tell it. I pace the forest. By this time yesterday it was already midnight. I can't understand why time has stalled today.
The board in my hands stings. It's found him.
“Imani,” D'ziko says his voice full of an emotion I can't tell.
I keep quiet. The sound of my name on his lips does weird things to my body. I wish I could read his face.
“Imani...?" he says again.
I close my eyes and take a slow, long breath.
“I just,” I say.
The words die at my throat. Why did I come here? He doesn't want me here. He wants nothing to do with me.
Silence.
I think about hanging up but I didn’t come all the way here to message him and hang up and go back.
I imagine him frowning, pacing.
“Imani,” he says again. "Damnit, Imani, I love you."
I freeze, stunned. Strange, unfamiliar reactions stir deep in my human core. I try to shake them off long enough to form a coherent thought.
Immediately the words disappear. It's as if he'd thought out loud and the hawk had recorded his thoughts, which weren't meant for me at all.
“I’m here,” I finally say.
I’m not even sure where I am, but I know I came here for him.
He's silent. Is he taken aback or pleased. "Where exactly?”
“I don’t know. But I’m here. I took the OR Thambo off-ramp,” I say.
I shouldn’t have done this.
“You took the what? Where?” he asks, he must be confused.
“You said you liked coming to the lake down by Mandela Drive, so I took the OR Thambo off-ramp from R61."
I had no plan when I left Noddon Academy, but I knew I was going to him, wherever he is. I'm struggling to find words to name the feelings that are flooding through me, and for a long moment, I drown in them.
“Where are you? Where are you parked?”
I don't remind him that I don't have a dragon yet. He'll flip if he finds out I ran all the way here.
“On the side of the road,” I say.
In my mind he's gathering his things, calling his dragon as he runs outside.
“Tell me what you see,” he asks.
“I see a lillies, royal lillies and a wild onions,” I say
He must've reached his dragon now. Time wastes away.
“Okay, go and wait near the stream, near the gatekeepers house. It's much safer,” he says.
Why didn’t I think of that? But then again, I haven’t really been thinking straight today, the evidence of that is me being here, what am I doing?
I quickly find the spot and wait.
I don’t know what I’m going to say to him when he arrives. I don’t know what I’m going to tell him when he asks me why I’m here.
He’s here. My breath stops.
That was too quick.
The dragon circles once over me before landing.
He hops down and looks at me as though I'm an alien, as if he doesn't trust his eyes, then he seems to get over it and comes running to me.
“Imani!" he says pulling my arm.
I just sit and look at him. Unmoving.
“Imani. Hey...are you alright?”
I can’t speak.
I’m biting my lips very hard.
I don’t know why I came here but I know it wasn’t to cry. I can’t be crying to a guy I barely know. It’s enough that I ran all the way here.
He pulls me to my feet.
I stagger a little before I find my balance.
Now that he's here I have enough sense to be embarrassed by my outfit. It's an old t-shirt Commodore wanted to throw out a couple of years ago but I loved it. I sometimes sleep in it. I'm paring it with my work jeans that have seen better days. And I somehow forgot to take off Kaseke's oversized slippers.
He pulls my chin up. “Talk to me, what happened?”
Where do I start? I don’t know why I’m here, but I know I want to be here, with him.
He whistles for his dragon.“Okay, let me help you up,” he says.