I immediately thought of Noah when I saw two people at a restaurant eating together. In fact, Noah had been on my mind a lot that day. I didn’t want him on my mind, though. Noah was from a time in my life that wasn’t real.
The microwave dinged and I walked over to it and changed the settings to “cook” for four minutes. Which is one minute and thirty seconds more than it should be, but with chicken I prefer to overcook it. There are things like salmonella, E.coli and, of course, listeria . . . you just never know!
“What?” I said out loud. The person of two days ago would never have been afraid of chicken. Never been afraid of catching some invisible disease from it. But I was no longer Zoe, I was Zen. Zenobia and, apparently, she was full of phobia. I briefly smiled at the alliteration, and then it faded when I realized how sad that actually was.
The microwave gave another ding and I pulled out the hot chicken, rice and broccoli and dropped it onto a plate. It certainly didn’t look appetizing. The bright white breast stared blandly and featurelessly back at me. You could see it hadn’t been seasoned at all. It lay on a small bed of brown rice that looked just as unappealing without some kind of sauce on it.
I walked my food back to the sofa and sat again, changing the channels and trying to decide between two shows. I flicked between the channels. A show on Indian matchmaking, or a show on the worst murders in America? I chose the dating show. I liked watching dating shows, even though it was clear I never went on dates. In fact, the closest thing to a date that I had been on for years were these past few days with Noah.
Noah.
I chastised myself for thinking about him again and sliced into the chicken breast and put it into my mouth. It was disgusting. More disgusting than I’d imagined, and I was forced to spit it out.
I put the plate on the table and walked to my bedroom, I wanted sleep. I wanted to block this all out. I pulled the covers back and climbed into bed. At least my bed and the linen on it was comfortable. I lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, hoping that sleep would draw me in soon. But it didn’t. Instead this anxious feeling gnawed inside me and my heart started pounding so hard and fast that it made me feel light-headed and woozy. I sat up as I remembered something and raced through to the kitchen to get it. I picked up my keyring and it finally all made sense. Why all these things were on it.
Therapeutic tools, I could hear a woman’s voice say. I didn’t know who she was, but I knew that she was the one who’d suggested I get it.
I lay back in bed and pulled on the elastic bands of the ball and then squeezed the stress ball over and over again. And when I was done, I twirled the fidget spinner between my fingers. These were for my anxiety, a feeling that hit me hard and cold and sticky day and night. But the therapeutic tools weren’t working to quell the growing feeling inside. I needed a distraction, so I opened the drawer, grabbed my book and let it fall open randomly.
He burned for her. His loins, his skin, his entire being. His fingertips ached to trace that soft skin on the nape of her neck. His lips throbbed, desperate to devour her with his mouth. To explore her every inch with his hungry tongue and make her cry out for him. But he couldn’t. She was forbidden to him, because he was promised to someone else. It had been arranged since his birth, that he would unite two great royal families by marrying Sheika Aisha. But he’d never felt for Sheika Aisha anything like what he’d felt for this strange woman who’d accidentally tumbled into his palace, much like the raging sand in the storm, pushing its way underneath his doors, an unwanted guest forcing its way through. And much like the sand itself, she had done nothing but rub him up the wrong way since she’d arrived. His attraction to her was a total mystery, and yet he had never been more attracted to and drawn to another creature in his entire life.