little smugly now. “I never called you that, though. In fact, I always thought it was a little unjustified, until you pulled the runner when I gave you the bill. Rex could have died, you know. I’ve had him for sixteen years!”
“I’m so sorry. Please send me the bill again. I’ll definitely pay it.”
“It’s twenty thousand Rand! I had to put it on my credit card. My electricity bill bounced this month.” He turned and pointed back into his apartment, “I have no lights, so you’d better pay it. The lawyer said I could sue you if you don’t.”
“A lawyer?”
“Yes. I consulted one. He suggested I file the missing person report.”
I pulled my bag off my shoulder and took out my checkbook and a pen.
“How much did you say it was?” I asked.
“What’s that?” Eugene took a step closer to me.
“I’m going to write you a check.”
“A check? Do the banks still take those?”
I looked up at him, feeling a little irritated this time, but I took a deep breath and looked back down at the check. “How much?”
“Twenty thousand, three hundred and fifty Rand.”
I scribbled the numbers down, wrote my name and signed. And then I pulled it out and handed it over to him. He took it like he had never seen one before.
“This is for twenty-two thousand,” he said.
“I added extra. For the inconvenience. Your lights, and anything else Rex might need, or for anything you might need, and . . . and . . .” Eugene turned around and my throat tightened so much that I don’t think I was able to talk anymore. Without a thank you or a smile or anything, he just walked back in and closed the door loudly. I stared at the door in front of me.
No one liked me. In fact, it was clear that some people vehemently disliked me, and why wouldn’t they, I guess. I was unfriendly, I scared animals—I probably scared babies and children too! I was a monster of a person that no one knew or cared about and that realization was so painful I felt like I needed to get as far away from it as I possibly could. I hurried down the staircase. The tears came in buckets now, and my shoulders were shaking by the time I got to my floor. In fact, I could hardly see through the veil of water covering my eyes as I raced in the direction of my door. I bumped into something and, when I saw what it was, I cried even more.
CHAPTER 40
“I’m so sorry . . .” I bent down and tried to pick up the groceries that I’d just knocked out of my neighbor’s hands. “I didn’t see you there.” I reached for a tin of baked beans, an onion, a packet of crisps and a loose chocolate, pulling them towards me, trying to balance them in my arms but dropping them all because my arms were shaking too much. Or was it my shoulders that were shaking? Or all of me?
“Don’t worry. I can get them,” I heard my neighbor say from above me.
“No! No! I will.” I could barely see a thing through the veil of water dripping down my face.
“Stop. Please,” my neighbor said, but I kept on going, unable to stop, crawling around the floor, reaching for things I could no longer find and see and hold.
“PLEASE!” she said firmly, and I felt a hand grip my shoulder.
I stopped what I was doing and sat down, pulling my knees towards me and leaning my back against the wall. I wrapped my arms around my knees and lowered my face into them and hung on for dear life. Hung on while all the emotions pulled at me so strongly and from so many different directions I wasn’t sure gravity would hold me in place.
“Are you okay?” my neighbor asked, in a voice filled with genuine concern. I could hear it, and it made me want to cry even more.
“No!” I said.
“Would you like to come inside for some tea?”
I whipped my head up and looked at her. “Me? Tea?”
“Yes.”
“But you hate me. Like Eugene hates me. You sent me food that I threw away and invitations that I turned down, and apparently, I ignore you in the corridors and scare your cat. I seem to scare everyone.”
“That’s true. You do scare my cat,” she said. “But I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t?” I asked, wiping my face with the collar of my