Richard strolled into the school’s Compound, running his eyes all over the place in search of Elise’s car. Her mother had gotten a private driver for her and he wondered if she had come into school with the driver. His activities of the previous week were different because he was mostly meeting up with his grades by making it to class and doing assessments.Now, he had an added responsibility ; looking after Elise. He strode into a shade that was behind the school’s business center. Several students hung around then in small circles, talking and laughing loudlyThe shade was an old tree with large branches that stretched outwards and provided shelter from the sun while the seats under the shade were all cemented and hard. Richard found one that was not surrounded by other people and he plopped down on it. He slipped out his phone and was about to call Elise but he held himself back and placed his phone in the pocket of his shirt.He observed his surroundings. Almost everyone was in a
Richard strode through the hallway of the hostel; half angry over what had happened between him and Collen ; half surprised that he could get upset to the point of beating Collen up. As soon as he stepped out of the hostel building, he realized that he had left something behind. It was his leather jacket. He let out a sigh of frustration and turned on his heels as he headed back into the hostel's building.His other roommate, Raven , had just slighted from a car and was running towards the building. Richard hastened up and made it to his shared room. The door was closed, just as he had left it but when he got in , nothing had changed. Collen still laid, crumpled up on the floor as he clutched his stomach and groaned in pain. Richard ignored him and stepped over his body to the railing where he had hung his jacket. He swiftly took it off and headed out of the room. Just as he was leaving, he bumped into Raven at the door. He did not say a word to him. Instead, he slipped out of the roo
Elise leaned back on the seat of the car, the band of the seat belt pressed against her body. Her mother’s voice jolted her back to reality. “Do you meet him before classes?” she asked.Elise threw a glance at her mother. She was in the driver’s seat and she had her focus on the wheels and the road ahead of her.“Meet who, Mum?” She asked.“You don’t listen anymore. “ Her mother remarked in bitterness “These days, it doesn’t take my h for you to completely zone out during a conversation. What’s bothering you, Elise?”Elise chuckled nervously, She quickly faced the road. “Nothing, Mum. I was only thinking about the course assessments at school. What were you talking about, Mum?”Her mother sighed “ Your security guard. Where do you meet him?” She asked“Oh! Richard? I don’t actually meet him but , he follows me about in school. “Her mother nodded slowly as she took her eyes off the road and smiled at her daughter. She drove into the University's premises some minutes later and she s
Time flew by in a blur of events and soon, Elise was at the party, nursing a glass of wine and watching other people as they danced in frenzy. Loud music blared from unseen speakers. Her friends had fine out to meet and greet the people that they had recognized from school.She had refused to go with them because she was wary about her safety. Richard wasn’t there, watching her and she didn’t want to get careless enough to mingle with people that she could not trust.Soon, one of her friend showed up at her table. Her makeup was smeared across her face and she had a strange, maniacal laughter . “You’re in a party!” Ana cried in delight. The music was so loud that they had to yell at each other to be heard “ Stand up and rock your body” Ana kept pulling at Elise’s arm..Elise laughed hard. She knew that her friends had drank a little bit too much and both of them were slightly drunk. Yet, she stood up from where she sat. Still clutching her purse, she followed her friends into t
Mr.. Rodriguez got into the hospital room first while Richard stood by the doorway, hesitant about going into the room. Susan was still seated by the head of the bed, where her husband had left her earlier. She was rubbing her finger in circles on her daughter’s forehead. Elise’s eyes drew to a close and she was almost falling asleep when she heard a loud gasp from her mother. Her eyes opened and began to dart around. Cold sweat broke out from her forehead. Her mother had stood up from where she was and was now trying to get past her father.“Allow me to face him myself, please!” She said in a slightly raised voice.James placed his hands on her shoulder and was firmly trying to take her away from where Richard stood.“I have always had a bad feeling about you, Richard!” She cried in a bitter voice “Just one night you failed to carry out your duty as my daughter’s security personnel. Now, look! Something nasty happened to her”Her husband rolled his eyes as he tried to lead her to
That night, Elise had no one to keep her company in the hospital room as her father had left a while earlier. She woke up quite early the following morning to the sound of a nurse arranging some medical equipment on the take beside her.“Hello!” The nurse greeted me in a loud, cheerful voice. She had double dimples on her cheek. Her eyes shone with delight as she spoke to Elise.“Hi” Elise muttered“ You’re up already?” Her smile broke into a grin. It was so contagious that Elise smiled back. “I came in here to administer your final dose of medications. You’ll be leaving today, Elise”Elise nodded. “I Know”“From the look of things, you’re not strong enough to make it out of the hospital on your own.”“Someone will drive me home” Elise blurted, partly hoping that the overly friendly nurse wouldn’t pry any further and ask her about the person that would be coming to pick her up. The nurse didn’t, instead, she nodded and began to prepare Elise for another shot of the injections.She was
When Richard took her home, and he helped her out of the car, he decided to stay behind at the residence and wait for James to return from his business trip. When he waited in the large, quiet living room, he picked up an old workout book that lay on one of the couches.Richard started to skim through the pages of the book, slowly getting absorbed in the book and he didn’t realize when time flew by. Soon, it was evening and the clouds had gathered outside. Richard checked his wristwatch for the time. It was almost 6:30 pm. As Richard stood up to head out of the living room, the door opened and James walked into the house.He had a tired smile on his face. The uniformed staff that came in after hon collected his briefcase and left the room. His eyes fell on Richard and he bobbed his head. “Have you been here for long? How’s my daughter? Is she at home?”Richard cracked his knuckles “Yes, Sir. I wanted to see you today, Sir. I decided to wait till you got backJames nodded and he
The students of Richard’s department were called back to class later that day because the examining council of the school had marked the test scripts of each student and graded them accordingly.So, they called the students back to announce the top three that were expected to represent the school at the international level.Richard was seated in his usual spot at the back of the hall, scrolling through his phone and trying to ignore Judy’s chattering voice. She was trying to explain the difficulty that she had experienced on the test and she wondered if she was going to scale through to the top three students.Richard was calm. The test was quite easy for him and he didn’t seem to understand why the other students were all worked up about their scores on the test. The professor called out the names of students and each of them went out to meet him at the podium of the lecture hall, where they collected their test script from him.After each student had gotten their test script, the