5.HUNGER, ANGER, AND PAIN

JELA

I feel so many eyes on me. That vulnerable feeling of being naked around strangers came back at once. I clutch Bash's shirt at my chest as I hurried through the crowd and hailed a taxi. The taxi driver looked at me suspiciously, then his eyes focused on the road. I inhaled and exhaled several times to make that feeling go away.

Once I am at my old apartment, I waste no time reaching my flat. My falt!. A wave of relief hit me as soon as I entered my living room. It was nothing like the flat I stayed in yesterday. It is simple and small. Bash's house is simple too. But it is scary and luxurious.

All the feeling of being belonged to a place suddenly left my body when I saw two large trolleys that are placed outside my room. They packed it already. Anger surged through every inch of my body and pain started to replace it. Why don't I have a home?

I clench my fist and stomped to Ridge's room. I knocked on his door twice. He didn't open it. Thrice, The door is still shut. I started knocking on it until he opened the door.

I shouldn't have knocked it.

He was naked except for the piece of towel that covered his reproduction part. He was still fixing his towel, tying it around his waist when he opened the door.

"What the hell?" He yelled and was about to say something. But he stopped when he looked at me, especially at my dress.

Behind him was a girl, a pink-haired girl. She covered her body with the bedsheet. I feel ashamed to barge in like this. Still, I couldn't control it.

"Who the hell are you?" I ask her, walking past him.

"She is ..." Before Ridge could say anything, I fired my question.

"What the hell are you doing with my boyfriend?"

The girl's eyes widened in horror. She closes her mouth with her hands. "I didn't know that he has a girlfriend."

"You, bastard." She yelled at Ridge.

"What the hell!" Ridge said again, looking confused between us.

"No, Zoey, no." He says, trying to ease her while she started to hit him.

So her name is Zoey.

Time for rescuing.

I laughed out loud, shocking her.

"I am sorry. Zoey. I am so sorry. Ridge has just made me a homeless person. So I thought I should take revenge. I am not his girlfriend." I explained.

She exhaled in relief. "You guys are insane." She says. So she heard about us. "Yesterday, Nore told me that he was a psycho, and he has abducted her and trapped her in this apartment. She acted so well that I searched for weapons for a second to strike him."

That sounds exactly like something that Nora would say. Zoey is laughing which is good. She understood us and can be easily fit into our gang. Isn't it a boon to have a person who gets our humor?

She started to pick up her scattered clothes on the floor. So I turned around and walked into the living room while Ridge followed me closely.

"You just blocked a mind-blowing orgasm." He hissed in my ears.

"And you packed my bags and put them out of my room."

"I was helping you." He says defensively.

"You are sending me away. Isn't that enough that my parents send me away from their lives?" I yell at him.

Those furious softened at my words. He held the back of his head with his hand, rubbing it lightly.

"What happened?" He asked.

This is my breakdown. All the piled-up emotions have come out in the form of tears. Zoey came from behind, fully dressed, her hair is a beautiful mess.

"You alright?" She asked me, concern visible in her eyes.

"I am sorry I pulled that prank. I am out of my mind lately." And I shouldn't have kissed Ridge. I did

"It's fine," She says. "I like your gang. And I wish you did what you did for fun and not because you were out of your mind. Because I am looking forward to more of this."

I like her already. Liked a lot.

"Don't worry about that. We have a weird way of dealing with our misfortunes. At present, she has a lot going on so she will be out of her mind for another two days, pulls stupid pranks, and then cries her heart out. Get habituated. And she was also crying because we kissed yesterday." Ridge explained everything that was in my mind.

Zoey nods her head in understanding.

"I was afraid. I wanted to feel numb." I tried to explain.

"You kissed a guy to feel numb?" She asked me.

I shrugged casually, "I feel nothing when I kiss. It helps sometimes."

"I think you are not kissed by the right guy. That's why you feel nothing."

No, I was kissed by the wrong guy once. That's why I feel nothing. But I didn't say that to her.

So, Zoey is not just Ridge's fling or two-night stands. He is telling her things and being honest with her which means what they had between them is something else.

"What happened?" Nora asked, walking out of her room, "Who the hell are you?" She questioned me.

Ridge burst into laughter, making me roll my eyes.

"I have no place to go," I cried, "No home, no dress, not even food."

"Aww...It's fine." Nora says as she gave me a bear hug. Among the three of us, Nora is little fat, and fluffy. She is my favorite cushion.

"You alright?" She asked. "Tell me what happened in detail."

By the time I finished narrating the story, Zoey was trying to figure out if I am telling the truth.

What kind of bride will tear her wedding gown?

Nora says it's good. "He is not interested in you, and for whatever reason, he has married you, he is going to give you a divorce."

"But there is something off. He is unlike all other men in my life. He didn't try to do anything to me."

"Of course, he doesn't consider you as a girl." Ridge blurted out. "Who does when you dress like that?"

I gave him a death glare and attempted to choke him. Nora stopped me from doing this planet a solid.

"Wait, wait, wait," Zoey said. She looks like she got up from a mini-coma. She didn't even realize that Ridge and I had a fight. "Yesterday, you got married, and you were saying that he didn't do anything. Today, you were here in your rather small wedding gown. You are saying that your husband is going to give you a divorce. I just don't understand what's going on here."

"The thing is, Jela's father blackmailed her into this marriage. Bash, the guy with whom she got married, is not interested in her, and maybe he is into girls. So he didn't do anything to Jela. This marriage meant nothing to them." Ridge explained, earning several death glares from me.

"Why did he get married then?" Zoey asked, perplexed.

"Alliance," I said.

"And Power," Nora added. "Yesterday, I look upon the internet about him. Sebastian Wilde Merrick is everything a man like your father wants. He is affluent, powerful, and audacious. Alliance with him is a boon. And he is an..."

"Who is Sebastian Wilde Merrick?" Ridge interrupted her.

"Her husband," Nora answered, earning herself another death glare from me.

"I thought his name is Bash." He stated.

"Everyone calls him, Bash," I said dully. "Stop talking about this disaster for a while. I want something to eat. I am hungry."

"Didn't you eat at your home?" Ridge questioned.

"That is not my home." I snapped.

"And that guy cooked for himself. I don't know how to cook. There were only fruits in the fridge."

"That's awful," Zoey says.

"I would have done the same, Zoey. Even though we are strangers, I think there is some kind of hate between us. And it was as natural and as real as love at first sight." I told her.

"kız, come on. Let's fill your tummy." Nora said extending her arm towards me.

Zoey is confused again. "Kiz?" She questioned.

"It's more like kız, I mean, pronounce it as kuz or kaz or a mix of both," Nora explained.

"A mix of both will do," I stated.

Ridge shook his head slowly. "They tend to watch and read a lot of Cinderella stories in many languages. And they keep using little words as if they understand the entire language. kız means girl in Turkish." Ridge explained.

"Cinderella stories?" Zoey asked again.

"Yes, the fairytales, the kidnapped princess, and her knight in shining armor. In other words, they tend to read the billionaire romances a lot. Especially Nora. She made us read a few novels and I must tell you, Zoey, those novels are real manipulators. No wonder girls these days have high expectations of boys."

We all laughed at Ridge's explanation about the novels. Zoey got up to sit on his lap and kissed him on his neck, "I don't have high expectations of boys," She whispered loud enough for all of us to hear.

For a few seconds, he didn't get it. All the girls burst into laughter while Ridge was in the daze of the neck kiss, Zoey gave him. And when he finally understood what she said, he shook his head unbelievingly.

"I hate you all." He said and stomped into his room.

Poor Ridge.

*

"I just hate him for no reason."

"No, I have so many reasons."

"If he hadn't accepted my dad's proposal if he hadn't ignored my texts if he let me meet him before the wedding, none of this would have happened."

"So, I hate him for so many reasons."

"You texted him?" Zoey, who has caught up with most of my marriage story has asked me, interrupting my venting out process.

"I tried to contact him, tried to meet him before my marriage to tell him that I don't want this. He neither picked up my calls nor met me at his office. I tried my best to stop this disaster."

"But he looks so dashing. And his eyes are so beautiful. I would kill to be in your position." Zoey said, looking at his photos on the internet.

"Dashing?" I blurt out, "No way. He is so ugly and his eyes are definitely not real."

"You don't know that. But he is everything a girl wants."

I think Zoey is right. He is dashing. But I refuse to admit it. He is not dashing. His skin is not so fair, he has golden skin. I like men with that skin tone.

I don't like him.

He is everything a girl wants.

Not for me.

He is hot.

I am not sweating.

*

It was 9 PM. And the stupid me forgot to eat anything because of my work, and then when Ridge asked if I wanted something, I shook my head. God, I am hungry. The children at the hospital exhausted me a lot to the point where I questioned myself about becoming a doctor. When I reached the contact-lens guy's home, he wasn't there, and the house was locked. I didn't know his password nor do I have a key. I tried calling the number, Violet gave me before the marriage. Like always, he didn't pick up.

And I simply don't know what to do. I can go back to my place. But it was raining heavily that it would be hard to find a taxi. And I don't know if it will be safe. I would rather stay here. Rainy nights scare me. All the fatigue and hunger have turned into rage and pain. Why did my parents put me in this position, making me wait outside a stranger's house? I should have known that this would happen. I shouldn't have come here. My eagerness to get a divorce got the best of me. Now I am clueless.

I sat on the floor outside his home, wrapping my hands around my knees, resting my head on them. I think of my bed, my comforter, and my room. I think of the house I would build someday only for myself. That dream seems distant now. Too far away.

I don't know for how long I sat there. I tried to control my sleep but failed miserably. I dozed off for a while. It was someone's footsteps that woke me up. I held myself tightly as the footsteps become closer. They are confident and steady. I didn't look up thinking that he was another passerby. But the footsteps stopped. I saw the neatly polished shoes, clearly untouched by the rain, beside me.

I looked at his calloused hand reaching to me from the corner of my eye. From where he was standing he can't say if I am asleep or not. I raise my head to look at him. His hand was still in the mid-way to reach me. Only, he curled it into a fist when our eyes met. His bluish-grey eyes held no emotion. But why do I feel like he has something to say to me?