Wallflower Kleo

Followed

Happy new year guys, I hope y'all have been good. It's mad because I feel like I've grown a lot from my last few chapters and I've decided it's time to make the story wilder gradually. What y'all been up to and thinking??

The last few days were quiet thankfully, I had been purposely avoiding everyone and just going to my classes and the library and straight home to my bed to watch HTGAWM and whatever TV show grabbed my attention. Sandra had been staying at her friends house for the week, thank God, I hated to admit it but I was so drained from confrontation that I didn't have the energy to react to her sabotaging me on the night of the party. Maybe this was me being mature? Or maybe it was because there was a tiny drop of doubt rippling through me, a drop which pointed to Naomi; but you know when you convince yourself that someone wouldn't do you like that because you can't fathom it? Everything was confusing me; Naomi, Raphael and Remy and their suspicious activities and to make matters worse, Ayesha had pretty much neglected me because she was so busy with something ... or someone?

On top of that was the slight embarrassment I felt. You know when you're drunk or tipsy and you act brand new and overly friendly etc and wilder than you are when sober, it was lowkey mortifying that so many people I knew and didn't even know had met that Kleo when the real me just wants to stay in a corner and have fun with minimal people and not be that girl doing the most. Also, I still had no idea how I ended up at Raphael's and was still recoiling from my strange experience with that weird guy 'Z'. Very rarely did I meet people who genuinely scared me but he did, it was his striking features and monotonous expressions and threatening demeanour.

Yet that wasn't the worst part; I thought I was being irrational fearing that Z character but I was convinced I was being followed these last few days. Yesterday, I was standing in Asda and it was near midnight and I was one of few customers and every aisle I entered, I'd catch the searching glance of a strange man. I shrugged it off thinking I was being my usual paranoid self and went to the snacks section to pick something and noticed him walk past entering the aisle next to me. Whenever I'd pause for a few seconds and whip my head around to catch him staring at me, he'd be rummaging through a shelf, he was good, I'd give him that. However, I've always been someone who was cautious so I deliberately walked to the other side of the store to the dairy section and entered the aisle casually before running around through the next aisle as fast as I could in an attempt to trick him. I waited for him to go to the aisle he thought I'd be in and peered through a shelf and just as I thought he strolled into the aisle with his basket still empty. He looked around and when he saw I wasn't there, he left the aisle. That was it, I was sure, he was following me. I grabbed my basket and power walked to the till, my heart was beating so hard and I could feel my armpits dampening from sweat, I was dizzy. I told the friendly faced black girl serving me at the till and when she scoured the store with me, he was gone.

I didn't really know what was going on and if it was even connected to anything or if it was just a random strange man following me. I felt like I had no one to talk to and to distract me. I was a mess and was lonely but couldn't bring myself to have company either. I had switched my phone off the day I came back home and hadn't even looked at it since. There's something surprisingly freeing about being able to shut off from the world and not have an online presence.

Surprisingly, the one time I did consider using my phone was when I came across the crumbled napkin with Adonis' number written on it. In my mind, he was just another attractive man who probably just wanted simple sexual relations and despite me finding him attractive in that sense, I knew I was not brave enough to entertain such a thing nor did I want to. However, when you're lonely and looking for something new, it's easy to let your mind wander. I left the napkin on my desk so I wouldn't forget about it.

*
"The coursework has been released. I don't want anyone coming up to me or knocking on my office", my lecturer droned monotonously as he swept his papers from his desk and marched out.