Chapter 4

• BLAIR’S POV
• Despite all of my persistence, Brian would not come clean, or offer any description to the documents.
• “Some things are better left unsaid, Blair,” he replied my question.
• “If you want to go ahead and be dramatic, we both can,” he said.
• He sat in the smaller couch adjacent me, and fell asleep, shortly after.
• I replayed the incident over and over again in my head, until I eventually fell asleep.
• *****************************************
• “Good morning, Cinderella,” I heard Brian's voice waking me up.
• I slowly opened my eyes and found him serving breakfast.
• “Guess Cinderella is already living her princess life,” he said, as he helped me sit up.
• Brian had presented a tray with chips, fried eggs and a cup of tea.
• I couldn't control the broad smile on my face, being woken up with breakfast.
• I couldn't also believe that Brian had this sweet side to him.
• “Mhmm,” I exclaimed, as I munched on the sweetness and crunchiness of the chips.
• I was surprised at what a good cook Brian was.
• “You can go back to resting after breakfast, or just continue snooping around, as it is in your habit,” he said, heading for the door.
• “Where are you going?” I queried.
• “For the umpteenth time, Cinderella, bills are paid around here,” he replied, as he shut the door firmly behind him.
• For reasons I could not tell, I felt a warmth in my heart anytime he called me Cinderella. It brought smiles to my face and I found it cute.
• I watched him leave, feeling some mushiness in my heart and wearing dreamy eyes.
• Brian was an adorable young man, and the sheer fact that he was always out and trying to pay our bills, filled me with compassion towards him.
• As I finally took my face away from the window and back to my meal, I noticed his phone on the table.
• I picked it up and immediately, there were tons of messages from a guy called Steve.
• “A lot is still going on, it's not safe,”
• “Still no leads Brian, we have to fix this,”
• “This has gone on long enough, what do you plan to do,”
• “You can't continue like this,”
• “You can't remain in hiding, he'll catch up with you eventually,”
• “Brian,”
• “Brian!”
• His texts came in rapidly and it was quite scary.
• I was still struggling to make some sense of his random and rapid texts, when a call came in from Steven.
• My hands were shaking from panic, and I wasn't sure what to do.
• Steven's call persisted and I had no choice but to answer.
• I placed the phone on my ear and listened quietly, with the most inaudible breathing.
• “If you're instructing me to text you, then you should be available to respond promptly to your texts, Brian,” Stephen said, as soon as I answered the call.
• “You'd have to return to fix this Brian,” Steven continued, “Running hasn't solved anything so far and it doesn't look like it would,”
• “Blair…” Brian pushed open the door.
• I froze completely, seeing that Brian had caught me on his phone.
• He was at first frozen, but took really furious steps towards me, snatching the device from me.
• I was dumbstruck and wore a scared expression.
• “Clearly, no one ever taught you anything about respecting people's privacy, or staying in your lane,” he scolded.
• Brian stormed out angrily, slamming the door behind him.
• I felt bad for upsetting him, especially since we had started the day pretty beautifully, but I couldn't wave off the fear that came from all of Steven's statement.
• ‘Whatever did all that mean?’ I thought,
• ‘Who was Steven? What was he talking about?’ question after question kept flooding my mind.
• I immediately lost my appetite, and for the next three hours, did nothing but paced about the apartment.
• I moved from the living room to the bedroom and back. I didn't know what to feel, think, or how to react.
• I was in a serious dilemma, and couldn't imagine how my life came to this.
• After more hours of thoughts, I ran out of the house, again, with no destination in mind.
• I didn't want to be around Brian, if all he did was lie to my face and keep secrets from me.
• Sure, I may not be very instrumental to his problems, but atleast I deserved to know the truth.
• I packed a small bag and began my journey.
• I took a long walk from the house and past my parents’ house.
• “Ma’am, Ma’am” I heard a soft, unfamiliar voice call to me from a distance.
• I got up defensively, but was immediately pacified by a pretty teenage face.
• She had brown eyes, afro, curly, black hair, broen shiny skin and her smile was heavenly.
• “It gets dangerous out here at night,” she said warmly.
• I had been roaming the streets of Vegas and eventually fallen asleep on the side walks.
• I got up hurriedly, “Uhmm…”
• “Are you lost?” The little girl asked. She looked in her mid-teens.
• “Uhm, not at all,” I replied, “I'm not lost,” I shook off the sleep.
• “It's getting pretty late,” she said,
• “of course,” I got up from the floor, looking around. My actions gave me away, as I stared into the streets, which were now dark and empty.
• “Ma’am, do you not have where to go?” the kind little girl asked.
• “Uhmm…” I gulped in a huge amount of my saliva.
• I could neither confirm nor deny her interpretation of my actions.
• “We can share my space tonight,” she offered.
• I gave an affirmative nod to her offer, in faith that it would be better than having to return to Brian, or my parents.
• Although she was a little younger than I was, I was afraid to talk to her, even though she has shown nothing but kindness to me in the past few minutes.
• “Ashley,” she said, “my name is Ashley,” she introduced.