ADRIAN
“Do we have a problem here, Adrian? You’ve been quiet lately, and it’s beginning to bother me a lot,” Olivia asked after noticing how restless I had been lately.
I tried to pull myself together and pretend that everything was fine, but I just couldn’t. I still found myself trembling as I gripped the steering wheel.
“Nothing for you to worry about, Olivia. It’s not something that I can’t handle. Trust me when I say I got this,” I assured Olivia, forcing a smile that reeked of confidence.
The plan was to allay Olivia’s fears, but so far, it wasn’t working. Olivia wouldn’t stop asking me questions.
“Like seriously, Adrian? You want me to believe the things you say when your heart is beating faster? Come on, who does that? What the fuck do you take me for? A dummy or what?” Olivia lamented bitterly.
At that point, I knew I needed to tell her the truth to allow me to focus on getting away from the car that was trailing us from behind.
On second thought, I doubted if Olivia would be able to handle the news, let alone help me concentrate on the driving.
“You keep staring at the side mirror without uttering a single word. Is there something I should be worried about? Please do talk to me,” Olivia begged. She was a few steps closer to the truth. All she needed was my honesty.
“Like I said before, nothing is wrong. I just want to get us to the station on time so we can file a complaint about the mystery person who took photos of us,” I said, looking into Olivia’s eyes and lying to her. It wasn’t my intention to hurt her with my words, but the situation called for it. Olivia was already tense without the truth. Hearing the truth might break her and lead to a fatal accident.
“Oh, my goodness. We are being trailed. We should call the cops immediately,” Kate alerted us from the back seat where she was sitting.
“What are you talking about? No one is trailing us,” I quickly debunked Kate’s claim, just pretending not to know about it. I wouldn’t want Olivia to see me as a traitor.
“I am dead serious. A car is following us from behind. Please do something about it before we all get hurt,” Kate cried. It turned out she had been paying attention to the car behind us while Olivia and I argued like market women.
“Is it true? Please look me in the eyes and tell me Kate wasn’t lying,” Olivia turned toward me.
She was trying to cause the same distraction I’d been trying to avoid all along. She wasn’t even concerned about getting into a fatal accident.
I drove off on a different route without paying attention to Olivia’s ranting. While it was important to satisfy her curiosity, I was more concerned about our lives. To guarantee our safety, I couldn’t pay attention to her.
Luckily for me, the road was clear, with just a few cars in sight. I was able to have a safer ride.
Looking behind me, I discovered that the car was gone. We had finally gotten away from the mystery car.
I pulled over immediately and stepped out of the car just to get some fresh air.
The air conditioner in my car was turned on, yet I was sweating profusely as though I had just drowned in an ocean.
I struggled to breathe, even though I wasn’t asthmatic. All I needed was water, and I couldn’t get one.
In the absence of water, I salivated just to quench my thirst.
As I struggled to stay alive, Olivia rushed out of the car and grabbed me by the shirt to start a fight.
“Why did you stop the car? Do you want us to get killed?”
I couldn’t speak in my defense.
My strength was gone. I could barely even defeat a five-year-old in my condition.
I was craving a hot bath and a good sleep. Surviving a suspected assassination attempt wasn’t something that happened every day.
“Olivia, please let me go. I am stressed right now. I just need to rest, and you aren’t making that happen,” I pleaded with Olivia.
My voice was gone. Everything about me felt empty.
As I struggled to be free from Olivia, Kate showed up from nowhere and pulled Olivia away.
I felt relieved. It was as though Kate could read my thoughts and knew I needed help.
“Kate, stay out of this. Why did you have to pull me away like that?” Olivia shouted.
“I couldn’t wait for you to murder him. I had to do something about it. Besides, fighting him wasn’t going to solve anything. Now we have enough proof that someone is trying to kill us. We need to take this to the cops immediately,” Kate suggested, defending me.
It was relieving to see Kate defend me like that. I could never have dreamed of that happening. Kate didn’t, for once, consider if her support for me was going to make Olivia hate her.
“Since you’ve decided to support Adrian over me, can you be kind enough to plead with him to drive us to the station immediately? What if those people come back?” Olivia charged at Kate before returning to the car, leaving me alone to make the final decision.
Kate looked at me in a way that scared me. She had yet to speak, and I already understood everything perfectly.
I didn’t even get the chance to appreciate her properly because I didn’t know what to say.
Using her hands to gesture, Kate pleaded with me to get back into the car. She also placed her hands on her chest, signaling me to stay calm and ignore Olivia’s ranting.
Even without speaking, Kate made so much more sense to me than Olivia, who ranted as though she wanted to drop the world on my head.