This entry is one of nine that I wrote in roughly 8 hours and over a 28 hour period. I apologise for the quality of writing, but had to type furiously to get it all out before I collapsed. I preferred you read it in order:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 That was when all of the observations I should have been making were pushed into my line of mental vision.Liz: “I had a mind that something like this would happen. Zodiac is very protective of you. He only kept asking, ‘Where’s Tiragem? Where’s Tiragem?’ I thought you two were just close.”
A couple of the others had been as oblivious as I, and wanted to know what was going on. I gave them incoherent bits and pieces with a wavering voice through shaky smiles. I felt absolutely blind-sided. Because I had been fully intending to behave myself, and had been, at least in my opinion, I was not expecting a situation such as this to arise. And even if it did, I did not expect it to affect everyone in a way such as us being stranded at a party in Tobago. I felt like shit because Zodiac was obviously upset with me and with the situation, and he is the last person I want to feel hurt. And I also felt like shit because the soap drama between Zodiac and I was affecting the vacation of 9 other people. I felt like my friends were depending on me to enjoy themselves, after all I had organised the trip in its entirety. If they had a terrible time, it was my fault. And here we were, and I had fucked up.
Mae: “Okay, well somebody will just have to make two trips.”
Me: “Fine. I’ll go in the second trip.”
Harry, Candy, Tami, and Kerri waited with me while Rum went to drop the others home. While we waited, I called Zodiac and asked him where he was. He was not far away.
“We’re ready to leave,” he said.
He said he was outside. I told the others, and we walked outside slowly. Through my daze, I told Harry to call Rum and tell him not to bother with the second trip; Zodiac would take us home.
When we walked out, Zodiac was nowhere in sight, but he appeared less than 2 minutes later. I got in the front passenger seat, put on my seat belt and stared at my white pants for the entire ride – which was shorter than it could have been considering the speed at which Zodiac drove. Zodiac drove in silence – he had to, else we would have surely been wrapped around a tree at the side of the road with members of Tobago fire department peeling the remains of the car out of our bone marrow. The four guys in the back did not speak much either, except for the occasional whispered comment or hesitant and muffled laugh.
Back at the resort, I got out of the car and stared at my white shoes. I waited for the others to start heading out of ear shot before I called to Zodiac, who did not even look at me as he kept straight on walking. I turned, and walked towards my door. For some reason the key would not slide into the slot, perhaps because my hands were trembling, perhaps because my mind was elsewhere. But eventually I got it open.
I went straight for the bathroom, but not to do anything emotional. I had to change my tampon – I told you I was wearing white pants. Still, it took a hell of a long time to change that tampon.
When I got out, Mae pointed at the door that led to the pool, and mouthed:
“I think he’s out there.”
I almost asked who.
I went outside, and sure enough, he was there, waiting patiently for me to talk to him. We spoke, but the conversation was not much more fruitful than it was when we were in the car. The only new piece of information I got was that he thought we did not care about him because of the whole incident with the ice (when he and Rum spent an hour searching for us). Our conversation was soon cut short because the others began to filter outside, removing the privacy we had created.
Exactly what caused the tears, I cannot remember. Perhaps it was not something that can be isolated. But when I got onto my bed, I was crying. Rum came to my side and started rubbing my back, asking me if I was okay, and when I said I was, telling me that he did not think me to be telling the truth. Someone else came and was rubbing my back too, trying to comfort me with their presence. I do not know who it was, except that the person was female, which neatly narrowed it down to a choice of 6 girls.
Eventually I stopped the flow of tears, and Rum was trying to get information out of me, saying that he would talk to Zodiac, but he needed to know what was going on first – he was not getting much information out of Zodiac. With clarity eluding my mind, it was difficult to help Rum much. Some words came out, but strung together, they seemed, even to me, to be unhelpful.
The rest of the night went by in a blur. I cannot remember what else happened or where I slept that night.