Dancing With The Devil.

Leia felt suffocated as her world and sanity crumbled with each passing minute. She felt chained to her dark past and talking about it would be the perfect solution to get help, if she just opened her mouth but…

“She might hate me and want to settle ties,” the weight of her crimes upon her shoulders, was just too much for an ordinary person to overlook.

Finally, her lips separate as she decides for herself.

“He’s my ex,” Leia says.

…

"Are you sure he ain't stalking you?" Rachel asks with one brow pent upwards, staring at Leia through the mirror. 

Leia knew too well that stalking was not near enough to explain her situation, but since she was just feeding Rachel the icing on the cake, it didn’t matter.

The girl wasn’t sure what to say. Whether or not he was stalking couldn’t still doesn’t erase the fact that she’ll want him off her back.

“I mean if my ex did that to me, I would have called the police,” Rachel yelled. 

Her gaze couldn’t meet Rachel’s because she knew her version of the story, was merely the whole thing. 

Her fingers are fondled as she looks away out of guilt.

"I've had that thought a million times, the probability of it being possible, because, I’m also responsible…" she spoke with a burst of dried laughter. 

"Uh-huh? For what? The break-up?”

"A hundred per cent,” she said. 

"You should tell the police, I mean, just because he's a sky, it doesn't mean he can get away with stalking you," Rachel yelled in anger, her friend being reluctant to seek help was tiring to her, even when she was providing a solution. 

Leia could only stare at Rachel through the mirror as she dried her hair. 

She reaches out and holds her friend's hand and caresses it, then with a sigh she stands on her feet, "It's not as easy as you think, I may have done some things that make me unable to shake him off.”

"Girl… You've got way too many issues going on with you and that family," the girl says with frustration as she puts the dryer away. 

“Acho!” 

Leia sneezes loudly, scaring Rachel who jumps at the unexpected sneeze. 

She stares at her friend's face and feels her forehead, and a dazed Leia still recovering from the sneeze wiggles her nose as she watches Rachel. 

“Jesus!” Rachel yells as she shakes her hand and head, “now look, your sick,” the angry woman laments. 

“I’m okay, it’s just a sneeze,” Leia says. 

Ding! 

At the sound of her notification, Leia peeps at her phone and heaves a heavy sigh, she couldn’t even get angry as the cold was slowly getting the best of her. 

She walks back to the living room and begins to search for her purse, but it’s nowhere to be found, and at once the pillows come flying one after the other in search of her purse. 

“Where is it?” she whispers, going on all fours as her waist bends upwards and her head lowers down. 

With her phone torch, she starts searching for her purse under the couch, but she still can’t find it. 

“Are you looking for this? Where do you think you’re going?” Rachel asks.

Intrigued, she raises her head and turns to meet her friend standing in the corridor with her purse. 

“Give me my… my purse…” she mutters after much struggle, each word feeling like the journey of a thousand steps as she feels her strength live her. 

“No, you’re staying here, 'cause you’re sick,” Rachel tells her. 

“I’m not sick,” she tells a wet lie. 

Leia knows too well that her appearance at the moment is less convincing as she sits on the floor, barely able to move. 

Staring at her, Rachel can’t help but sigh at her pathetic state, at the very least she wasn’t expecting such a disappointing lie. 

“Yes you are, and you need to rest,” Rachel says as she walks towards Leia to help her up. “Don’t do this to yourself, you’re burning up.”

"No… he's here, I have to go…" Leia cries. Her hand desperately tries to reach towards her purse but Rachel being in a much better condition moves away. 

However she pauses, and her mind starts to wander as she stares at the face of her desperate friend.

The room falls quiet and Rachel listens to the patterns of the rain.

The weather is slightly better but Leia isn’t in the best of condition to walk alone and under the rain, moreover, “what do you mean by he’s here, who’s here?” she questions. 

Leia doesn’t answer as she just lays on the floor, sneezing nonstop. Rachel grabs Leia’s phone, ready to browse through it, when her eyes meet the very first visual on the screen.

"Wait, did he just text you? How does he know you’re here?” A horrifying Rachels asks.

Ding Dong!

The two girls turn towards the door, unsure what to do when Leia heaves heavily. 

She summons courage as she takes her phone back, with a few deep breaths she rises on her feet ad walks towards the door.

"Leia, if you won't call the police then I will," the trembling girl warns, her hand tightly gripped to her phone as she prepares for a speed dial. 

"Rachel, please,” Leia begs her. 

There it was again, the look that put the bridge between Leia and Rachel, that soulless look that tells her Leia doesn’t want her meddling any more.

"Tch! Suit yourself,” she yells, slamming Leeia’s purse in her chest as she walks away gritting her teeth as she digs her nails inside her hand. 

Finally, she reaches the door, and her chest out shakes her face and she claps her cheeks, her hand stretches towards the handle as she opens the door, ready to face him. 

"You look stunning," he says to her as soon as the two meet. 

Mark stands out the door with a black umbrella, smiling at her with his hand stretched out, “shall we go?” 

There he was, standing before her, the main cause of her problems, she hated him and yet she could not refuse him. For now, she would just have to dance to the devil's music.