Chapter 49 - Chapter 49: Fourteen Hundred Kilometres

Two days in, and the flat hunt is a bust so far. Anything decent in a decent area is out of my range. My ceiling is twelve thousand a month, and everything I've stood in and liked starts at eighteen. So it's Observatory or Woodstock or Salt River, or a long commute in off the M5 every morning, or somewhere I don't actually want to sleep. Sea Point and Gardens I didn't even open. Yoh. Truthfully, I don't want to do any of it. I don't want to be here, which makes finding somewhere to live all the more difficult.

My head is in Joburg and my heart is in Casablanca.

Zondi and the squad land there this afternoon, and I didn't realise how much disappointment I'd feel about missing the final, but I do. This whole season, travelling with them, watching them come through the qualifiers and the group and then the quarters and the semis, made me feel like I was part of it. And now, with the final about to start, I'm at the other end of the country, fourteen hundred kilometres away, completely out of the loop.

What was the mood when the boys got on board this morning? Were they nervous? Excited? Quiet? What did Elton put on that speaker of his walking down the aisle to his seat?

How is Zondi doing after seeing his mother yesterday?

I want all the answers, and I could have every one of them if I answered one of the messages or one of the calls. He hadn't reached out once since he ended things, but I'd imagine when he got on that plane this morning and realised I wasn't there after I said I would be, whatever plan he had went straight out the window.