Chapter 11 - Fifteen Minutes

I clicked quickly through the other links in the digest and found the same picture with similar captions and articles. Alarmed, I sat back and thought about what it meant. If one kiss was headline news, what chance would Menzi and I have to make a relationship work?

My hands weren't quite steady as I closed the browser tabs. I hadn't considered the press coverage, but I should have. "Damn it."

Anonymity was my friend. It protected me from my past. It protected my family from embarrassment, and Menzi, too. I didn't even have social media accounts, so people who weren't actively in my life couldn't find me.

A thin, invisible wall between me and exposure was gone.

"Hell," I breathed, finding myself in a painful situation I could have avoided if I'd dedicated any of my brain cells to something other than Menzi.

There was also his reaction to this mess to consider. … I cringed inwardly just thinking about it. And my mother. It wouldn't be long before she was calling and blowing everything out of—

"Shit." Remembering that she didn't have my new number, I dug my old phone out of my handbag and woke it up to see whether she'd already tried to reach me. The screen filled, and kept filling. Missed calls. A column of unread WhatsApps. And beneath them, one after another after another, her voice notes—eleven of them, and not one under two minutes.