Chapter 14 - Silence

The next morning dawned with an odd unreality to it. I made it to work, and then through most of my morning in a kind of chilly fog. I couldn't get warm enough, despite wearing a cardigan over my blouse and a scarf that didn't match either one. It took me a few minutes longer to process requests than it should have, and I couldn't shake a feeling of dread.

Menzi made no contact with me whatsoever.

Nothing on my phone after the message I'd sent the night before—two blue ticks and nothing underneath them. Left on read. Nothing in my email inbox. No internal envelope.

The silence was excruciating. Especially when the day's Google alert hit my inbox and I saw the photographs and the phone video of me and Menzi on Nelson Mandela Square. Seeing how we looked together—the passion and need, the painful longing on our faces, and the gratefulness of reconciliation—was bittersweet.

Pain twisted in my chest. Menzi.

If we couldn't work this out, would I ever stop thinking about him and wishing we had?

I struggled to pull myself together. Tshepo was meeting with Menzi today. Maybe that was why Menzi hadn't felt pressed to contact me. Or maybe he was just really busy. I knew he had to be, considering his diary. And as far as I knew, we still had plans to go to the gym after work. I exhaled in a rush and told myself that things would straighten out somehow. They just had to.

It was quarter to twelve when my desk phone rang. Seeing from the display that the call was coming from reception, I sighed with disappointment and answered.

"Hey, Aviwe," Nokwazi said cheerily. "You have a Zandile Mtshali here to see you."