The next few weeks I found myself going to work earlier than usual, because Kiara was always there on time and I liked conversing with her. Boss would come late as usual with his many excuses, and I could chat with Kiara before beginning the day's work.

I couldn’t help but observe that although Kiara was cheerful when she talked to people, when she was by herself she would have a permanent forlorn expression on her face, gazing transfixed at random spots or out of the window, sometimes with a deep frown like she was up against a blizzard.

And then one Sunday an incident occurred.

I was sitting outside my home, relaxing in the sunshine after a bath when I heard someone sniffling.

Kiara’s kitchen window was open and I could see her standing next to the gas table. She was clutching her face with one hand and shaking violently, as if she was in a fit of tears.

“Is everything all right?” I shouted. She looked up with teary eyes.

It was then that I noticed blood on her right hand.

“Shit!” I grabbed a first aid kit and ran to Kiara's house. Her main door was not bolted from the inside and gave way when I pushed it.

Kiara was still standing in her kitchen, sobbing. She had been slicing potatoes. I made her wash her hand and applied some antiseptic and bandaged it. My fingers shivered as I carried out the procedure. Dealing with blood and injuries was never my thing.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

For a moment I just observed her confusedly. Even though she had hurt herself she should have given herself first aid instead of standing and crying, being an adult. A question popped in my mind: Was it really an accidental cut?

“You are okay, right?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said, sniveling and rubbing her nose with her knuckle.

I continued to stare at her. Kiara was a mess. Her hair was all over the place, her eyes were sunken in, her face glistened with tears and her hand was untidily bandaged. The last one was my fault but I was not a skilled nurse.

“Did you hurt yourself knowingly?” I asked her, with some daring.

Kiara’s otherwise beautiful eyes brimmed, her smudged mascara giving her a ghoulish appearance. And then she burst into tears completely and fell to her knees.

“H-Hey!”

While I was definitely concerned for Kiara, I was freaking out inwardly. What if someone barged in hearing her wails and accused me of hurting the girl?

I crouched down next to Kiara and with hesitation placed my hand on her shoulder.

“If… if there is a problem then you can tell me,” I told her. “I will do my best to help you, I promise.”

Kiara shook her head.

“Everyone’s dead! My parents are dead. My boyfriend is dead. Even my best friend is dead, can you believe it? All gone within a year. Ha!”

And she started laughing hysterically, before covering her hands and sobbing in a high treble key.

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I felt the breath stuck in my throat. I didn’t know what to say.

“H-how?” I squeaked.

“Family in a train wreck,” she sniffled, pulling her cheeks with her pink nails, “Boyfriend was with best friend, drunk, and he crashed his car into a wall. Those two were cheating on me. But he was still my boyfriend, and she was still my best friend. Shitty ones. But I never wanted them to die!” Kiara slammed a fist on the floor. “I feel so alone! I do not want to kill myself, but I want to die!”

All right, she had been through stuff. Kiara had lied to me the other day. Though I couldn’t see why anyone would jump into details of a dead infidel boyfriend during a first meeting.

“Hey, don’t say that,” I spoke, as gently as I could. “You are not alone. I am here. I came running. Don’t think that you are alone. I am there for you.”

I immediately regretted what I said. I could have definitely picked better words.

Kiara abruptly ceased weeping and glared at me.

“You are hitting on me, aren’t you?” she snapped. She stood up in fury.

“No, I didn’t mean that–”

“Get out of here!” Kiara punched the air in the direction of the way out. “Leave me alone! Get out of here!”

A few minutes later I found myself in my bathroom, splashing water on my face, watching a spider feeding on a fly in a corner of the bathroom. Only one thought went round and round in my head. You could have picked better words, idiot.

My Sunday was ruined.

***

I didn’t go to the office the next day, feigning a fever.

It was the first time a girl had yelled at me like that in my entire life. Somehow I had gone through all the years without being the target of rough words from people, male or female.

All right, I could still remember the brawl with my nemesis Lewis when I was in the fifth grade. We both went to the same taekwondo instructor, and I had defeated him at a match. He decided to get even with me during school lunch break, and challenged me to a fight. Except, I defeated him again. Hand to hand combat was kind of my thing once upon a time.

The embarrassed Lewis stabbed me with a pointy pencil on the cheek. I swooned as the blood dribbled out of my face. My blood phobia was rooted in that one incident. My uncle, who was my guardian, snuffed out my martial arts dreams, deciding they were causing me more harm than good. I could have lost an eye that day.

But after Lewis transferred schools my life took a pleasant turn. College had been a breeze too.

It was in the evening when there was a knock on the door.

I had a minor heart attack when I saw it was Kiara.

She was biting her lips nervously. She had a bag of chips in her hand and she stuck it out to me.

“Chips?”

“Uh…” I grabbed the packet. “Thanks.”

Not sure what to say further, I invited her in. She came gingerly and sat on the couch, looking around at my room. Both of us were reluctant to acknowledge what had happened yesterday.

“How was work today?” I asked.

Kiara nodded. She stared a little more firmly into my eyes.

“I am sorry,” she said.

I waved my hand.

“Forget it. I am sorry. I could have used better words, stupid me. I don’t know how to talk to girls.”

“No, it was my fault,” Kiara said. “You helped me and my behavior was rude.”

The following few minutes elapsed with each of us stressing how the other was not to blame. We harped on it so much that eventually we began to giggle. We spent some time eating salted chips and chatting about random things. Apparently I had done such a poor job wrapping the bandage on Kiara’s hand that after I left she had to redo it.

“To be honest, I have a phobia of blood,” I admitted. “Once I witnessed a minor motorbike accident and fainted.” As I said this I wondered why I had a tendency to shout my weaknesses to girls.

“I used to as well,” Kiara said. “Until I saw so much of it, I kind of became insensitive.” She added darkly.

All right, conversation is going downhill.

I observed her intently, so much in fact that Kiara said, “What?”

“You know, like you, I am also lonely most of the time,” I said. “Maybe we could hang out…”

Know your limits, a wise voice whispered in the back of my mind.

Kiara raised a brow.

“Are you asking me out for a date?”

“Uh, I…”

“Well, I have some free time on Sunday,” Kiara said with a shrug, curling her lips and looking away shyly.

“You do?” I asked, horripilating, just to confirm my ears had not misheard.

“Yeah.”

Kiara stood up.

“I think I should go,” she said. “I left the house messy when I left in the morning. Must fix it.”

After I closed the door, I sank to the bottom, feeling giddy, biting my fingers like some overexcited teenager. That had gone smoothly, I thought. Five days stood between me and sunday. If only I could leap across the week like some time traveler…

But of course, when Sunday finally arrived, fate decided to take a piss on my dreams.