You've got a friend in me-Randy Newman

9.//but such was the cruelty of death.

Simi.

"What do you mean she's dead?" she whisper yelled but what she really wanted to do was scream. "She didn't pay me,"

"Our salaries?" Lorna asked. "It is not even end month yet, Simi, and why are you even worried about that, wouldn't Tony sort that out?"

"No, yes, I mean no you wouldn't understand,"

"You can tell me, I'll try to understand. You never know, I just might help you,"

"No," she concluded with finality.

Simi's legs lost all feeling and they collapsed under her, and she held onto the couch. She couldn't believe why a string of bad luck followed her everywhere she went. She even wanted to believe that bewitching was true, even if she didn't. It was as if someone had sent it to always watch her back because every time she tried to change her life, it always backfired on her for some reason.

The last weekend she had spent back home at the coast and used the deposit two hundred thousand to build a marble mausoleum for her mother's grave, it had cost her a lot, but it was the very best. White marble and gold trimmings closed off with a metal gate. She had also paid for a year's worth of fresh flowers to be delivered every day. That had taken a huge share of the money and had put a huge dent in her pockets, but it had been worth it.

She needed the rest of the money, only for her to go back and be told Sarah was dead. Why did she have to die before she paid her?

"You look so pale Simi. Are you okay," in her muddled mind, she hadn't heard Tony enter the room and sit opposite her. His eyes, red-rimmed and with bags under them, probably a by-product of a sleepless night. She could imagine how it felt to lose people they loved, better yet she knew how it felt firsthand, and it was an experience she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy.

Simi looked at him, wondering when she had become so selfish, there she was thinking about money when someone had lost a wife. She wondered what kind of life the daughter she left behind would live. She looked so much like her mother and that would serve a daily reminder to Tony of what he had loved and lost. It wasn't going to be easy for him, but such was the cruelty of death.

"I... I... I'm... I'm sorry... About what happened," she stammered standing up from the couch she was sitting on. Sarah wouldn't have liked her sitting on them.

"I assume you've heard what happened, I'm giving all the workers a few days off. Take some yourself, you don't look strong enough,"

"No. I mean, no I'll stay and take care of your daughter... You're clearly not in the right state of mind to do it and..." she started but stopped when a fresh stream of tears lingered in his eyes. She didn't know what to do with crying men or crying people in general, so she did what she would have wished someone would have done for her during her grieving period. She placed a box of tissues close to him, and walked out, leaving him to grieve in solitude.

"What did you say," Lorna attacked her whispering loudly and gesturing wildly. She ignored her and busied herself, making a glass of warm milk for Tony.

"I told him I would stay and take care of his daughter since he clearly couldn't," she would have seen Lorna's horrific facial expression had she not had her back turned, but she turned back when she gasped loudly, mouth open and eyes wide. "What?"

"His daughter, she didn't survive, she died too," the glass of milk slid from her hands, her mind registering how insensitive she had been. It shattered into tiny pieces the milk burning her upper legs slightly.

"Why didn't you say anything," she hissed cussing and scrambling to wipe the milk off before Kathrine walked in and saw it, forgetting that they had been given a day off.

"I saw how the news about Sarah affected you, so I didn't continue," she shrugged distractedly.

"You still should have told me regardless, then I wouldn't have been so damn insensitive,"

Sarah's and her daughter's death had triggered her own grief she wiped the milk off but she still kept going after being replaced by her own tears. She could hear the floor squeak from the pressure she was using, with how much she had wiped it but she still couldn't stop. She transformed it into energy, and she just couldn't stop, trying to distract herself, she wiped some more.

She wished they would be given a chance, a chance to choose who died and who didn't. A chance to take the places of the people they loved, and she was sure most people would take it.

She just couldn't understand why things had to happen the way they did, she sniffled trying to hold her tears back, a task that proved hard to achieve.

"I don't think the floor deserves the kind of punishment you're giving it," a hoarse voice said on top of her, and she could the front of leather dress shoes stop in front of her but she still couldn't look up.

She felt a pair of hands by her sides lift her up and help her into a chair. "You hurt yourself with the glass, did no one ever tell you not to touch broken glass with your bare hands, I'm going to clean them up for you," Tony said his voice full of reproach.

She still hadn't said her word and she still couldn't get over the fact that Tony was the one who was taking care of her instead of the other way around. He was the one who had lost someone, she should be taking care of him instead. So she pulled her hands back.

"If you don't want me to do it, then I'll have Lorna do it," he looked up sharply. "Either way someone is going to have to do it, and you know I'm more suited for the job than she is."

He held up a pair of sharp forceps and concentrated on picking up the glass sticking out from her hands. She winced again and again, but it wasn't the pain that caused it, she was already numb to that, but the sight of her own blood she hated it. He slowly applied antiseptic in preparation to bandage the wounds.

"Why are you so drunk tonight Simi," their current position had evoked a memory of the night she had been back home.

 She remembered how she had run into Waridi, knocking her over. That night she had been her angel and had unknowingly saved her, from herself.

She was beautiful, her brown eyes set far apart, and shining in the nightlife, her demeanor quiet. She had been young, about her own age, and even though her clothes were pretty simple, her shoes had been expensive. She had gotten a glimpse of them when she had thrown up in them. Other people would have been rude, but she was nothing but kind.

She had passed out shortly after they had introduced themselves, but she could still remember snatches of their conversations here and there. She could distinctively remember when Waridi called up a man to help her because she couldn't manage her by herself. She chuckled lightly when she surmised that she might have trodden on their own private time. She figured Waridi had been at the coast for some private time with her boyfriend, or fiancee, or maybe husband, and she had been such a cockblock.

"Something funny Simi," Tony asked applying light pressure on her knuckles. "Care to share?"

"Oh! It's nothing. I just remembered a friend of mine,"

"You have friends?"

"A couple, yes" she answered wanting to think of Waridi as her friend, even if they probably would never meet again.

"She must be pretty good. That laugh isn't like the usual bitter ones I hear from you,"

"She's very..." she trailed off not knowing how exactly to describe her. She tried to remember everything about her, memorizing it, sucking her into another spell of memories.

"You poor child," Waridi intoned running her fingers through her hair. She heard her wring out a cloth in a basin of warm water giving her a sponge bath. Anyone else would have let her sleep outside in the cold, but she had called her partner and together they had brought her into the lavish hotel room bed she lay on.

Waridi removed her dirty soiled clothes and replaced them with her own cotton pajamas that smelled like fresh flowers. She sniffed the air trying to catch the smell and not forget it. She had covered her up and left the room.

She had woken up that morning, scared that it had been a scam and that Waridi had left her in that hotel room just to have her pay for it. Stress hit, even if she worked in that place for several months for free, her salary would still not be enough to pay for it.

"Room service," she heard a voice outside the door and allowed entry. The hotel attendant had entered with a steaming plate of hot breakfast and told her everything had been paid for.

"Miss Waridi said you could stay a few more days if you had nowhere else to go if you'd like that is, she said she would cover the bill," she noticed how the attendant said her name with familiarity, she must have been a regular at that hotel. Simi had imagined she was rich, but not that much, but then it had been confirmed to her.

"Can you give me her contacts, so that I can thank her personally," for some reason she felt a kinship to her like they had been connected by grief. Like they both carried heavy responsibilities and she wanted to see her again.

"No, we don't give out our clients contact information,"

"Okay, thank you. You can leave," she groaned falling into the bed heavily, too bad she had to get back to work in Nairobi, otherwise, she would have stayed, it had been an offer too good to pass.

She had sat there and listened to her. Not talking not interrupting, just listening and giving her flavored water from time to time, to help sober her up.

"She's very..." Tony's voice reminded her that he was still waiting for her answer.

"She's very kind and caring and fun yeah," she watched him gather his first aid provisions and stand up.

"As I said, I gave all of you a few days off, I'll have you go with Simi, so I can be sure you'll be home safe and sound," he remarked and held up his hand when she tried to argue. "Don't even think of doing it. I know you come from the same place, so it's much easier, I'll have my driver drop both of you off,"

"Okay," she agreed wringing her hands together.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine and about your friend, I'd like to meet her, she sounds like a wonderful person.

"She is," I have a friend of mine coming over, St. Claire. I'll be fine,"

Simi nodded furrowing her eyebrows, wondering why that name had sounded so familiar to her ears.

Then she remembered that was the name Waridi had called out to help her.

Maybe it was just a coincidence, she shrugged easing herself into her coat.

💃💃💃💃So here it is for those who love Simi unconditionally 🥳🥳🥳🥳another Simi moment. Tell me what you think.

And don't forget to vote.

I love you😘😘