BROKEN

8. BROKEN

'Assumption without coherent prove is like thorn to the flesh'

NICK  POV

I drove into the restaurant and head inside looking around for Nora but couldn't spot her.

She told me earlier when I called that she was close to the restaurant which is only logical for her to be waiting for me.

Typical of African time. I sigh and head towards the reception, my eyes notice a young lady who kept smiling too bright at me couple with the eye contacts she was making at me. I simply smile back at her, trust me smiles is contagious. I didn't want to dwell on the message she was sending me with her eyes and the best way is to avoid her attending to me.
 
I March to the young man at the reception instead ignoring her glaring stares. After explaining and asking for few details. The young man who has a name tag as Andrew check our reservation before ushering me to our table afterwards. A spot close to the window.

I sit and decides to feed my eyes around the beautiful scenery. The cool country music playing in the background gives a homely and soothing feeling to the soul. I pull out my phone to check the time and as I rightly calculated, it was almost 3pm. I try calling her but it went straight to voicemail.

About forty five minutes later of fiddling with my phone, Nora finally make an appearance. She glance around for a while before her eye rested on my waving hand. She walk up to me with an apologetic look on display.

I get up and pull the chair for her as we exchange our greetings. She takes her seat and breathe out heavily.

"How was work? Or I should say, how is work going?" I ask as she throw her head back slowly.

"Hectic cannot measure up to what I went through today" She sigh deeply "A teenager was rushed into the hospital few hours ago, she was involved in a ghastly car accident with her boyfriend. Apparently, they sneak out with their parent's car but unknown to them the car has a brake malfunction. Well the rest is something I rather not talk about" She heave a deep breathe.

"Oh dear! How are they doing now?"

"The girl is stable now, might be in comma for sometime depending on her body but sadly the boyfriend didn't make it, he had lost so much blood before he was rushed in and had his skull fracture. I wish there was something I could do to bring him back, I did everything there is but we couldn't revive him. It hurt badly to loose someone on my watch especially when he barely lived his youthful life. He was so young. You need to see the look of pains nailing into the parent face" She let out painfully

"It's okay Nora, there are things that are out of our making and control. At least you tried the best way you could. Don't be hard on yourself" I reach for her hand that was on the table and squeeze it gently.

She only sigh and nodded slowly.

"Alright. Let's talk about something else" She clear her throat and smile up at me.

"Okay then" I return the smile, glad for the change of mood and the smiles that make it way to her face.

"How was work too?" She ask picking up the menu.

  I shrug and pick the second menu on the left side of my hand.

  She narrow her eyes and nod my way for an answer.

"Uhh...so so" I reply with a smile as I didn't know how to describe my work mood for the day.

"What do you mean by so so?" She ache her eyebrows at me.