‘I wonder how it feels to be Billy Anderson’s girlfriend hey Petunia, or Sharon’. Anna confessed later that afternoon when we were at our apartment doing our assignments. We were in our world now. We could talk about Billy Anderson all day until bedtime and there was nothing weird about it. We even had pictures of him on our wall. For real. You know how teenagers go gaga on super stars like Justin Bieber? Billy Anderson was our own Justin Bieber. We talked about him non-stop. He was the kind of guy who I personally fantasized about until the early hours of the morning. I always saw myself in his arms, car, in his bed. I never went a day without match-making the both of us in my head. He was my perfect boyfriend and I was his pretty one.
‘Hey Petunia, I’m talking to you. Where is your head?’
‘Huh?’
‘Did you even hear a word I said?’
‘No I’m sorry, I just want to complete this assignment, and deadline is tomorrow. What’s up?’
‘I said, I wonder how it feels to be Anderson’s girlfriend or that brainless beauty, Sharon.’
‘Okay okay okay, I can understand the Billy Anderson girlfriend part, but I don’t understand the Sharon part. Why would you want to be her?’
‘Girl come on, do you want to tell me that you have never once in your life wished to be like her, or just to spend a day in her shoes?’
‘That will mean that I become a self-centered bitch, a bully, a beauty without brains and an attention seeker all in one day? It all sound like a whole lot of work. I’ll pass.’
‘Come on, you know what I mean. Sharon is not just beautiful Petunia; she is a definite Greek goddess walking among people. She knows exactly what to say to a guy and he falls to his knees. I wouldn’t mind being Sharon Monyai just for a day. I’d have almost everything a girl could wish for.’
‘Yeah, everything but brains. Sharon was very rude to me today; I don’t think I still think she is beautiful. Beauty has to come from the inside so that it can spread to the outside.’
‘Hahahahaha ok chomee, let me leave you to your work. I’m off to the library.’
‘Ok bye.’
Boy was I glad that Anna left. I secretly wished to be Sharon. Sharon didn’t look like your ordinary girl. She looked like she walked out of a magazine, photoshopped, and everything. Her skin was very glossy. I don’t know what she used for her skin but it must have been expensive. Maybe she didn’t even bath with water from our planet earth. Maybe hers came with special tanks from another planet. Sharon was very beautiful.
But I couldn’t stop wondering why she and Billy never dated. Well, she’d tell people to stay away from him, and apparently, he told his friends that Sharon was just another girl who is interested in him. Either Sharon was delusional, or Billy was a big-headed proud spoilt brat. ‘If Billy could say no to a girl like Sharon, then who am I?’ All this thought were swimming in my head. It actually hit me that I wanted to be as close as possible to Billy Anderson. But how was it possible that I fell in love with someone who didn’t even know of my existence. Billy Anderson knew I existed but that didn’t matter to him. He had very important people to worry about than a brace-faced first year student. Maybe I should just give up on this crazy quest to win Billy over. I thought to myself. There are other guys out there who will like me and appreciate me. Not those who will look up and say, 'Can I help you?’
First, I will have to find out why Billy and Sharon aren’t together and the animosities between them, before I try to win Billy.
‘Done with your assignment chomee?’
Sharon, the airhead
He asked me out
‘Hey, guys.’ I greeted Billy and Fabian.‘Oh hey,’ Billy responded,‘Done with your lecture already?’‘Yes. It was either quick or time flies.’ I chatted with him like we have been friends for some time.‘Okay...oh this is Fabian, my homeboy.’‘Hi Fabian, nice to meet you.’‘Hi.’ Fabian greeted me sharply and he didn’t even bother to look up at me. He looked less interested. But I was not that worried. I didn’t want to be his friend anyway. So, him b
Exploring the city nightlife
‘I think your date has arrived, let me open for him.’ Anna said while shoving the last pictures into the rubbish bin.I took a deep breath while looking at this new girl in the mirror, a girl that my parents would hardly recognize, a girl that I always yearned to look like. She was a very beautiful girl. And that girl was me.‘Hello, how are you?’ That was Anna, opening the door for Billy.‘I’m good, is she ready?’ Billy asked from the outside.‘Just a minute, I will call her.’ Anna told him as she came to fetch me.
When we were in the bathroom, Ntombi did lend me her powder but Lira had something else. I looked at her throw the powder carefully on the counter and she sniffed it, Carol did the same thing and Ntombi as well. I was stunned. Powdering their noses actually meant sniffing what looked like cocaine.‘What’s that?’ I asked with a scared voice.‘Come on now, don’t tell me you have never seen this! Coke.’ Carol exclaimed.‘Cocaine. I know what it is.’‘Then why do you ask? Come on and join us.’
Billy, the charmer
Billy was leaning against the door of his Mini Cooper, waiting for me. He smiled at me from a distance. He just looked at me and smiled from ear to ear. When I finally got to him, he hugged me tightly; more like squeezed me and gave me a baby kiss. You’d swear we already had the title of boyfriend and girlfriend. He once again told me how beautiful I looked and he smelled good as usual. He opened the passenger door for me, like a princess then he sat in his. We drove in silence, but not total silence because he was playing music. The local Kwaito music. That fascinated me. A rich boy from the suburbs playing Kwaito. I thought he was goin
One would argue that killing three people was a breeze to me, they might be right because I did kill them. But killing myself wasn’t easy, the physical pain that I so desperately wanted didn’t sound like a great idea if I was doing it myself. I thought that, perhaps I should go to Park Station and throw myself in front of a moving train, but I didn’t have the guts. But in my quest to punish Billy, I thought about his words. The fact that he didn’t want to lose me. Yeah, he said some pretty hectic stuff before he left, he was angry. He told me that he loved me, and I believed him, he had no reason to lie.
He spoke to God-knows-who and then told them that he will send them GPS coordinates. That just raised a lot of questions in my mind. I was wondering why didn’t Billy ask whoever his goons were to kill Naledi in the first place. If they can dispose of a body, sure they can kill. Or might even have killed before. I was wondering why he had to make me do it for him. We sat in silence for almost an hour. Billy didn’t want to look at me, when he did, he either said something hurting or asked me to feel the body’s temperature, which was already cold. I covered her with a blanket because I couldn’t bear to look at her body like that.
In my twisted head, I believed that going away from my family and my life as I knew it was a small price to pay. Finally, I was getting the man of my dreams, a good life and I knew that both Billy and I were not perfect. I even thought of us as Bonnie and Clyde. We were not bank robbers, we were killers but I was hoping we won’t kill again. The consequences were not as thrilling as our relationship was. I began to pack my things soon after Billy left because he said I had to leave as soon as possible. For the first time in days, I felt good. I don
‘Chomee
I raced back to the kitchen and looked for a dry dish towel. I found it in one of the drawers and with it, I wiped everything that I touched. I wiped everything, the counter top, the door knob as well as the key, the taps and the tub. Everything that had my prints, I wiped thoroughly. Except for Naledi and Sharon. I didn’t try wiping them because it was pointless. No matter how hard I would’ve have tried, it wouldn’t remove the fact that I killed two innocent people. They were only guilty because they were beautiful and they had everything I didn’t. Also because Sharon disliked me and Naledi was a threat to my happiness
I steadily sat on the bar stool and my eyes wandered around the kitchen. It was small but not as small as ours. The cupboards were made of rich brown wood with stainless steel handles. It was lavished in a way, most of the appliances that they had, Anna and I could only dream of. There was a big black double door fridge standing at the corner, which looked like the one Billy had in his cottage. The microwave and the kettle were similar to Billy’s as well. That made me wonder whether Billy and Naledi bought them together out of love or Naledi was living up to her reputation and extorted money out of Billy to furnish their kitchen and poss
Without any hesitation, I gave him the go-ahead. I wanted him to live his life without having to look behind his back. A life without Naledi’s obnoxious threats. Yes I never got time to study the girl, but what Billy had poured out to me was more than enough for me to dislike her even further. The drive to town was a very quiet one, but the loud beating of my heart was audible. Even with the encouraging rage, there was a lot of room for fear. I was about to end somebody’s life, I had to be frightened.
For the next couple of days, Billy coached me on what I needed to. He even took me to a shooting range, explaining to me how to use a gun and how to break and enter without being seen. It was scary at first, but we had fun playing the bad guys. Billy tried his utmost to make me feel comfortable. He was way too smart as well because every time he came over, he will always show me a threatening text from his sugar momma or play an audio of the things she would say about me. All of that made me angry and fired up to pursue with the plan. There were however, times when I wanted out of the situation, but Billy always outsmarted me. He’d alway
The night seemed to be longer than normal but eventually, dawn broke and the new day greeted us with warm winter rays. I was still overwhelmed by everything that Billy poured out on to me the night before and it was too evident. Billy suggested that we both needed to loosen up and he picked Sandton as the therapeutic destination. I welcomed the idea wholeheartedly as I knew that he wasn’t going back to the lecturer. Spending time together increased my chances and the fact that he finally confided in me made the relationship a real one. For a few hours, I wasn’t at all concerned about Billy’s troubles; I was too busy enjoying