6 See the light.

Chapter 6

“He dropped by?” Liz asked as she propped herself into the sit beside me where I was seated applying makeup on top of another layer which was starting to hardly fade away. Shifting around in the stained-white couch to get more comfortable, she looked at me with wide-sparkly, expectant eyes.

Sometimes - probably many times, I can’t help but envy Liz, she is that naturally -hyperactive-kind of a person unlike me who always had to force smiles. I selfishly wanted to take that away from her, I want to be someone who is genuinely happy. I forced that down, she is my best friend anyway, and I owe her bigger than just jealousy.

“Yeah.”, I responded checking myself in the mirror. To cut a long story short, it’s not a brown girl with black hair I saw in the mirror. It’s a white beauty, high cheekbones, straight nose and her unruly hair pushed behind her neck that I saw.

And she had navy blue eyes that reminded me of the strange ones my friends insisted I had. Audrey. It is her I see every time I look at my reflection. But that didn’t faze me anymore or so I told myself, though, my hand lingered in the air as my heart searched for an ounce of me in the seemingly alien beauty, always to be disappointed.

Satisfied with a solid red lipstick on her full-mouth, an almost-overly shiny foundation and her natural double eyelids softer and longer now due to mascara, she looked more of a bitchy high-schooler than boss but I decided that looked gorgeous.

Concluding that would be good enough, I put the makeup box on the table then narrowed my eyes warningly when Liz suddenly started bouncing up and down in the couch, a huge smile plastered on her face showing off her straight, white teeth. “Hey, watch my coach!” I exclaimed unable to stop the small smile tugging at my lips.

“Oh boy, you are smiling!” Liz accused poking my forearm with her two forefingers, the big ass smile never leaving her face. “What is he like? Tell me! When did he come? Why?” Liz asked in quick breathes. Sometimes-probably many times, Liz is just irritatingly ecstatic. Still, I snorted finding her excited state funny.

“Chill, Miss. One question at a time!” I tried to calm down the elated Liz with no much success, she just went from poking me on the arm to hitting me getting more impatient. I tried to move to avoid her slaps but it was avoiding her wild hands proved impossible. At last I decided to save my arm.

“What is he like? Calm, handsome, strong and dangerous. At least that is what I could see. He was practically giving me rules in my house!” I couldn’t help but huff like a five year old while talking about that Greek god, Alarcus is rather the annoying type of a man.

Liz rolled her eyes playfully. “Tsk, they call that a ‘dominating’ type.” She said emphasizing on the word ‘dominating’. Dominant is sure one word to describe him. But dominating who? Me?

“Whatever. Why? To visit his Audrey of course. When? Yesterday. It took you forever to come so the story is all cold ice now.” I hurriedly responded trying to match the rushed pace she had asked in, hoping it would save me from more questions I was sure were to come. It is not really because I don’t like telling her things but Audrey didn’t like talking to her which is odd considering Liz was always there to listen and never spilled secrets.

“Tell me, what happened?” She jumped starting to bounce in the couch once again, eyes bright. “Stop it, will you?” I blurted sounding more irritated than I actually felt.

Liz calmly searched my eyes her own looking a bit confused. Fuck. When something like this happen, Liz usually looked for Audrey to see if Audrey has leaned to surface. Which would be hell considering they didn’t get along, basically to the point of wanting each other dead- even though it would probably be Audrey killing Liz- but that never happened with me being in between them.

Even though she was being annoying, I flashed her a small smile showing that everything is okay. She nodded understandingly. Whew, for a while there I thought I was in trouble. Guess I’m good.

She sat there calmly listening to me and squealing with excitement once in a while as I told her what happened and how I felt about it.

“Don’t worry, if he turns out ugly petty then… no, most men are petty actually, but if he turns out to be a jerk then I and Zoe will hit his sorry ass.” I giggled hearing her make promises that I am sure she can keep- or at least she would try to keep.

“How did his presence feel?” Lis continued asking. Thinking about it now, I really don’t know how it felt. Mostly like meeting an old friend? Maybe a special old friend? I really don’t know. I don’t even know how Audrey feel about any of this, she is either feeling nothing or she had broken me out. But knowing her, the former is more likely to be happening. Either way, I honestly couldn’t care less.

“Usual?” It came out more of a question than an answer reflecting how all of this is confusing even for me.

Lis stared at me, eyes once big with excitement now wide with disbelief. “Wow.” She breathed after a solid 5 seconds. “Just usual? I mean isn’t it supposed to be something bigger? I mean… he is your, hmm, ‘man?’ after all…” she stuttered, obviously fighting hard to work out words to express her shock without hurting my feelings.

“Yeah. Just usual.” I merely shrugged showing her it was no big deal.

“Did you talk to Mr. Mailes by the way?” she continued changing the topic to easy the awkwardness creeping between us “Yeah, he is doing fine. You know he calls day and night. Plus, he knows nothing about this whole Alarcus matter, so we didn’t have plenty to say.”

“Being secretive, are we?” she half-accused, half-teased. Her voice held a certain playful tone but I for one knew that she isn’t the biggest fan of keeping secrets- especially when the other person had a right to know like right now.

I couldn’t possibly make a promise that I will talk to Mr. Mailes- which would be the best thing to do at the moment- because to be honest, what have l got to say anyway?

“Go get blessings for your upcoming tragedy, girl. That is where your ways end anyways.” Came Audrey’s mocking voice Audrey wasn’t really fond or rather outright hated talking to Liz or Zoe or anyone else at that matter which explained the irritated tone in her voice. Tragedy. Honestly though, would I be enlightening him of my death? Well l don’t want to share that. Plus, I am sure dada is sad enough knowing that someday, the storm will finally hit.

He had taken care of us- me and Audrey selfless, dismissing basic enjoyments for himself as pointless for our sake, like, which heaven would the woman who would be willing to deal with my weird ass and whom Audrey would be willing to deal with fall from, so making him anymore concerned is out of my bucket list. “UGH” Audrey groaned disapprovingly- for Audrey everything seemed to revolve around her-almighty-self.

“Shush,” I hushed Liz as well as my internal thoughts when a new song played in the living room. Luckily enough Liz seemed to have forgotten about the case as her head bobbed to hide away by Daya.

***************

“...girl, who do that in this century?” I heard Lis asking somewhere at the back of my mind.

“Did you see that man, trying to hit on Anna? He went ‘oh hey flower?’ Duh!” I turned to the sulking red-haired woman besides me, when Liz’s voice broke through my dispersed thoughts. She turned to me probably hoping to get some comments.

Oh where were we? Instead I gave her a cheeky smile trying to cover up my lack of attention. “Are you even watching?” Lis exclaimed when she saw my blank, confused look. She shook her head in disappointment and went back to watching the movie, a scowl on her face. Oops, pissed her off!

The movie we were currently watching passed by like empty pictures. I was really trying but I just couldn’t seem to concentrate. I have a lot of things on my mind, a lot of questions I can’t seem to get answers to.

Why the hell didn’t those women tell me everything and only gave out episodes? It is not like we are in a comic book right now, this is reality and time is on the run, never taking a break! Did he really care about Audrey only? If it is so, if Alarcus didn’t care about us mere women carrying the soul of his lover, then what? Can I do this alone? Because I would rather do this alone than make lonely sacrifices.

“Probably no, this is far too big for a coward like you to take on. So quietly, let us show you the way.” Said the malicious voice inside my head diming small my will. Who am I to deny that, though? Truth be told, I could win an award when it came to hiding, so no, no going solo, that is for heroines to do. Everyone in their lives meet that person who always try to pull you down their level, that’s just irritating. But it’s different when you are the one fighting against yourself, the feeling is sorely frustrating.

All of this get me questioning myself. Is it me, am I being a stuck up bitch? No! I mentally shook my head, I am not entitled to kissing up to callous strangers. The biggest problem, though, where will this lead? To my death in three months, four months, less than that? My end?

My blood freeze every time I thought about this, I felt like I was launching myself into a horizon, the bright right which once guided me, now blinding my eyes, leaving my steps to go astray. Trust me, not knowing what lay ahead sucks, all you can do is just make painful guesses like I am doing now. I stifled a sigh also hoping my face wasn’t letting on much of my troubled sense of mind, a girl can do better than thinking about the many ways she could die!

A ringing phone shrilled through my train of thoughts bringing me back to reality.

Lis was already up and grabbing my phone from the side table. “Unknown.” She muttered. I felt my pulse jump with expectation and dread as I took the phone from her extended arm.