18 Coming Back
"Miss Sy, would you like your dinner now? the flight attendant asked her with an ever pleasant smile.
"Huh?", she removed her left earphone and looked at the beautiful stewardess smiling at her.
"Miss Sy?" she asked, an exemplary smile still in place, then repeated the question, if she would like to have her dinner to be served.
"Yes, please." she grinned stupidly at the woman. "Miss Sy," she repeated softly to herself when the flight attendant walked away. She can't help her goofy smile upon hearing her new name. Her father's family name. Her real father this time.
She pulled out her passport out of her black Dior saddle bag, opened it, and traced the new last name beside her picture,- Ellise Albrecht Sy. Another silly smile escaped her lips. This name no longer feels like a stranger. This time Ellise knows who the person is behind her identity. She never thought that finding her biological father would give her a feeling of being whole as a person.
She closed her eyes, and remembered the warm island of Amanpulo, with its endless white sand and blue sky, where she finally found her place and the warmth of what she can call a family, in which she has two handsome older brothers. She flipped her passport and take out a photo slipped in the back secret pocket of her passport holder, it's a photo of six people sprawled on a white beach all wearing buoyant smiles for the camera.
This is her family now, it sounds funny to say it, seeing that she never lost her family before. In reality, she is still her mother's daughter, an older sister to her half-brother, and her Old People are is still her grandparents. The changed of her family name, doesn't actually make her a different person, besides her newfound family members are people that she has to keep wrapped under cloak and dagger, they can't acknowledge her in public, and that makes Ellise existence more complicated than before but she just doesn't care, she never wanted an ordinary life anyway.
She chuckles by herself, thinking how intricate her family is, now that she has two fathers, and one could be a mother? If her great-grandfather is still alive she could imagine his expression saying "Outrageous!" Yet the irony of it all, she's never been this thrilled!
She can't wait for this plane to touch down to a land that used to be a stranger country but now will be her new home.
Home. An image of a boy from two years ago crossed her mind.
"You're late!" DT said in clenched teeth. "And what happened to your phone? Can you not make a habit of not answering my calls?" he said holding her arms and hovering over her face while talking. DT has this annoying habit of speaking to her, right into her face. She finds it really suffocating at first for it's like he's not giving her space to escape.
"Did you confirm to the public your relationship with Asya?" she asked, watching his eyes. She wants to see him denied it.
"You didn't see the press con?" he asked.
"No. I have no more emotion left to watch it. That's why I'm asking you." she said in a small voice, looking down to hide her eyes.
Right now she really doesn't wish to be here, but more than ever she wants to see DT, she's never been this conflicted all her life for what she has to go through in just one day. She still trembles inside with the knowledge that she found out about the father she knew from birth. She got one thing correct with her assumption about her father, he won't fit in her Old People standards.
"It's good that you didn't watch it." DT's voice brings her back to where she is at the moment.
"So, did you two…" her voice trailing as she looked straight to his black eyes.
"Yes," he said quietly. "It's what's the best for now," he said, grabbing her shoulders closer to him, averting her eyes. "Have you eaten? Who's with you by the way? The boys probably ate all the food, let's see if there is something else edible to eat." he said babbling.
She let him pull her to the table which seemed like where the food was but now covered with used paper glasses with random names. She wants aunt Joy to take her away from here, she is feeling so strange at the moment. Her head is fuzzy while her body is cold, yet the part where DT's hand is touching is burning.
DT is saying something above her head, yet it sounds so distant. She can't understand what he's talking about, she can only catch the cautious tone in his voice. The one he always uses with her when he doesn't want to trigger a tantrum.
She wants to cry. But she feels the sides of her lips forming a smile, as the blurry faces and voices of the boys of WIZ club mingle in her muddled senses.
She got saved when she felt a hand pulling her away from DT's arms.
"It's past midnight princess, time to take your carriage before you turn into a pumpkin."
"Isn't the carriage the one that turns into a pumpkin?" Seven asked.
"We must read a different fairy tale, the one I know, makes Ellise a pumpkin after missing the curfew." her aunt said teasingly to grinning Seven.
"Is she Ellise's relatives?" DT asked Wan as they watched the two girls walking out to the parking lot.
"Why, you also like her? You really have a fetish for older women?" he said.
"F*ck off!" he said annoyed, with his uncle's mocking questions.
"Where are you going?" he could hear the laughter in Wan's voice, as he walked out of the door.
---
Her aunt is pulling out of the parking lot, when Ellise saw DT from the car window pushing the glass door, with a phone in hand, probably sending a message to his girlfriend.
DT didn't see the car in front of him because he is taking out his phone from his right pocket, to send a message to Ellise. He saw his previous messages still unread in WeChat, as he typed another one.
