12 Chapter 11

Summer, 2016

"THAT'S what she's mad about?" Naia questions as she shares an incredulous look with Odell and Logan.

The villa they were staying in has grown awfully quiet since the confrontation several minutes ago. While Odell and Logan decided to stay with Naia in the living room, the rest were either trying to keep a neutral fort up or siding with Megan in their respective bedrooms.

"I mean…for us that seems to be the case." Odell shrugs as he continues, "But the wound is deeper with you."

The tall girl scoffs annoyed and plops down on the couch. "So typical."

Odell squints his eyes at her impatiently. "How??"

"She's always been like a baby. Always played the victim," she says while rolling her eyes.

"I don't really think so," Logan disagrees, looking back on some of the moments the two friends have shared with each other. "Are you really not going to admit what you actually did wrong?"

"What's to admit when there's NOTHING??" she exclaims defensively.

"Oh, wow. This is worse than I thought." Odell massages his temples from the incoming migraine of this disaster before them.

"Don't we want to fix things with Megan, Naia?" Logan decides to mediate.

"Yeah, but not like this," Naia says.

"Then how?" Odell questions, dying to know what exactly was going through her little head.

"Peacefully?" she replies unsure.

"You mean magically," Odell deadpans, holding back a snort. He should've known from the start that she was going to be this stubborn.

"No, of course not. I—"

Odell cuts her off, "I know we were kids back then. But…we warned you."

Naia briefly glares at him, knowing he was right, but eventually pushes her ego aside. "I know. I just wanted my friend back."

Logan sighs before replying, "You're gonna have to give her some time. I think you really hurt her."

She couldn't help but sigh as well. "How LONG? Until this whole trip is over???"

"Don't be stupid," Odell retorts. "Everything will fall into place when it needs to."

"And if it doesn't?" Naia thinks aloud.

"Well, you're just gonna have to deal with it." Odell rolls his eyes and leaves the room.

What a hell of a summer this is turning out to be.

"Knock, knock," Felicity says before entering Megan's room. Danica then follows silently behind her.

Megan briefly looks up from her phone to greet her friends. "Hey."

"There's a rare Machop here. Do you mind?" the younger girl blurts out, not wanting to immediately bombard Megan with all the emotional stuff.

Danica throws Felicity a weird look but hopes Megan falls for it.

Megan snorts, buying the excuse, as she goes back to her business on her phone. "No problem."

The two girls sit on either side of Megan on the bed. Felicity pretends to play Pokemon Go, while Danica decides to catch up on the latest news on Twitter. But both keep watchful eyes on Megan.

"Got it! Yes!" Felicity cheers after a few minutes of silence. "So…"

Almost instantly, Megan knows what she's about to bring up. "Fae…"

"We're concerned," Danica simply states.

"Don't be. I'm fine." Megan waves dismissively.

"Are you sure?" Felicity asks, not believing a single word their friend has just said.

Megan lets out a long exhale. "I just don't want to dwell it on it too much. Let alone think about it."

"Yeah, yeah. And then after a few days, you explode over why your other sock is missing because the world is just so damn cruel, isn't it?"

Megan's eyes immediately snap at Felicity and shoot an unimpressed look. Fae just knows me too well…

For most of her life, Megan has always been the type to keep everything in. No matter how hard shit gets or things take a turn for the worst, she was the type of person that tried to assess the situation with calm logic. If she didn't think it was worth getting mad or sad about, she would shrug it off but express her discontent. If she thought the opposite, which almost never happens, she'll go ahead and throw a fit. But since the former is what her brain chooses to do all, if not most, of the time, she tends to have mental breakdowns over the most mundane things.

Like she could have the biggest fight with her mom and they'd fix it right away. But the next thing you know, a few days later she'll get mad that she can't reach her charger when her phone's dead. Literally all she has to do is stand up from her bed and get the charger from her boudoir. But nah, her pent-up emotions tell her otherwise. Banging her fists against her bed and rolling about seems to be the better solution.

"Share your feelings, please." Danica nudges her slightly and pouts. "Think of us as therapists, free of charge.

Megan scrunches her nose playfully. "You mean crazy therapists."

"Still free of charge. That is an important part of our slogan," Felicity quips.

Megan chortles at the fact that the two went ahead and rode on the joke. It takes her a few seconds, but she begins to explain what exactly is running through her mind about the situation. "It could've gone worse… I was just surprised at how honest Naia was at that moment."

"Same." Felicity nods. "I mean, she called you fat… well, your past self, fat. Are you okay?"

"Of course." Megan shares a sincere smile. "I don't care about that shit anymore. Fat or not fat, I'm me. My weight doesn't define me. When do you think was the last time I weighed myself?"

"…decades ago??" Danica guesses first, trying not to guffaw.

Instead, Megan is the one who ends up laughing. "Kind of." She shrugs. "You know how it is. I used to feel so pressured about losing weight that I didn't even realize just HOW MUCH I lost. I still thought I was fat even after taking all those dance classes, even after spending my high school life in the Philippines and watching what I ate, even after meeting and befriending some of the most confident people ever. It took a lot of time for me to accept me for me. Looking back, I think I'm much bigger now than I was all those years. But guess what? I don't care."

She then concludes with the warmest and most content beam, "All I know is that I'm happy and I'm healthy. I love myself no matter what happens."

This is all true though. Megan is a lot more carefree than before. It's a part of growing older and also, meeting the right people. Her mom wasn't exactly the most supportive or body-positive, so she found refuge in her friends.

The process of loving yourself is a lot more complicated than you would think. On the one hand, yes, all it takes is yourself to build your own self-esteem. But on the other, you also have to surround yourself with the right people and a concrete support system. Megan has had her fair share of toxic friends and by now, she knows how to sniff them out within the first meeting. The point is, you need people that give you a helping hand but not a silver spoon. No one can save you but yourself.

"I'm just so over it. That whole shebang and drama. And I'm over her," Megan says.

"Well, so much for patching things up," Felicity jokes.

Megan has the most serious expression. "I never intended to do that."

"Keep in mind that Logan still called the rest of us losers," Felicity reminds her as she glances at Danica, "Except her. She's still part of Team USA."

Danica merely shrugs at the remark, not feeling the need to express the fact that she doesn't feel the same way Logan did.

"I know." Megan cocks an eyebrow at the youngest girl. "Why else do you think I kept teasing him?"

Felicity briefly recalls the dinner they had hours ago. "Huh…makes waaaay more sense now."

"Well-deserved." Danica nods in approval.

Megan merely chuckles and shakes her head at her friends' reaction.

But now that everything seems to be okay, she couldn't help but think about Zoe. Megan hasn't heard from her in days, but she was sure that her close friend would text whether she was still going to come to the outing or not.

***

"Zoe?"

Nothing.

"Zoe???"

Nada.

"Earth to Zoe Torres???"

Zoe immediately snaps back into reality and shares an apologetic look. "Oh, sorry."

All she could think about was the outing her childhood friends were currently having. She made a last-minute excuse just so she can avoid the situation altogether, but now she's starting to wonder if she made a mistake. She's a bit worried about Megan if she's being completely honest. One way or the other, she knew that her younger friend would blow all of her emotions up, no matter how many times she said she was cool about the whole thing, or indifferent rather. Megan's 'foolproof' plan to ignore three certain friends seemed unrealistic.

"You're up. Make me proud," Alex, her college best friend, announces confidently.

Zoe merely nods and smiles good-naturedly as she proceeds to walk up to the set and put her game face on.

While she did make up an excuse not to go to the outing, her 'modeling gig' wasn't exactly a lie either. But the photo shoot for the makeup ad was more of an offer as opposed to a mandatory thing she had to attend. It came to her at the right time and she didn't want to miss the grand opportunity. L'Oréal is a big deal. Well, besides not having to endure the painful awkwardness and disaster that is the reunion summer outing.

Modeling is just one of the things she likes doing on the side for some extra cash. She also sings at bars from time to time. But she hasn't figured out what she actually wants to do for a living, so her current job, technical writing, is serving as a filler until she has her shit together. And all that at the blossoming age of twenty-four (almost twenty-five, would you look at that).

As soon as the photographer is done taking the needed shots, Zoe instantly thanks every single person on set. The head of the whole L'Oréal shoot then calls her over for both of them to look at her pics. Miss L'Oréal has nothing but compliments coming out of her mouth. While Zoe is over the moon, she keeps it cool by giving a warm 'thank you'. But the opposite happens with Alex, who cheers her best friend on like a stage mom.

With the good vibes still circulating the group, Zoe and Alex are positive they're going to end the day on a great note. Just as they were going to leave though, they overhear Miss L'Oréal tell the photo editor to quickly edit Zoe's skin tone on the photo.

Zoe immediately turns around. "I'm sorry, what?" she impatiently snaps with a stone-cold expression to match.

"What?" Miss L'Oréal responds casually, not sensing Zoe's hostility.

"What are you doing?" the much taller woman questions.

"Making your skin lighter," Miss L'Oréal answers simply.

Zoe cocks an unimpressed eyebrow. "Why?"

"To make your skin lighter."

"I thought this ad was for morenas*," Zoe argues.

"It is," Miss L'Oréal agrees, still not quite getting why the atmosphere is so tense around them. It was literally joyous a few minutes ago.

"Then, why are you making my skin lighter??" Zoe asks through gritted teeth. She was THIS close to murdering the woman.

"Isn't this kind of the norm?" Miss L'Oréal feels weirded out by the model and it clearly shows. "Are you new around here, honey?"

"No." Zoe is practically seething with anger now.

"Then this shouldn't be news." Miss L'Oréal shrugs.

Alex shares a sheepish smile and dives into the conversation, hoping to fix things, "You'll have to excuse my friend. She's a bit out of it, hasn't had enough sleep recently."

"Oh, no. I'm perfectly fine," Zoe reassures as she turns to Miss L'Oréal. "It's you that probably needs more sleep. Bit of a head check too."

"EXCUSE me?" Miss L'Oréal immediately protests.

"How do you expect Filipinas to live up to this stupid, unrealistic standard?" Zoe shoots back in the same manner while pointing at the edited picture of her with disdain. "All you shitty corporate and capitalist companies care about is money. But did it ever occur to you that you would actually rake in more cash if people could actually relate to and see themselves in your ad?? No, because you've been mindlessly and blindingly following the 'norm'. Whatever the fuck that is."

Miss L'Oréal scoffs and rolls her eyes. "I think you're forgetting who paid you to do this job. So, you don't really get to call the shots."

"Well, joke's on you. You can have your stupid money back!" Alex exclaims.

"No, we're not doing that," Zoe counters.

Alex's strong expression of defiance from before falters for a bit, but she continues in the same tone, "Joke's still on you, we're keeping it!"

Zoe sighs at the fact that her best friend has made the situation somewhat comical. Although her face remains serious. "Point is, the majority of our population in the Philippines is tan-skinned, believe it or not. The least you could do is suggest the wild idea to your superior of keeping my real skin color in the ad. I mean, don't we already have enough whitewashed celebrities?"

Everyone is quiet for a moment and Zoe manages to add, "Anyway, thank you for the opportunity… I guess. If you still end up using my shots."

Miss L'Oréal merely nods her head and her expression is unreadable.

Zoe stares at her for a while, trying to decipher what Miss L'Oréal is relaying, before deciding to leave the premises with Alex.

"Damn, you kicked ass!!" the proud best friend hollers cheerfully.

"Mm…I wouldn't say—"

"AND WE GOT US SOME MONEY FOR FANCY DINNER." Alex waves the small brown envelope in front of Zoe's face excitedly.

"No, no." Zoe waves her finger from side to side and snatches the cash back from her friend. Her own financial situation doesn't exactly spell luxury.

"Buzzkill." Alex frowns but knows that the money isn't really going to be spent lavishly as one would expect.

Zoe chuckles at the sight before her. "Bye, Lex. Thank you for today."

"No worries. You can always count on me!" the petite and jovial girl winks before skipping in her own way.

Zoe shakes her head as she watches her best friend, trying to hold a laugh in. She then checks her phone to see if she has any new messages. Yet again, every single one is from him.

'A lot of shit just hit the fan on our side'

'How are you doing?'

Her eyes widen at the two messages and she feels compelled to actually reply this time (as opposed to the seen zoning she's been doing for the past few days). 'What!! What happened?!?!?'

'There may have been a hostile verbal exchange between Naia and Megan'

'Ah fuck', she replies. She did saw it coming. The worst-case scenario. Although she sincerely hoped it wouldn't.

'No choice but to follow?'

She sighs at his latest message and it takes her several minutes to give a proper response. 'I'll think about it'

'I miss you.'

Her eyes stay glued to her phone screen, internally debating whether or not to reply to that last text.

What makes her stop on her tracks though is the situation between Megan and Naia. She knows Megan hates any sort of confrontation, so it would be safe to assume she's holed up somewhere after the hostile exchange, avoiding Naia at all costs. On the other hand... Zoe barely knows Naia and the person she is now. The younger girl could make the situation between her and Megan worse.

After a long while of pondering, Zoe lets out a long exhale, her brain already repeating her final decision over and over.

She's gonna have to step it up and go to the reunion even if it kills her. She has to. Lucky for her, the pocket money she needs is already in her hands.