Chapter 1

I sat on one of the wooden chairs located at the lower side of my bed, trying to tie up my shoes for my next duty in the movie theatre today. I stood up immediately after finishing wrapping up my laces then went to see my reflection in the mirror. It's already 3:05 this afternoon and it's 35 minutes before my shift starts so I have 25 minutes to prepare myself and to go to the movie theatre.

I run off towards my bedroom door and snatch my backpack that was hanging at the back side of it, then slip one of the converse shoes to my left foot that I just brought from Wilcan shop, a local store downtown.

I closed the door the moment I felt myself already done with my before work routine. However, the feeling of something missing made me stop and hover my gaze on my surroundings. I always feel like this every time I leave my apartment for certain and crucial getaways. I don't hang-out, well only to Reighly my only best friend since high school but, only shackled on this four-sided room most of the days.

We enter the same high school and college as well. The only thing is that we graduated at the same time with only one of us getting an amazing job after graduation. Yep, it was Reighly. She is now a Professor at the State University of Heneral, she teaches Biology subjects. However, on the other side, I'm this person who is trying her best to get the job that she really loved. I already applied to 8 publishing companies and no one from the company wrote back or even sent any messages that I got in. That's very depressing for my side.

I quickly descended my way to the stairs and as if to revolve the door knob, Mrs. Davis opened it from the other side with so much things that occupied both of her hands.

"Do you need some help Mrs. Davis?", I generously ask since I can see her struggles with her grocery bags. She lifts her head towards my direction to see who's asking. She smiled after recognizing my face.

"No, No Caroll I'm fine", she humbly answered. I squint my eyes and step back a little on my head. I'm sure she's lying, still she wants to take all the struggles all by herself. I step forward and try to stretch my hands for the bag of groceries.

"You certainly not Mrs. Davis", she immediately gets all her bags from my approaching hand and smiles once again in my direction. I was startled after what she did.

"No, It's really okay Caroll I can handle this'", she smoothly spoke then slowly walked towards the apartment's staircase. I watch her while she's handling all those heavy bags, it's obviously not okay. I look at my watch as it beeped thrice or maybe for several times. I felt nervous after knowing that I have only 20 minutes to ride on my bike and paddling my way to the movie theatre for my shifts. I immediately skedaddled the place and ran towards the parked bicycle in front of my apartment's building. I didn't waste a second and rapidly paddled on the streets. The theatre is 5 blocks west and 2 blocks north.

I'm amazed at how the sky looks today so I stare at it for several moments. The bright yellow from the rays starting to reflect on the clearness of the clouds and accolade the bright color of the sky.

It is so pretty and peaceful and calm, I feel it to myself. How I wish I could just lay on one of the clouds for a day, or maybe my whole life, and just sleep there for a very long time. No problems, no judgments, no work, just a life full of peace and serenity. I bring back my look in front of the streets while my legs are still on paddling, however, a familiar back of a woman caught my full attention. She was wearing her usual jogging outfit and continuously hovered her way on the sidewalk of the street. I slowly paddled and came closer to the sidewalk.

"Reighly!", I called her but there's no response from her. I paddled a little faster to catch up to her pace and call out her name once again.

"Reighly!!", she immediately glances on her sides until she got my direction and recognize who was calling her this whole time. A smile suddenly pops out of her lips as soon as she knew it was me. I stop as soon she suspended her activity.

"Ow! Good thing I bumped to you today Karrole", she said while still jogging at place. I just give her a squinted look and smirk.

"I bumped", I seconded to rephrase her sentence and then smirked. She just rolled her eyes and shook her head a little bit. A sign of annoyance, a response from the feedback or the gesture from the other person.

"Whatever. Just so you know I will be going to a wedding", she started. My eyes widened cause I'm definitely sure what will happen next after this founded topic emerged by Reighly.

Wedding? Again? A gathering? Whose wedding will it be this time? She knew what I felt about this kind of gathering and even all of those kinds of occasional gatherings. Why can't she go on her own since she was the one invited there, not me.

"No...no... you know what my response to that Reighly. I thought last time was the last? Is this some kind of black mail session again Reighly?", I started to feel uncomfortable so I started to paddle a little slower.

I remember every detail of how she blackmailed me last time just to be with her at that dense birthday party. I don't even know whose birthday it is. I just sat there for almost 5 hours on a couch while the overwhelming crowd ate the whole thing out of me. Still Reighly was on the other side of the house flirting with the guy she just met at that crowded party. What kind of Professor is that? Well, we are talking about Reighly here, a person that has no cares about what everyone is going to say about her. Besides, she wears her disguise that time so there's no way her students and co-workers recognize her.

"Oh no, no, not this time. I wasn't going to ask you to come with me", I suddenly break off from paddling and look at her with a blown face.

Is this real? Is she really telling me the truth? There's no blackmail and excruciating begging time from her?

"Seriously? You will not be going to ask me to go with you this time?", I asked doubted. I guess this is my first-time hearing this from her.

"Yes... because you were invited too", she finished. I can feel the huge gap between my lips.

Is this serious? Me? Whose wedding is this? How was I invited?

"WHAT! To whose wedding?", I stared at her after asking with startled eyes. The warm tricky air silently pass through my neck skin and stimulates an unusual sensation. WHAT WAS THAT?! I tilted my head to the side and immediately touched my back.

"Chloe", I stare at her perplexed. Who on earth is Chloe? I only knew four active people in my life and that was Reighly, Mom, Lex and the owner of the apartment room I rented, Mr. Lo.

"Whose Chloe? I can't remember that I encountered any person in my life that was named Chloe", I said. "Well... maybe I did but certainly I was not that interested enough to recognize and remember her name", Reighly just rolled her eyes and smirked on my face. I noticed several people were now actually looking at us both Reighly.

"Chloe Moran, remember? from our college years?", she said while snapping her fingers all over my face. I look upon the sky, trying to remember the face of the person she's trying to remember to me. I look back at her with nothing to earn but my beautiful purplish peonies at my apartments room, when suddenly a beep from my lower arm sounded just like a siren of a fire truck stimulates the activity of my adrenaline.

"Ow! Maybe next time Rei I have to go, NOW!", I started paddling faster on the streets of Polmir without waiting for anything she would probably say.

"I'll send you your invitation if it arrives!"I didn't catch the whole phrase except only when the invitation arrived and she shouted. I didn't bother to look and give her my facial reaction and just continuously paddling my way down to the movie theatre.

After 15 minutes and so of paddling I finally arrive at the theatre and directly sprint my direction to the back of the building. I saw Pan leaning boringly on the glass stand of the ticket booth. I took pair of deep breaths first before I approach him on his position. I know what he is going to say and that's why I need to prepare my auxiliary oxygens in battle.

"H-Hey", I started nervously. He looked at me startled and regained with squinted stares at my face.

"You're late", he firmly stated while both hands folded on his chest.

"Yes"

"And Why?", he asked. I just look down and let the air fill the gap of our conversation. I can't tell him that I talked to Reighly earlier on, which is the main reason why I totally forgot that I have duty at the theatre today.

"S-Sorry, I-I almost forgot", I heard he smirked and sharply pass through my position without forgetting to bumped on my side shoulder just to make me feel how angry he was of my poor life decisions.

I went down on my knees and hugged them. I can now feel the frustrations slowly eating up my whole body energy. I need a break.

"Hello?", a voice of a man suddenly emerges from the glass holes of the booth window. I quickly fix myself and stand up slowly from the sit position. He was not alone I think he was with his girlfriend

"Yes?", a smile appears on my face even though there's lot of troubled things going on at the back of it.

"Can I have two tickets for tonight's movie please", the young man humbly asked.

"Sure", I stretch out for the tickets of the movie.

"Here", and I hand it to them. "Have a nice watch".

"Thanks", he escorted his girlfriend and too bad for me I watch them as they leave the front booth with overflowing sweetness all over there bare faces. Might be their anniversary or anything that is worth celebrating. Theoretically either of them is their birthday and they celebrate it by watching movies at the theatre cause that makes it look romantic but, if you could ask me I can't view a movie theatre as a romantic place. Maybe for them but for me it's hardly recognized by my brain to stimulate oxytocin.

I immediately feel envy from those two. Seeing them so lovely and in love with each other makes me feel so alone and sad. Emphasizing that I never been to any relationships, no mutual or any sort of feeling engagements happen in any inch of seconds of my life and I know that's a whole different level of life direction but it was all done and I can't go back and fix my poor decisions.

A vibration pulled me back to my reality and realized it was from my phone, someone texted me and I 100% guessed this was from Reighly.

From: Rei

Message: The wedding's gonna be last Friday of September. Hope to see you in your dress. I'll send you your invitation card the moment it arrives. Don't worry, you will be fine there, trust me. Muah!

I'M.GONNA.BE.FINE? yeah like last time and last and last time she said. Now I don't have any fragment of trust in her telling this kind of crap to me cause I know for a fact that it will not happen, EVER!

I put back my phone aside and focused my whole attention to my work as a group of people are smiling while approaching my stand. I smile back and give them their ordered tickets.

My duty ended just as I expected, grateful on the other hand because no disaster happened and I can sleep peacefully in my mind this night even though the loud music of Larry on the other side is banging the walls of my apartment.

I was woken up by a sudden destructive bang coming from the front door followed by a familiar voice of a woman. The sounds turned up and the banging continuously disrupting the whole floor yet still it didn't interrupt my decision to sleep.

"CAROLL! OPEN THIS DOOR!"I immediately stood up on my bed after Reighly's voice mentioned my name in an irksome tone. Without a doubt I quickly run my lungs to the front door to open it. I was shocked how red Reighly was after I opened and saw how frustrated and angry she was with me for not opening the door for her. I didn't know it was from my room, and absolutely didn't notice that it was her banging the door.

"What the heck? I've been waking you up for more than an hour", she complained.

"Sorry", I nervously apologize. She quickly enters my apartment as if this was hers. It didn't even bother on my side as well since I'm absolutely trained by this Reighly's behavior since college so no violations involve.

"So what's the fuss?"I immediately asked her after I sensed she's now more calm and relaxed than before. She entered my mini kitchen, didn't have a thought to answer my question and scanned my whole drawers and cabinets including the fridge to grab food or maybe ingredients. Now her both hands are full with ground coffee, bread, bacon, egg and a lot of other seasoning. What is she gonna do? cook?

"What time is it?", I look at my wrist wanting to know the time but unfortunately again I forgot to remember that I removed it last night, it was on my drawer at my side bed.

"It's almost noon", she cracked both pairs of eggs on a bowl and opened my gas stove next to her side with so much concentration. I don't want to interrupt so I let her do her thing and escort me back to my room and fix my bed and myself, as well as water my plant Peon. She is a peony flower so I called her Peon out of her kind's name. I open my room's window and put Peon on the windowsill to earn sunlight for her photosynthesis.

I go back to where Reighly is after I changed my clothes to casual. "I'm gonna brew coffee", I inform her and start brewing it on her side. She's done cooking and I'm done brewing too. We both headed to the living room and took bites of what she cooked, two toasted bread with a scrambled egg and bacon on the side matching with a cup of coffee.

"What do you want to watch?", I heard her ask and started manipulating the remote of the TV in front. I took a bite first of my meal before answering her.

"I don't know", I just said while chomping the foods in my mouth. This is not unusual for us Reighly since we often do this a plenty more times a month and I do really love being like this with Reighly.

I watch her as she skim on the piles of movies and series on my Netflix and take another bite of my meal. No doubt, I really really really need this meal today. This is so much like heaven on my plate.

"So what's all the fuss hmm?...", I started and took a big bite of toast and bacon. Though the setting is not unusual but the face of Reighly earlier is the kind of thing that I would witnessed once in a blue. I assume there's something extremely bad that happened that she rushed towards my apartment.

She keeps on scrolling and scrolling as if she didn't hear any words I say. I put aside my plate and face her direction.

"Reighly? Did something terrible happen?", I worriedly asked. I removed the remote on her hand and asked again. "Reighly what is it--".

"It's Patrick...", she quickly answered. I eagerly waited to say her last words like he was with another girl or he was laughing with someone so happy at a park or something so romantic, or on a date with this gorgeous girl at a very expensive restaurant but I didn't. It was out of my selections and that made me extremely shocked.

"I saw him with another man entering some sort of hotel. They look so happy embracing themselves while entering that fuc*ing building", her words weaken her voice that made her misty-eyed.

My eyes widen after hearing those confessions of Reighly. I can't believe it! I'm all tongue-tied in my seat. I can't choose what words I'm gonna speak. I feel like I was betrayed even though it wasn't me in that position.

Reighly started sobbing and tears started flowing down from her eyes so, I undoubtedly hugged her and cap her head with my left hand while the other one was brushing on her back for comfort.

"It was yesterday, I had a meeting with Chloe in this restaurant to actually talk about her wedding and to receive her invitation cards for us. I'm so happy that time that I eagerly want to tell him that he can actually come with me, and now I don't have any inch of determination to look at him and say that after what I saw", the pain and the affliction is so visible on Reighly's eyes that it stipulates the overflowing emotions and turning it into tears of water.

I don't have knowledge about love and if so I only know one thing and that is love associated with only pain and sorrow.

The emotional conclave finally ended and resulted in Reighly staying in my apartment for the rest of the day. She decided to stay here for a week to subside the situation and I didn't argue since I know she mostly needed companions. On the other hand, I don't want her to be alone as well, especially at this terrible time.

It was already past 7 and she 's still on my bed lying while the lights are off, only the lights of my living room illuminates a small portion of the bedroom.

"Rei? I cooked dinner...", I waited for her response or any sort of gesture on the blanket but, instead only the silent air of the night fills the black hole of the day. "Okay... I'm just gonna send your food here and you can just-".

"W-Wait...", I stopped on my pace to the kitchen when I heard her talking. "I-I can join", she coarsely said. Ever since that noon she never said a single word and just lay on my bed up until this time. I'm happy that she didn't let her emotions overtake her whole life. I guess that wouldn't be Reighly if that'll happen.

A phone rang suddenly and made me look back to where it was . It was from Reighly's phone at the side table of the bed. I saw pain immediately after I stared at her face.

"Just. leave it there", she painfully utter and continue to walk out of the room. I was still there looking at the lighted phone that was continuously ringing. I felt immediate pity for Patrick even though he was the one who committed a mistake in their relationship. However, I think he deserves explanation from Reighly. I assume he was now so worried about why Reighly isn't contacting him.

I leave the place and follow Reighly to the living room. She's now sitting on the couch staring quietly outside of the window. I passed her and made my way to the kitchen to prepare our dinner. We ate so quietly and I felt like the air was so fragile that I'm afraid to break it and slip a subject to give life to it.

I never experienced this treatment of Reighly since the day her last boyfriend cheated on her for a girl and found out after that the girl was actually 7 months pregnant with her boyfriend's child. I hate to feel this thing again for Reighly. I know she deserves a lot, even the truth. I can say that Reighly is so in love with Patrick that she always mentions him in every conversation. Sharing how romantic he is and so passionate to her that I honestly felt envy but that didn't drive me insane to begin a fight with her. Instead, I totally understand. She's my best friend and I truly care for her just as much as she cares for me.

I stood up all of a sudden which made Reighly startled on her seat. She looked at me doubled shocked after witnessing my playful grin on her.

"What is happening?", she confusedly asked. I just continuously smiled and grabbed her hand.

"Did you come here with your car?", I asked. She nodded and gave me the key immediately after I asked her. We leave at the same time after safely closing my apartment.

"Where are we going Karrole?", she confusedly asked but I could sense a little bit of excitement in her voice.

"You'll see".

I stopped the car. The vibrant lights of the rides and stalls shimmer on the car's glass window. I looked at Reighly's face, she was amused by the view she's watching. Even me I was amused by the lights the place used, and a little more excited. It is like a fantasy world inside a whole and definite world.

"Amusement park", she softly mumbled between her delight. "Amusement Park", now I can see the excitement in her voice, especially on her face.

"Yup", I proudly mustered. "So what ride are we going to hop on first", I said while both hands lean to my waist. I slowly scanned the whole rides and looking for what'll suit for us to ride.

"What are you saying? lets ride them all!"I burst into laughter after she showed her childish side.

"Okay okay okay... I didn't know you were so excited about this kind of place", I chuckled.

"For your information I AM always excited about this place", I even chuckle more and come to retreat after a sign of annoyance slowly emerges on her face.

"Okay okay. So what ride?", I asked her. She looked all over the place for a ride and pointed out after on her back. I looked and saw what ride she wanted.

"Roller coaster?", I shockingly said.

"Yes".

"Uh-uh. I can't", I took a small step backwards but Reighly grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the ticket booth.

Oh no! I am really into trouble.

"Rei you know how I feel about this ride", I pleaded.

"Yeah and that's exactly why", she responded and laughed evilly.

The ticket booth attendant released two tickets and as much as I don't want to ride this vehicle I can't back out.

"Don't worry you'll be fine", Reighly whispered in my left ear after we both settled on our designated ride seats.

"Yeah just like how you said to me last gathering that didn't come out very pleasantly", I sarcastically responded. She just chuckled and suddenly the ride slowly moved forward.

Ohh no! this is gonna be my death! WAHHHHHHHH...!!!