CHAPTER THREE: ... I think I found Cy.

JASON opened a wooden door and entered a room that looked like an office. He was a very busy man so having an office inside his house was not completely impossible. Besides, teaching was just one of his many duties.

Sitting across from the laptop that was booting on top of the table, he placed the mug that contained freshly brewed hot coffee beside it. Pulling the laptop closer to himself he started typing.

"Do you know me, professor? Have we met before?"

Cyrene's voice echoed in his mind. In a bid to Ignore the taunting voice resounding in his head, he continued typing with much more intensity. The only problem was that the scheme wasn't working and he finally gave up on distracting himself.

He avoided her questions on purpose that afternoon and it was for the better. If Cyrene was the Cyrene he thought she was then, she would had noticed that he twisted his way out of the question.

In as much as his hunch was telling him that it was the same Cyrene, it was too soon to jump to such conclusion.

He quickly stood up from the swivel chair he was sitting on and made his way to the couch that was by the corner of the office. Picking up his phone, he dialed a number. In less than five seconds, someone answered on the other end.

"Tim," Jason acknowledged before placing the call on speaker.

"Jason, do you know what it is by the time? I thought your insomnia was getting better. I know for sure that it was better," Tim grumbled sleepily.

Jason dropped the phone on the table and sat on the swivel chair again. He leaned back and started swinging the chair from side to side before responding. "I also thought it was getting better. I was hoping to rest for some days before anything happens," Jason said with a sigh, massaging his forehead slightly.

"Why aren't you resting then?" Tim couldn't conceal the fact that he was being deprived of his beauty sleep, although curiosity got the best of him.

"I think I found her," he paused hoping to get a reaction from Tim but got nothing. "Tim, I think I found Cy."

"What's Cy? You called me by this time of the night just to speak gibberish. Like what in the world is Cy? Jason are you sure you're okay?" He asked with concern and a hint of annoyance. "Wait... what!" Tim screamed after a few seconds without a response from Jason. He sounded more energetic unlike the first time he answered Jason's call as his brain seemed to had started functioning properly again.

"It's crazy, right? I bumped into her while I was exercising earlier today. And she turned out to be one of my students a few hours later. Not only that, she came looking for me later and asked if I knew her. I didn't know what to say. I mean, what if I'm wrong about her? It's just a hunch though."

"You are forgetting that your suggestions have never been wrong."

"There's something different about her too. She looked different." Jason commented with full certainty.

"Of course, she is supposed to look different. It's been nine years and she was just fifteen then." Tim tried to reason with Jason.

"You know what? Just shut up and go back to sleep. Call me first thing when you wake up later and don't forget to keep this information to yourself, at least for now." Jason hung up without waiting for Tim to say anything else.

After sitting for a while, he carried the mug of coffee that had already turned cold to the kitchen and placed it on the sink before climbing a few stairs up to his bedroom.

Even if he wasn't going to be able to sleep, he needed to at least close his eyes and rest on the bed until dawn.

******

Cyrene sat on a wooden bench around the school premises that afternoon as she ate the burger she managed to get from Buffers.

The place was usually overcrowded every single time that she walked through their double glass doors. It was all thanks to a part-timer that claimed to be acquainted with her that she was able to get the burger she was eating. Maybe he had a crush on her or something. She wondered.

Not that it mattered anyways, Cyrene was going to forget him again the next day.

Flipping through her dark brown thick back notebook, she whispered,

'spice. I met the spice of my life yesterday and she was beautiful and scarily too friendly'

Closing the notebook, she sighed and took another bite from her burger.

If she was that important you should have done a better job in your note Cy. She thought to herself as she struggled to understand what the statement in her note meant.

As she was about to get up from the bench, she felt someone sitting too close to her for comfort's sake

"Hi," June greeted with her perfect dentition in full display. "I know you missed me so much that you didn't bother to say hi this morning," June said sarcastically, feigning resentment.

She is behaving friendly, although she seems a little bit angry. She must be spice.

"You are the spice of my life, of course, I missed you," Cyrene said with a smile, hoping that she wasn't wrong about the whole spice thing. The 'spice of life' sounded outrageous to be said aloud in the first place.

If the lady beside her was a good friend, trying to keep up with the friendship in her way was the least she could do.

Since she started losing her memories, she was able to get by each day by learning to pay more attention to what her heart was telling her.

And at that moment, her heart was telling her that Spice was a friend.

"Who are you and what did you do with Rene?" June questioned trying to fight the smile that was threatening to break free on her face. "You sure know how to get away with things," June finally laughed.

"Of course, that's how I have lived for a while. Getting away with things is my way of life," Cyrene replied with a smile, although she meant every single word she had said.

"Is that Buffers?" June asked, pointing at the half-eaten burger that Cyrene was holding.

"Yes, the cute part-timer that works there got it for me in advance,"

"I'm sure he has a crush on you." June snatched the remaining burger from Cyrene, "I will eat this as a token of apology for ignoring me this morning. June never let any opportunity slide." She said while munching on the burger.

June is her name. Cyrene thought as she relaxed on the bench.

The silence between them was kilometers away from being awkward and it was more of relaxing instead.

For some reason, having June by her side at that moment felt like her life was returning to her. Perhaps if she tried hard enough all those years ago her life would not had been as lonely as it was.

While Cyrene was in her bubble relishing in the comfort June provided, she pretended not to be aware of the fact that June was watching her the entire time.

There was something about the way June looked at her. It was like she could see through Cyrene. And for a split second, it was as if an emotion flashed through her eyes. Was it pity or perhaps... Pain?

Cyrene had no idea, but she knew that if the little changes occurring in her life recently were more than just ripples, she was going to get to the bottom of it all before it turned into a tsunami.

"What are you thinking?" June finally asked.

"I was just wondering," Cyrene paused to look at June. "Things are becoming a little unusual for me and I don't know if I can ever get used to it," Cyrene answered looking into June's eyes as if all the answers she was seeking were all hidden in them.

"What do you mean?" June asked again.

"I met the new professor yesterday and I think that he's hiding something from me. I'm not that sure about anything but I can feel it in my bones," Cyrene replied with certainty.

Before she went into the professor's office the previous day, she turned on her phone recording. It was true that she was going to forget their encounter but if she recorded it like did, she was going to have something to hold on to.

Meeting him was important to her, therefore, recording the conversation was a necessary action, although it was illegal without Jason's consent.

"If you are sure that there's something about him that you should know, then holding onto that feeling might be the first step to getting your answers," June said, placing her hand on top of Cyrenes.

"It might not be that serious at the end of it all and that is what scares me the most." Cyrene sighed pulling her hand away from Junes.

"Or it might be very serious at the end," June added.

"It's a two-way something, 50-50." Cyrene commented.

"Just like life entirely," June said again and they turned to face each other.

"How do we understand each other so well?" Cyrene asked rhetorically, bulging out her eyes a little.

"I know right?" June responded and they laughed for a while.

Cyrene paused for a moment in the middle of their bizarre laughter. It had been a while since she laughed and she had almost forgotten the sound of her own laughter.

It hadn't been long since they met each other, but the connection between them was growing with so much intensity.

It scared Cyrene a little but the happiness she was feeling with June at her side was far greater than her fear.

She only wished that it would last longer before she went back to her loneliness. June was still a stranger after all.