Ava's eyes fluttered open as she sat up slowly, ignoring the pain she was feeling all over her body. How the hell did I fall back asleep…
She quickly got off the bed and grabbed her clothes before putting them on. A piece of paper fell on the floor. She took it and read the note on it. "Alex..." Ava muttered his name under her breath. He wrote his name and his phone number on the paper.
Ava shook her head and placed the paper back on the desk. She wrote a small thank you on it and placed a few dollars next to it to clean his laundry. She made her way towards the door. Her hand was on the door handle when his words rang inside her head. I'll be back soon…
"Ava. It doesn't mean anything. He just wants you to pay for deed he did." She shook her head, eliminating the tiny hope that was growing inside her that the insanely attractive man might actually have an interest in her.
"Plus, he looks rich. Not just rich but HELLA RICH," she whispered to herself softly, recalling back the eventful morning. Heat rushed to her face out of embarrassment when she realized how idiotic she acted in front of him last night. Running around and stumbling about like a madwoman. She shuddered when she imagined her actions last night. "Let's just leave. I'm just a crazy drunk woman in his eyes, for sure." She scoffed at her pathetic and embarrassing self and left the room, making her way back to her house.
Melanie must be worried as hell... Ava took her phone out to give her dear sister from a different father and a different mother a call but coincidentally it ran out of battery. What a great life… I should get ready to be attacked by her bear hugs and nags.
As she had expected, the moment she stepped one foot into the house, she was tackled down to the ground, two arms wrapped around her body tightly. "Mel! You're choking me!" she hit the said girl's arm a few times before she finally decided to let her go.
"Where the hell were you?! I called you thousands of times but I got no answer! I seriously thought you were kidnapped and dismembered into 27 parts!" she shouted, tears brimming in her eyes. Ava sighed before pulling the crying girl into her embrace, patting her back softly as the tears slowly drenched her shoulder. "I'm sorry. My phone died. I'm okay, so you don't have to worry about me. I'm here." Ava whispered softly into her ears as she tightened her grip around her. "You're the only one I have left."
Ava's heart felt like it was stabbed with multiple knives over and over again when the girl in her arms mumbled the last sentence. She was washed over with guilt for worrying her because she was too drunk to find her way home and ended up with a man. Melanie had been Ava's best friend since they were fifteen. They met at an orphanage back in their hometown. She was new in the orphanage back then so she was a little awkward and shy. Since Ava was no different from Melanie, she decided to just approach her and be her friend. Little did they know, their friendship would last until now. They had been living together since the moment they left the orphanage. Now, she's the only family Ava had left.
"I'm sorry. I promise you that won't happen again. That would be the last." Ava spoke as she leaned away and wiped the tears away from Melanie's face. "What happened? You went missing after the party last night."
"Actually…." She hesitated to tell her the truth but Ava could never lie to her. Not to Melanie.
"Tell me." She spoke in a demanding tone.
Ava took a very long breath and spoke in one breath while closing her eyes, a little afraid of what the girl in front of her would react. She slowly opened her eyes when she heard no response coming from Melanie.
"W-WHAT?!" she shouted loudly, forcing Ava to cover her ears with her palms due to the high-pitched sound.
Ava heaved a heavy sigh as she waited to hear her never-ending nagging about alcohol and man. To her surprise, she jumped happily in front of her, shrieking with joy. "Finally!"
"Um, excuse me?" Ava questioned, not believing the words that came out of her lips.
"Who's this guy? Did you finally got yourself a boyfriend?" she wriggled her eyebrows, teasing her best friend who apparently never had a boyfriend before.
"Stop your nonsense. Any chances I had with him might have already gone down the drain the moment we met."
"What? Why? How?" she questioned with a very curious look on her face.
"Well, I might have run around like a 5-year-old kid, bumping into streetlights and electric poles at the sidewalk. And I might or might have not thrown up all over his clothes." Melanie stared at her best friend with a judgemental look.
"It's the alcohol. Not my fault."
"A guy finally approached you and you just decided to ruin every chance with him? Are you kidding me? Are you going to be alone until you're a single old woman with 20 cats living in a wooden house at the edge of the town shutting yourself out from the world?" she groaned in frustration while ruffling her hair. She took a deep breath with her eyes closed to calm herself down before looking back at her friend.
"Don't tell me he's an insanely attractive young man that can make you drool from just looking at him."
"He is but I made a fool out of myself in front of him, Mel. I'll be a crazy woman if I dared to show myself up in front of him again."
"Do you actually think you have the freedom to choose? No guy wants to approach you after you rejected that poor guy in the middle of our university cafeteria. It's better to find a guy who knows nothing about our college life."
"How many times do I have to tell you? The guy was basically begging me to go out with him when I clearly said I don't want to date him the first time he confessed."
"Screw that. Did you at least got his number?"
"Who? The guy from our college?"
"No. The gorilla we met at our trip to the zoo last month." Melanie spoke with a poker face, earning a look of confusion from her best friend. When there was no response from the girl in front of her, Melanie knew her dear friend did not understand her sarcasm.
"The hot guy's number. Did you get it?"
"For what? To embarrass myself more?"
"Of course. You wouldn't be THE Ava Harold if you did ask for his number." She crossed her arms and leaned back into the couch before scolding Ava for ruining her only chance of having romance in her boring and dull single life. Ava laughed her ass off as she ran around the house, escaping from getting hit by Melanie's stone-hard hands.
"Seriously, though. Are you not going to at least look for him before we fly back home?"
"Nah. Let him be a passing memory in this poor girl's life."
"Fine. Your loss. Start packing then. Our flight is in the evening."
"Yes, Mom."