"Hey. Hey. Wake up. wake up! HEY!"
I let out a small squeak of shock and bolted upright, looking around frantically to try and find what the source of trouble was.
As I looked around, as it happened, I noticed that a few things were completely out of the ordinary.
For one, I was in a pair of jeans, a pretty blue blouse and a dark jacket I distinctively remember wearing a few weeks ago.
Two, I happen to be awkwardly slumped over a table at a small, closely packed family owned Chinese restaurant that seemed to be completely empty of customers, saved for myself.
And lastly, there was a tall imposing figure leaning over towards me across the table with a rather wireded out, concerned look in his intensely colored eyes. His lips twisted up into a sweet smile and I blinked.
No wait, his lips are twisted down in an unpleasant frown.
The last was probably the most Surprisingly, freakish one of them all, you know why?
Because nemesis was the one standing in front of me, and he was certainly not looking pleased. Not that it mattered. This pretty much is the face he carried on his whole life.
Which begs the question : what was he doing here?
Which begs another question : where was I again?
Wasn't he just smiling a while ago? I start to slowly lift my head from my folded arms on the table, brushing back my sprawled hair with my hand and looking slightly around.
My throat felt so impossibly dry and my vision was three dimensional. My head felt so heavy, I could feel it weighing down on my tiny neck.
I couldn't quite understand why I felt this way but I knew one thing for sure.
I had to do something about my frowning boss who looks like he was gonna start yelling any minute from now again.
"uhm.... I'm sorry, " I started babbling out of embarrassment " I... didn't know I fell asleep... "
I tried to keep my eyes open, they felt so heavy.
"Fine. Whatever!" Nemesis cuts me off in a deep, rich voice I hadn't expected to hear "Look, you can't stay here okay? You need to go. NOW"
I was slightly taken back by the sharp annoyed tone he used. Sure, I believe I'd heard him used far more worse tones to me before but that had been years ago. Or I think so. But still......it shouldn't have felt like I'd just gotten slapped in the face or something with the way he was talking.
I couldn't help the fact that I was staring up at him with an awed expression on my face, sort of like I was seeing some impossible Greek god in front of me.
"What are you doing here? " I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Yeah, what the hell is a play boy magazine model doing in front of me in a tiny Chinese restaurant at so early in the morning?
"Me?" Nemesis replies in a sarcastic voice " I happen to own this place and we're closing since you're so irresponsible to do that right now..... "
"Closing?" I cut him off in a high pitch voice, once the word finally sunk in, realization striking me hard " um.... What time is it?"
"Quarter past eleven" he replied hastily like the words burnt his tongue.
I gulp hard.
I'm in some deep shit. I'd been drinking with Evelyn earlier. I remember now.
I remember leaving work some hours ago. I remember drinking at a bar and heading right back- I look around -here. This isn't some tiny Chinese restaurant. Its my freaking work place and the man towering over me with lasers shooting out of his eyes is infact my boss and he just said I'm being irresponsible.
I slowly look him in the eyes, mustering some courage to apologize " uhm... I'm sor... "
"God, shut up, Bella!! " he cuts me off with a yell so loud, I shook in surprise " Get the hell out of here already!"
I stand up almost immediately and bow a little before picking up my bag from the floor and running out.
I stop just outside at the Cosmo store next to ours, propping my back against it's wall in utter pain, tucking at my bag slagging down my tiny, weak fingers.
Ignoring the cold night's air creeping into my pores, I stared into the dark, fathomless eyes of my Boss still peering back at me.
I shut my eyes again and face palm as the embarrassment I'd had to endure just a minute ago washed back over my face, mocking the hell out of me.
And of course, being a twenty year old, my first reaction was to promptly scream my head off, but something kept me from doing that : my teeth digging painfully into my lower lip.
I cannot believe I let myself drink. I have the worst hang over anybody could ever expect. I even thought nemesis was a Greek god.
I look down at my black tee shirt and reached to feel it, peering at its color. Then my jeans before looking up again. For a moment in there I hadn't recognized what I was wearing. What was even wrong with wearing the clothes I wore from last week!
For all I know right now was that, that was a very very smooth slide from nemesis back there.
I look hard into the dimly lit street, feeling the air's dampness absorb into my exposed forearms and neck.
I should head home.
Home.
An image of me climbing my window from last night appeared right in front of me, causing me so sigh loud enough to wake up the dead.
I'm going to walk through that door even though its past 12 midnight and I do not give a care what Cindy says or does.
I'm gonna have to trek it home. This is one of the times I wished I could afford an uber driver.
Backing my backpack, I reluctantly start counting my steps down the side walk.
Why the hell was nemesis Closing the restaurant anyway? Its the Manager's damn job.
I shrug my shoulders in between thoughts. What do I care?
**
Waking up in the next few hours after getting kicked out of my work place felt like the most agonizing torture I'd ever had to bring myself to endure.
I sit up on my bed and stared into thin air, flashbacks of how I'd climbed up my window again last night vividly replaying in my mind.
Last night I'd walked through the gates to find the door locked. A part of me wondered if they wouldn't care if I left home for weeks unannounced.
I look around shortly and noticed two very strange things that moment which surprisingly didn't bug me at all.
One, I felt so much peace inside me. The quiet and the deafening silence. It was like I deserved so much of this calmness and my subconsciousness doesn't even try to fight me about it. Strange.
And secondly, the air felt and smelt so nice, it felt like an object of sight and I could almost reach out and touch it. Its so bright and serene.... Wait. Wait...
Damn it. I knew my subconsciousness should've fought me on this.
I need to go to school, damn it!
I'd perfected the art of showering and dressing up in such short number of minutes, I barely worried if I woke up late during school days.
I wasn't entirely late, I had twenty five minutes left before my first class.
After getting ready in a faded blue boyfriend jeans and a black tee that had GREENER GRASSES written in green across the chest area. I pull my hair back into a knotted bon and slipped on my faded blue slip on shoes.
I slowly descend the short wooden stairs, Jade's voice filling my ears. Cindy soon comes to view, sitting on the couch and Jade sprawled on the rug next to her.
Cindy's head snaps up the moment I appeared, an unpleasant look on her face.
"Mom!" Jade exclaims, as if telling her she couldn't believe I was here in the house.
Cindy stands up and takes a few steps towards me.
"Where the hell have you been,huh?" she questions me.
"Work"
"Liar!" Jade speaks this time but I ignore her, looking straight into the air.
"You went off sleeping at some boy's house, didn't you? Where did you sleep yesterday huh?"
Silence.
"How did you even get in here?"
"Are you surprised? You locked me out didn't you? You told me not to come back yesterday and then locked me out. So stop acting like you care when you intentionally locked me out"
I hurry past her towards the door.
"This would be the last time you talk to me like that, Bella" She warns to my better ignorance as I disappeared outside the doors and didn't stop till I got outside the gates.
'You should go to your grandma for good, Bella' Evelyn's latter words before our departure last night resurfaced in my mind 'times like this isn't easy and regardless of the fact that her relationship with your mother wasn't entirely good before she died, I'm sure she'd want you to be with her than with Cindy'
I couldn't go to her. I couldn't afford a flight to Carolina. What if she moved to Japan like she said she'd do before dad died? Last night, a part of me told me to save up the tip I got from that dude back at the restaurant and keep saving till I could get a ticket and afford the expenses. But even if I did, I couldn't leave for good. I have two more years in college, I have loans that would always find me if I ran off. I can't.
**
London university was always too crowdy on Mondays and it pained me more that I had most of my classes today. But the good side was that I didn't have to be at the restaurant full time today. Which means, I didn't have to put up with nemesis today.
After series of classes, I walked out of the hall only to see Jade, standing at the fountain.
I sigh in annoyance. Not today.
Unlike me jade gets home schooled. Meaning she schools online and barely ever stresses herself. But she never stops coming to my university to bother me with endless talks. I get really tired. She's like a disease I could never cure. She doesn't even act her age except when its command-related.
She has her short sandy blond hairs falling across her wide shoulders, with a big square shades sitting on her nose, creating the perfect shield for her eyes. She wears a brown mini chiffon gown and black flats.
She doesn't see me walking up at first, but then she just happened to turn and see me.
"Bella!" She barked and stopped me with her hands spread apart in front of me.
"What do you want now, Jade?"
"What do you mean what do I want?," I roll my eyes "I can't visit a university?"
"Sure you can" I try to leave but she stops me again.
"Wait! I just came to know something. I heard there's a beauty show happening in France in the next three weeks and Diane is hiring models. I'm gonna audition for it"
I snort a laughter and her face dropped.
"What the hell's funny?"
"Nothing... Just good luck with that"
I seriously couldn't imagine Jade modeling for some fashion show. Its like Tall girl's older sister from 'The Tall girl' movie. I would definitely suffer for it. I'd have to die before that happens.
"Well, I heard she's coming here to take photoshoots" she continued.
"Who?"
"Diane?"
"Who?"
"You have no idea do you? You barely know what goes on around you," she rolls her eyes at me " she's London's one of the top ten fashionistas. Lemme make this clear. She is throwing a fashion show in France in the next three weeks which I'm gonna be in by the way and she is coming to this school to take her photoshoots so I wanna know when that would be"
"I don't know" I shrug honestly. I've never heard anything about some photo shooting here on campus. So many things happen here and so many things people barely know about.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
The sudden noise rising from the background catches our attention and I look forward, Jade spinning around to see what the passerbys were looking at and talking/whispering about.
Apparently while Jade and I were caught up in the talk, a black SUV pulled up far up across from the mountain, from us.
Now what exactly had caused the commotion was the person who stepped down from it's back seat.
The face was hard to forget and almost very impossible to ignore. It was a face you'd see while walking down the pavement and turn back to see again. He had a face you'd stair at and fail to blink because you're scared he'd disappear in just a single blink.
It was the face of no ther but Jason Garrix.