At Retro Red Bar...
Rachel is mixing up some drinks as the upbeat music keeps playing at the bar. She's preparing some cocktails for a group of ladies.
Perfect. Rachel thought at the sight of the fancy cocktails on her tray. She walks outside the bar counter to a table with a group of ladies. She places the drinks one by one on the table.
After placing the drinks on the table, Rachel walks back to bar counter, but stops in her steps as she sees a familiar male figure standing near the bar counter. Her smile soon fades into an awkward expression as she sees the guy staring at her with an apologetic look.
"Rachel..." the guy calls her as she stood in silence.
Rachel's POV...
"What do you want?" I ask Jack who is standing near the bar counter looking rather guilty like a child who just did something that made his mom mad.
"I want to talk to you," Jack says as he starts walking closer to me.
"Well, I'm busy right now," I say before walking pass him to go back to the bar counter.
Jack turns his head and see that I had walked inside the bar counter, ready to make more drinks. I really hope he wouldn't approach me and order a drink, but hey, that sounds like a cliche wish. If he wasn't in the mood to drink, why would he even come here in the first place? I turn around to see him now sitting near the bar counter. Great, now I have to take his orders though I've been trying to avoid this guy. What a night.
I walk over to him and hands him the menu, again not wanting to have any eye contact with him. Jack takes the menu from my hand and starts looking at the various choices of drinks.
"I'll just have a glass of martini," Jack says as he starts to open the zipper of his sling bag.
"Anything else?" I ask with a casual tone.
"No," Jack says as he pulls out a baby blue lunch box from his sling bag. "By the way, these are for you," Jack adds as he hands me the blue lunch box with a shy look on his face.
I turn my gaze at him as I see his hands holding the lunch box. What is it? And what does he have in mind right now?
But well, I can't stare at the box and keep wondering forever.
"You don't have to, Jack," I say as I move my vision from the box to his face.
"I made these myself. At least just give them a try," Jack says in a low tone.
"What are these?" I ask with a curious look.
"Just open it and look," Jack says as he hands me the lunch box.
I turn my gaze back to the box before slowly grabbing it from his hands. I open the lunch box to see that it was filled with steamed buns. I turn my gaze back at him with a puzzled look.
"Cookies?" I ask him with a puzzled look. I am surprised to know that he made these himself. I didn't know Jack could even bake.
"Yeah. I thought I bring you some since I remember how much you love them," Jack says. "And...what I'm trying to say, I'm trying to fix whatever misunderstandings we have."
I look up at Jack who has his gaze down on the bar counter. His presence tonight brings back visions of what we were, from childhood friends to meeting again after 12 years. Remembering back on how close we were as kids, and we actually plan to get closer after meeting again, sometimes I thought if some things could be change at the time. Maybe I didn't have to be too emotional, but he wasn't mature enough to make things clear. I was disappointed that night when I saw him with another woman through the video call.
But somehow, looking at him now made me feel different. A part of me still feels upset, but another part actually feels bad for him. Despite still having a small amount of pain in my heart, I deeply feel sorry for him.
"Jack," I call his name. "Don't be like this," I say to him. "Whatever misunderstandings we had, I want us to forget about it."
Jack turns his head to face me with a confuse look. "Don't forgive me before I apologize to you," Jack says with serious eyes. "You're only making me feel worse."
"Jack...it was all a misunderstanding. Let's just forget about it and move on," I say as I take one more look at the lunch box. "Thanks for the cookies."
"I don't want to move on!" Jack says with a rather high tone.
I was about to walk back to make more drinks, when I heard Jack almost scream with his sentence. I turn around and face him with a puzzled look. I notice some guys sitting near the bar counter starts staring at the two of us with an awkward look. I decide to walk towards Jack and talk whatever we have to talk, and finish whatever we have to finish.
"What do you mean?" I ask him. My heart already feels exhausted just by the thought of any possible answers he has.
"I don't want to move on. At least...not from you," Jack says with a lower tone than before.
I feel my heart slowly starting to flutter after hearing his words, bringing me back to the unfinish story we had.
"I'm sorry for what I've did before. I should have been more responsible for what we were, and be more careful towards your feelings," Jack says as he gaze down, avoiding eye contact with me.
Hearing his apology, however, didn't make me feel better the way I expected. Somehow hearing it only stings the pain in my heart more, slowly awakening the wounds that were forgotten for a moment when I wasn't near him. My heart starts feeling heavier as I fight the tears that are starting to fill my eyes. How I wish I could just escape this moment, but again I thought how long will I keep running away from my childhood friend? I thought I could forget him when I avoided him, but his absence only made me forget about the pain for a moment, when my heart still longs for his presence.
"Jack..." I say as I was starting to get confuse with my own words.
"Let's start a new beginning," Jack says as he slowly turns his gaze to me. I look at him as I continue to struggle with holding back the tears. "This time, I won't mess up. This time, I'll be sure to cherish us better."
I was surprised by his words. I became speechless as I stare into his ocean blue eyes, wondering what to say to him. With my feelings all mixed up, I don't know how to react right now. Just when I start to question my growing feelings for Alex, Jack appears as he awakens the old feelings that were once wounded.
"I don't want us to stay quiet to each other forever," I say. "But now, I'm still trying to deal with everything that happened."
"Then I'll wait for you," Jack says.
"You have all the time in the world to heal yourself from everything. You deserve to heal and be happy. In the process, I'll be by your side, as what I was, a friend."
My eyes grew slightly wider by hearing his sentence as my feelings got more mixed up. As we stare into each other's eyes, I constantly keep questioning my own feelings which got more confusing to me. Our stares lasted longer as the two of us gets lost in the moment.
Meanwhile, at the gas station...
Alex walks out of the convenience store with a bottle of soda in his hand, after he stopped to fill his gas a few minutes ago. As Alex is heading back to his car, he is stop by a man wearing the gas station uniform, which Alex assume to be one of the staffs.
"Going back, Sir?" the man ask with a smirk on his face.
"Yeah," Alex says as he walks pass the guy. He is starting to feel awkward about how the man looked at him. His gut feeling tells him that something is definetly not right. He is about to reach his car when two men appears in front of him, along with the guy in the gas station uniform appearing from his back. He could feel cold sweat coming out from his body at the sight of these men around him.
"What a coincidence," says a man with sunglasses and a black mask. He's definetly one of the stalkers.
Alex gaze at the guys one by one with a sharp look. He thought that they really chose the right time to approach him, when he's alone at a gas station at night.
"What's wrong, Brother? Did we choose the wrong time?" ask the man with the black attributes.
"Haha, looks like we did," says the other guy who is also wearing black attributes. "He's speechless."
"What do you guys want?" Alex ask with a sharp yet chill tone. As much as it bothers him to be surrounded by three randomly dangerous men, he had to stay calm and not panic at the situation.
"Playing dumb I see," says the guy in the gas station uniform. "You know what we want," he adds.
"That's not my problem," Alex says as he tries to walk pass the two men standing in front of him. However, one of the men suddenly punches him in the face. Alex starts fighting back, but the guy other guy with black attributes tries to get a good hold of Alex, making Alex attack him even more as he struggles to escape the guy's grip. Being an expert in hand-to-hand combat, it wasn't hard for Alex to finish two guys in a minute.
"Stop!" says the guy in the gas station uniform as he pulls out his gun. Alex turns his head and kicks the gun from his hands sending it flying in the air.
As Alex starts running away from the scene, he gets shot in the leg by one of the men. He falls down on the ground as the pain stings deeply. The guy in the gas station approaches him slowly, before starting to punch his face constantly.
At Retro Red Bar...
8:05 PM...
Rachel's POV....
My shift finally came to an end. Jack had offered to drive me home but I told him Alex was gonna pick me up like usual. I grab my bag and walks out of the bar to see that Alex hasn't arrive yet to pick me up. Weird, he's never been late before.
Jack stood next to me as we stand in front of the bar. The silence became awkward as both of us are at lost of words.
"You're not going home?" I ask him, trying to break the silence.
"I'll just wait for Alex to pick you up. We gotta make sure you are safe," Jack says.
I want to disagree with him like I always did with any guy who thought I needed protection, but come to think of it, in a situation like this, they are actually right. I do needed protection.
Where is he? I thought.
After a few minutes of waiting with Jack with no signs of Alex, I've decided to give him a call. I tried to call him but he didn't pick up. Ok, that's just too weird. What happened to him?
"He didn't pick up," I say to Jack with a worried feeling.
"Weird. Where could he be?" Jack ask.
"I don't know," I say.
Just then, my phone starts ringing. But to my surprise, it wasn't Alex who was calling. It was Liam. I picked up the phone and said hello to Liam, wondering what he was gonna say next.
"Rachel! Where are you?" Liam ask with a worried voice.
"I'm still at the bar, waiting for Alex. Why?" I ask with a curious tone.
"I'm gonna tell Jack to pick you up right now," Liam says. "Alex, he..."
"What? What happened to him?" I ask him with a worried voice as fear starting to fill me up.
"Alex...he got shot and beaten up by a group of guys," Liam says with a heavy tone.
Hearing those words, my legs starts to shiver by the thought of what happened to Alex. My legs became weak as I feel tears slowly falling from my eyes. "Where is he?" I ask Liam with eyes filled with tears.
"He's at the hospital with me and Nate. I'll call Jack right now to pick you up," Liam says.
I wasn't able to say anything else since my legs are getting weaker by every thought of Alex. I fall on my knees as I start to sob at the thought of Alex, making Jack kneel down with me. He tries asking me a few times what happened what it was about, but I was too busy getting lost in crying to even say a word. I couldn't imagine how terrible it was for Alex. Even the thought of it already kills me
Just then, I hear Jack's phone ringing. I assume it to be Liam calling.
"Hello!" Jack says with a curious tone. It didn't took long for Jack's face to suddenly turn into a look filled with fear and pain.
After Jack finished his call with Liam, the two of us got inside his car as we head to the hospital in a hurry.
At the hospital...
I run over to Liam and Nate as Jack tries to keep up, to see both of them are waiting. I break down into tears as I ask both of them where Alex is.
"Where is he?" I ask with tears in my eyes.
"He's inside," Nate says with a low tone as both him and Liam gaze at the ground with a sorrow look.
Without any other words, I open the door and run inside to see Alex lying down on the hospital bed. His left arm is covered with bandage and I could see some bruises on his arms and face. Looking at this breaks my heart even more. I kneel down beside the hospital bed as I stare at him. He's asleep.
"Alex..." I say with tears in my eyes. "It's all my fault," I continue to cry my eyes out at sight of him asleep on the hospital bed. "If they weren't after me, maybe you would still be ok by now."
To be continue...