Heart Strings | ✓

FOUR

"Angel?"

It was him.

I knew that under all of that whatever disguise he was wearing, it was him. Just from hearing his voice, it was obvious.

How can I even forget about him? When he was such a big part of my life before it all went down.

"I-I'm s-sorry." I apologized, lowering my head down so I wouldn't meet his staring gaze. "I-I didn't mean to h-hit your c-cart."

"It's okay, you didn't purposely do it." He assured me. "No damages were done."

He was about to say more, but stopped when my phone rang. I fished my phone out from my bag and answered the call from Tracy.

"Hey, boo, some family emergency came up and I'm on the way to the parking lot. I'm sorry to cut off our trip so early. I'll make it up to you next time." She explained through the phone. Judging by the tone of her voice she was really in a hurry.

"Just call me if you need anything, okay? I'm sure everything is fine whatever is going on right now."

"Well, I hope so. My little nephew just fell down the stairs and hit his head."

"Is he alright? He didn't get a concussion, did he?"

"I don't know. I'm on the way to the hospital right now."

"Okay, I'll drop the call so you can focus on driving, bye."

"Thanks, again. Bye, Callie. I'll talk to you later." I dropped the phone call and turned off my phone.

"Is anything wrong?" A voice startled me. "Sorry."

Standing less than two feet in front of me was Jackson with a worrisome expression settling on his face. The hood of his jacket was gone. I was surprised that he was still standing there. I thought he left and went on his way?

"An-Callie?" He called.

I nodded hesitantly. "Y-yes, my friend just had an emergency."

"Oh, okay." After he said that everything was awkward and silent between us.

It has definitely been a while since we last saw each other and from the looks of it, the years have been good to him. His features have gone a bit more mature and his body got a little bit more muscular. And his eyes, his beautiful green eyes, still look the same but there was something missing in them. It looks empty and blank, no more with those cheerful and gleeful looking orbs that I used to look into before.

"How are you?" Jackson asked, a small ghost smile dancing on his lips.

"I'm doing fine. I'm a teacher now." I answered, fidgeting with my fingers.

"You're a teacher now?" He said in a surprised tone. "Wow, that's amazing, Callie!"

I smiled. "How about you? How are you doing?"

"Now? I'm doing really great."

~~~

Circling the brim of my coffee cup, I was sitting by the window at a near by cafe by the supermarket, watching the raindrops fall down the glass.

Jack was sitting across from me with his cup of hot chocolate, he never really had the fondness for coffee. We sat in comfortable silence as the noise from the cafe was buzzing in the background.

Right after that little encounter at the supermarket, I kind of had a feeling that he was following me. Whenever I looked to the side, he was there, too. I didn't know if I thought about myself too high, but he was there pretending to look through the shelves of canned vegetables. Canned olives to be exact. I don't know why he was looking interested in them, but as far as I remember, he would rather die than eat an olive.

I went on my way and went ahead to go pay for my groceries. He was at the counter next to mine paying for his things. People noticed him and asked for a picture which he gladly did. I glanced subtly at him as I exited the supermarket. He was in a hurry to grab all the bags that he had, which wasn't a lot.

I forced myself to focus my gaze in front of me and go back to my car. I started loading everything on the back of my car and stopped when a voice called my name.

I stopped what I was doing and slowly turned my head to the side, there he was standing not so far from me was Jackson holding two bags and asked me if I wanted to get something to drink with me. I don't know what came over me, but my mouth unconsciously said yes to him so here we are right now.

We ordered our drinks individually and paid for it just before settling on the table near the window. We had small conversations, nothing too deep or personal. We both talked about how boring our work life was.

I found out that he was taking a break for a few months before eventually going back to making music. He talked a little about his family. It made me miss them since I was really close with them before, especially Lav. But she's probably never going to talk to me ever again because after we broke up, I distanced myself from her until randomly just stopped talking to each other.

If only I could go back to those simple times once again.

I miss everything from my old life. I would give everything to have things back like before where I was genuinely happy because I have everything around me that I ever asked for. But then one day, slowly by slowly everything disappeared and I was left with nothing but myself and all alone.

Leaving this cafe, I noticed that skies were starting to turn a dark color and the next thing I knew it was pouring rain outside.

Now I found myself in my car with my ex beside me, both of us dripping wet from the rain.