AROUND THE HEART IN 80 DAYS

Twenty One

Prick!

Fucking prick!

And everything in between! Saturday morning, he woke up cursing himself. Regretting deeply. Last night, forcing down all negative energy that existed upon himself just so she could be annoyed. Like there was a goddamn reason or need to just get somebody annoyed and Jacqueline was a close target.

But it was tiring and it was sickening. The whole back and forth rollercoaster between peace and war.

Mariana Müller died exactly three years and four days on the previous day. And even though time had passed, the weight of that familiar realisation came pouring down again. And it was painful again. And tiring again. His head had hurt. And all week he'd been downcast.

And maybe that must have been why Becca remembered to call him that same morning. What a coincidence!
His mind flew on high alert in the thought that Jacqueline must have been so pissed that she resulted to reporting him.
Good news only being she hadn't actually reported him.

"How are things going?" Rebecca did sounded wary when asking.

"Fine." He had replied.

"Just fine?"

"Well I'm still here so..."

"Right. Okay. Um- I know what this week means to you so I said I would check up."

"Thank you. How is the honeymoon. One more month to go?"

"Time flies." Rebecca sounded more alive suddenly. "I don't want to leave."

"Nobody wants to leave the Maldives."

A pause. "How about Jackie?"

"She's fine. She's an entrepreneur." His answers were coming in as quickly as they were thrown.

"What?"

"She's going up and down establishing her businesses. I won't deny that I'm happy that she's got her hands full in the least."

"You two don't talk much?"

"Have you spoken to her?"

"Not after the period I took her there, no. My bad."

"It doesn't matter. She's really busy."

Though he could sense his sister's disappointment on them not 'clicking' as she had hoped in her world of fantasies, she was still glad that he hadn't pushed the roommate off a cliff.

Now Jacqueline had been too busy to notice he was down all week due to the whole three year anniversary thing and it was mighty fine that she was giving him space unbeknownst to her. Little did she know that she had come nitpicking at the wrongest time last night.
And he felt sorry.

She wasn't a bad person, he wasn't fond of her but it didn't mean she was an enemy. And for someone who put her foot down that she wasn't leaving the house, these little things he did should find a way to keep on plucking at her skin and he guessed she struggled everyday to pretend he wasn't being a douchebag.

There she was doing it again. Making him feel guilty. And he gaslit excellently too.
And he was tired as well of blaming his sister for making him feel guilty. What could he do about it?

He was such a dick, good gracious!

The call from his sister was unsurprisingly short. He watched as the long hand on the clock struck nine, exactly fifteen minutes to seven in the morning. His roommate slash superhero was never still asleep at past six. And he had awoken before five thinking she would be the one bold enough to come out and face the awkward situation he put them in once more. But she never left her room.
No doubt he had made her confused again.