Forever Unfinished

Chapter 17

Then

Med school wasn't the same after Alonso. A lot can happen in a year, people say, and they're right. As time passed, part of us did recover. Not entirely but we were making progress. We all started therapy after that and I could see how much it had helped us through the grieving process.

Our second year of med school had come and gone in the blink of an eye. At first, every day for the past year, we had endured a non-stopping cycle: I was consumed by so much sorrow, drinking it like an addict would. I would wake up with the worst nostalgic hangover just to continue with a day filled with a never ending melancholy. Looking back, the hard part had felt like forever ago but as things started to get better, a lot thanks to therapy, time started moving faster, healing some of our wounds.

I became sick of all the sadness, tired of cruising life with a numbing pain. It was a good thing for us, that the past year was behind us.

A whole year later, in May, we all gathered at an engagement party. It had been one of the few times we had gathered all together to have some fun. The invitation arrived to everyone's lives and interrupted the rut we were living in, which certainly did us good. The name of the woman who invited us was Olivia. We met her in our first year of med school, she was also a student like the rest of us but decided early on that she wasn't cut out for it and didn't like it as much as she'd imagined so dropped out. She also happened to be Georgina's cousin from the other side of the family, daughter of one of Margaret's brothers. We used to be friends with her but lost touch after she left med school. I guess that first part was the reason she was inviting us to her engagement party now.

I picked out a navy blue cocktail dress that made my pale skin pop up. It had been a long while since I got dressed for something and for the first time in a while, I felt pretty and full of hope.

Georgina and I arrived early, she was wearing a deep pink beautiful dress I loved but she would never let me borrow. It looked good on her. It was an open space with a lovely garden filled with wooden tables and white decorations.

We walked straight to Olivia first and congratulated her for the engagement. She looked nothing like Georgina, not like she and I did. She favored her mother physically, her hair was dark brown and wavy and had brown eyes that almost looked green when the light shone directly at them. She had flawless olive skin. When we reached her, her face glowed with a newly engaged glow, she looked gorgeous and happy.

After congratulating her, Gerogina took off and mingled, leaving me alone with people I didn't know. I walked up to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic, watching from where I stood a tall blonde man made his way to Olivia. He must be her fiancé. He sweetly planted a kiss on her forehead, not interrupting her as she engaged in conversation with two other people. I also spotted Margaret arrive, my aunt. I've never considered her my aunt because I was very young when Uncle Alvaro and her got a divorce but I guess for a while there she had been my aunt. I saw how she greeted Olivia's father.

"My God Roberta, you sure can dress up nice," Joe said from behind. I turned around and saw him grinning, Carlos beside him. I said hello to both of them with a hug.

"Well would you look at you two. I could say the same," I said smiling.

"Have you seen Olivia? We want to congratulate her," Joe said.

"I don't remember what Olivia looks like," Carlos answered, looking around. "Does that make me a terrible person? I just read 'free booze' on the invitation and was sold."

A laugh escaped both Joe and I. It felt good to laugh again, it also felt foreign, like I was laughing for the first time in my life.

It wasn't that weird that Carlos wouldn't remember her. Our class was big when we first started and little by little people had been dropping out for numerous reasons.