Searching for Anika

Chapter 5

After Xola came back from her promo tour, we both scheduled a vacation in L.A. While Xola was away, I found myself remaining in consistent contact with Marco, Sheena and Juno. One time, we were all on FaceTime together for like, 3 hours. It was during this call that I found out so much about all three of them. Juno and I have our love for music in common. I'm a music producer/DJ and he's actually skilled in playing the acoustic guitar and classical piano. Marco enrolled him in music classes about a year after Anika died, so he wouldn't dwell so much on her loss. Juno also has a girlfriend, Kamila, who he's been dating since high school. He also made sure to mention to me that she's an aspiring rapper.

I told him that he should send me some of her stuff and if she's fire, I'll try to pitch in a good word to some of my friends who are label execs. The smile on his face when I said this was too adorable. I could tell he was excited and couldn't wait to tell Kamila. Hell, he probably sent her a text while we were on the phone about it.

Then, Marco and Sheena told me how they've known each other since high school and also dated back then. When Marco graduated, a year before Sheena did, they decided to break up. Marco had enlisted in the Army and Sheena still had one more year of high school left. Plus, at that time, she was also her mother's caretaker. Sheena's mother had been battling breast cancer for 2 years at that time and was slowly dying. When she passed away, Sheena had graduated from high school but never made any plans on going to school. At the time, she was still taking care of her mother. She decided to enroll in school and major in Education because she always wanted to be a teacher.

"It's funny because this is how Marco and I reconnected. I ended up being Juno's 6th grade science teacher. It was on Parent's Night when Marco came up to school to be introduced to Juno's teachers and ever since then, we've kind of been our own little family.", said Sheena on the call. Marco nodded his head in agreement.

"Yep. We dated for about 2 years and then the summer before Juno started high school, we got married.", stated Marco.

I remember telling the both of them how that was such a cute love story and even giving my condolences to Sheena for the loss of her mother. By the time we got off that call, I felt like I knew Marco, Sheena and Juno even though we hadn't met face to face. But that was all about to change really soon.

Xola and I booked our flight tickets and hotel room for our vacation. After we got confirmation of everything, I decided to reach out to Marco and Sheena to let them know when we were coming. All 3 of them were so excited when I told them the news. Juno especially because he texted me right after I got off the phone with Marco and Sheena.

'Can't wait to meet you and see you, sis! xoxo' I smiled at the text and went back to packing my suitcases and bags.

Xola and I had finally made it to L.A. We decided to check into our hotel room first. Then, we stopped and grabbed some lunch at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. While we were eating, I made a FaceTime call to Marco to let him know we were here. Marco picked up after the second ring.

"Hey Elani! I was wondering when you were going to call." I was in the middle of taking a sip of my sweet tea when I stopped to respond back to him. "Yeah, we've been here for a couple of hours now. I think we touched down around 11:30ish, something like that. We went to check into our hotel room first and grabbed some lunch since it was so early.", I said.

Marco nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, I get it. I totally understand. Well, Juno doesn't finish his classes until about 5:30pm and that's also around the time that Sheena gets off work. So, let's schedule a dinner date for 8:30 tonight?" I looked at Xola for confirmation, even though I knew she was going to be down with whatever. Hell, she came with me to be my support system. Xola caught me looking at her, as she was finishing off her fries. She nodded her head as if to say, ok.