The Lucky One

Chapter Forty

Her ghost was still there, hidden amongst the million faces in the crowd, and Sandra could feel her. A phantom presence nearby, but frustratingly unseen. Days morphed into weeks, then months, yet there was no trace of Cate. The brunette hadn't a single clue where she'd gone. She just vanished into thin air. And the worst part about her disappearance? It felt like a cruel joke. Every day for months, it seemed like the world was laughing, until the grim realization hit - months had passed since Cate's blink-of-an-eye vanishing. It was like a coffin being lowered, a funeral Sandra unwillingly attended and every beat of her heart was a mourner's drum.

Cate was gone. Every news outlet blared her disappearance, feeding the internet's insatiable hunger with theories and speculations. Her banishment became a content topic for content creators, and Sandra loathed it. Everyone seized an opportunity while her heart ached, her soul hollow, her very being bruised blue with missing her. Every "Cate's dead" pronouncement felt like a knife twist. For Sandra, she wasn't dead. Somewhere, she knew Cate's heart still beat, alive.

Months were spent searching. Sandra haunted every club, hoping to find her blonde beauty nursing a cherry vodka. Hotels, vacation spots, even grocery aisles and churches - anywhere her deep cerulean eyes might appear. Joining Cate's online fandom brought no answers too, only disappointment. As hope wilted like sunflowers under a searing sun, Sandra hired private investigators. Years spun by, the men returning empty-handed each time.

Yet, she waited. Like the sun chasing the moon, Sandra clung to the possibility of an eclipse - a reunion in the darkness.

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Three years later...

"So? How did it go?"

The brunette gave Jennifer an annoyed look, before she proceeded to drop her bag on the floor. Sandra then threw herself on the couch before she got one throw pillow and pressed it hard against her face.

"I assume it did not go well?" Jennifer asked with a two year old toddler suspended on her left hip, "Or did it?"

"Does it look like it did?" Sandra countered before she stood up and took the little girl from Jennifer, "Hi, bubba. I miss you." She spoke, the motherly tone dripping naturally out of her before she got back to sitting on the couch with the little girl on her lap, "It did not."

"What do you mean?"

Sandra looked as the toddler started gnawing on her hand, a little tired to even stop the toddler, "They want to send me already. I mean, I don't want to. But it's not my decision anymore. It's either I take it or I say goodbye to my career."

"Hey, little lady, stop it." Jennifer spoke, stopping the little girl from gnawing Sandra's hand; Jennifer then got the toddler before sitting beside the very frustrated brunette, "And I think you should go."

"What?"

Jennifer swallowed, somehow nervous about what she was going to say, but she knew it was for the best. Sandra had been postponing her dream because of Cate and she knew that doing it over and over again was such a futile routine. It would do her no good.

"I think you should go." She repeated with conviction.

The brunette shook her head, looking in disbelief upon hearing what her friend just said, "Did you... Do you hear yourself? Did you hear what you just said? To me?"

The other brunette gave a nod, "Yeah. Yeah, I did and I mean it." She put the toddler down on the floor before she looked at the brunette seriously, "I think you should go. You can't keep on postponing what you want because of her."

"Don't call her 'her'. She has a name."

"Okay. Just for Cate. You can't keep doing that."

"I'm not!" Sandra groaned as she stood up, "I'm not doing it for her, okay?" She spoke defensively which made Jennifer a little shock.

"Oh, really? For three years, you have been declining that offer. You think I don't know?"

"You don't know anything." The brunette fired, her usual heavy sigh coming out, "You don't know what's going on in the hospital. You quit your job three years ago and married a man and have a baby. You don't know anything." She added, not minding if it sounded meaner than she anticipated.

Jennifer froze on her seat, "Yeah." She replied silently before looking up at the frustrated brunette standing across her, "Sandy, I might not know anything, but I know what's in that heart of yours because you and I are best friends. You can call me a fucking shit for calling you out, but Cate is not coming back. You postponing the hospital's offer won't make her come back. Cate will not magically appear on your door in the middle of the night. She's gone. It's time for you to move on, move forward with your life. She left you. She left the world and she did not care whatever will be the outcome of it. She vanished. Now tell me, is there a part of all that narrative saying she cares? That she cares about you?"

The words Jennifer puked out hit Sandra to the core. It felt like her heart was stabbed and then the knife was twisted a thousand times. In front of Jennifer, she froze. The words she said we're nothing, but truth. She didn't want to cry and so she did her best, not to. Jennifer didn't wait for her reply. Instead, Jennifer stood up and carried her toddler back before she approached the frozen brunette.

"And I may have quit my job, and became a housewife which you loathed, but we both know that if Cate was here, you would gladly become a housewife for her too. And just to tell you, this is my dream. Me becoming a mom and a wife. You, your dream is being offered at your damn hands, but what are you doing? You're crushing your very dream like a fucking chalk because of some damn woman." She spoke and when those words seeped into Sandra's system, her tears started to fall, "It's 7 PM. Akira's dad will be home and I need to prepare dinner. You can stay if you want." And with those, Jennifer walked out of her living room, leaving Sandra crying silently, still frozen on her spot.

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