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Chapter 4

There was no succulent smell that Trevan could wake up to the next day. It almost threw him off, as if he hadn't been waking up to sweet aromas for the past twenty-four years. He forgot all about brushing his teeth and combing his hair as he rushed down the stairs to meet the familiar sight of his triplet sister.

But May wasn't there.

He figured she was still asleep in her bed, but when he saw her bed made, he drew a blank. He checked his phone to see if she had left a message, but he had zero notifications. He didn't understand.

He picked up on a voice that became more apparent as it came nearer to May's room. "Yes, Alyssa, I know. I'll have the papers ready by tomorrow. Thank you." The lack of sincerity in the voice made Trevan's ears perk as he realized in only a matter of a few seconds who the person was. The taint old figure overcasted the entire hallway as it walked by May's room. And when she saw him, her eyebrows wrinkled with concern as she hung up.

"Trevan—" she started and Trevan heaved a sigh, which he had long silenced. "You don't need to get mad at me. Don't you know you have work?"

He looked at her, unfathomed, until she gave him a daunting look. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, what am I? Joking?" She pulled out her phone as evidence, but Trevan had already taken note of the time, scrambling for his room where his laptop resided.

He unbuttoned his shirt as he entered the virtual waiting room and rushed to brush his teeth all while his mother stood by his door judging the very boy she gave birth to. When he finally sat down, she opened to criticize her son, but Trevan was no longer in the waiting room and choruses of greetings and manners so well fabricated filled the room leaving her to silence herself in fear of her son losing his job if they knew of what just happened.

•••

Instead she decided to wait until her son was on his break: when Trevan came down complaining of starving for the last three hours. "Did you make breakfast?" he directed to his mother and when she shook her head, Trevan took it to himself to fix a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal.

Lucky was anything but he felt and his mother sure let him know as she pounced on him the second he sat down to eat. "What happened earlier?"

He pretended to not hear her. Or rather be too consumed with the Lucky Charms cereal. But his mother saw right through him and she knew sooner or later, he would be done with his cereal.

And she had time.

From the corner of his eye, he could see what his mother was doing and rather than gobbling down the cereal so that he could have time to read his emails, he took his time even though he knew damn well that that would result in staying up till midnight.

But maybe this was his punishment.

He still couldn't wrap his head around forgetting about work. So many things piled up in his head, it didn't make sense to him why work wasn't one of them. After all, that was his life: work, money, and food.

He couldn't place a finger on what stood in his way to forget about work until his coworker, Ed, was answering a question another worker had expressed concern about when he got submerged in his thoughts and started thinking about her.

It was her.

He didn't know whether to get mad or... sad. It wasn't like he could go over and complain to her that this was all her fault. She was gone, and her entire family had moved. No one was there. It would be like he was talking to the wall, he would be talking to the wall. His eyes welled up with tears just thinking about it.