Lotus

Ren & Rina - 23: Fate

      Ren was gone. Lindy was gone. Jason and Kai had already been gone. Alone in her room, Rina sat by her window and stared down at the street below. She saw her friends, so they called themselves. They were all back in Kiiroibara from college for Spring Break… Well… not all of them. Most of her friends from high school (the ones she genuinely was friends with) were lucky enough to go someplace far away. Rina was trapped in her own house. She had no money. No car. No real friends left in this town.

     “Hey, this is, uh, Rina’s house!” someone pointed out.

     “Who?”

     “You know! That Asian girl we used to hang out with!”

     “Oh, right. I heard that she’s cursed.”

     Rina became extra attentive, interested in hearing this gossip about herself.

     “You can’t get too close to her or else bad things start to happen around you. If you make her cry, you’ll find yourself in a depression. If you break her heart, or even before you do, something bad will happen to you. Lastly, if you fall in love with her… you’ll die.”

     The person’s companion stared in horror, but began to laugh. Soon both were laughing hysterically in front of the house.

     “I bet she sold her soul to the devil!”

     “My friend goes to her school! He told me that she wanders around like a ghost!”

     What the hell? Who made up these stupid rumors anyways? They’ve all got it wrong! I’m not cursed! Actually… Maybe I am.

     She fell back onto her bed and hugged one of her pillows. She was tired, as always. There was absolutely nothing to do.

     “Do you want me to take you out to eat ice cream?” her father asked, knocking on the door. “It’s a nice day outside.”

     “Yeah,” Rina sighed.

     She freshened up and got changed. In the car, she listened to her MP3 player. Korean song… Chinese song… Japanese song… Filipino song… She skipped over the sad English songs since she didn’t want to get the lyrics stuck in her head.

     “It’s so hot,” her father said. “Don’t stay in your room for too long. You don’t have an air-con, so you’ll get sick.”

     “I don’t have school anyways.”

     “Still, it’s not good.”

     The car stopped in front of a small ice cream parlor. The two got out of the car and walked into the shop. Rina looked at all of the choices.

     Lindy’s obsessed with the Pistachio flavor. Jason was always torn between strawberry and mango. Kai liked sweet things, like me… so… dulce de leche? And Ren likes… Ren likes… he likes… cookie dough?

     “Need help?” the server asked.

     “Cookies and cream, please.”

     She instantly regretted her choice. Of all the ice cream selections, she chose the one she already had in her house, but she was so used to ordering that flavor, it had already become a spontaneous reaction.

     “Actually, I’ll take the birthday cake flavor,” she said before the server began to scoop. “Sorry.”

     Rina sat down on a bench outside to eat her cup of ice cream. Her father leaned over the railings as he looked at the view of the river.