Are You An Illusion?

18. Catching Up

Since I've spent most of my summer with Kendall, I decided that it was about time that I meet up with my friends Mari and Jenny. Yami was busy taking a summer course so she couldn't meet with us.

I told them that we should meet for lunch at the Chinese food place. I arrive first and order my rice with orange chicken and beef with broccoli, with a iced tea to refresh myself.

As I'm about to take a seat, I hear a voice, "Jess!" I look up and see Mari.

"Hey!" I go up to hug her, "How have you been?"

"Ok, work is doing great though. But I have something I want to share with you girls."

"Sure, that's what we're here for. To listen." Just then, I see Jenny arriving.

"Hi Jen," she looks a bit sad but then smiles when she sees us.

"Hey Jess. Mari. How are you?"

We both go hug her, "Good, how about you?" I ask.

"Alright, I just heard some news that I didn't want to hear..." we all walk to the table and wait to hear her news. "He's engaged!" She breaks down crying in front of us. I walk over to get and hug her.

"There there Jenny. I'm sorry that this had to happen." I pat her on the back a few times.

Mari excuses herself, "I'll be back. " She goes and comes back with some napkins. "Here Jenny."

"Thanks Mar," she drys up her tears and continues to speak, "I thought that he would eventually leave her and come running to me, but I was wrong..."

"Maybe it will happen, but right now, it isn't." I tell her and she nods in agreement.

"Well, I'm going to go order my food. I'll be back." Jenny goes to the line and leaves us on the table.

"Are you hungry?" I ask Mari.

"Yeah, but I'll wait for her to come. The last thing I want is to hear more crying while I'm ordering."

She laughs at her comment, while I stay quiet. "Now Mari, we didn't make fun of you when you cried on my date that you girls invaded."

"That was about my mom. This is about a guy who dumped her our senior year, which was 10 years ago. .." She raised her voice each time.

"I'm just saying, as friends, it's not nice to make fun of each other's misery. No matter how childish it may seem." I may have raised my voice a bit, but luckily everyone was minding their own business.

"Well, excuse me for being brutally honest," She crosses her arms and looks bothered.

"Aren't you going to order?" Jenny comes back to table and notices Mari's angry way of being.

"Yeah, I'll go." She gladly gets up and walks to take her order.

"Did I say something?" Jenny asks.

I place my hands on the table. "She's going through some hard times. I'm sure she'll let us know soon." I sign for her to sit next to me as we wait for Mari.

"Excuse me for the drama from earlier. I just haven't been able to talk about it. Like at all," she opens her containor and smells the delicious food.

"It's ok. We all have those moments at some point." I smile at her and she smiles back.

Mari was already back with her food and still looked upset. "What?" she asks.

We both look away and say nothing. After a couple of awkwardly silent minutes, I finally continued the conversation, "So, Mari, you said you wanted to tell us something. What happened?"