"Please…don’t leave me. We can work this out. Please." Her own desperate wail echoed through her head.
She sighed.
When was it? Two years, or maybe it was three?
Ah, three years. Three years had passed when they broke up but she could still feel the pain within her. She couldn’t move on for some reason—maybe she was that dumb like her friends had told her. Joffrey was her first love, and Sannie believed that "first love never dies." However, her friends were right all along. Joffrey had not seen her worth. And here she was, all alone by herself.
She checked the time: seven in the evening.
She had a long nap.
Sannie was very busy these past few days, keeping herself fit again after a year of sobering because of that break-up. She put up a lot of weight and it was just last month when she finally realized that she had enough of crying every night. Now she was catching up with her life—doing some exercise and going out with friends. The pain was still there and she knew that she still had feelings for that jerk named Joffrey Zaragoza, but she was trying to ignore it.
She picked a plain black dress and a pair of killer heels as her attire for the night. She put her dark, waist-length hair up into a bun. She wanted to look classy tonight, and to match her motif, she chose a pair of onyx earrings and a plain, silver necklace.
"A little bit of mascara… and a lipstick… and I'm done." She smiled on her own reflection in the mirror. Femme fatale, she thought. She laced a dark scarf around her fair skin and grabbed her clutch bag before leaving her condominium.
Her best friend's club, The Night Lights, made its grand opening tonight and it was two hours away. She got a cab, but something was stopping her to get there in no time—traffic. Marcos Highway was always like this and she was worried that her two-hour drive might turn into four. Mina would definitely kill her if she won’t make an appearance.
"Manong, any shortcuts?" she asked, glancing outside the window. "Maybe we could take Katipunan?"
The driver looked at her through the rearview mirror as they took a fast turn. She sighed a relief.
Then a man suddenly appeared in front of them. The driver hit the brake and the car honk at the same time, and it came into a stop.
She cursed as she got out of it to see if they did any damage to the man, and luckily, he appeared unharmed.
"Are you insane? If you wanna die go do it somewhere else," she stared at him. His head shot up and she met his eyes.
It sent a sudden jolt of electricity through her. She didn't know why, but his intense, dark blue eyes made her heartbeat faster.
"I'm sorry. Just in a hurry." The man replied and fixed himself.
He wore a dark gray suit matched with a pair of dark pants and shoes, while a bowtie laced around his neck. He was also wearing eyeglasses with a dark frame. His hair was dark brown in color that was almost black in the darkness, combed up into perfection. Sannie was sure that he could be Apollo, the Greek god of splendor, in his past life.
She rolled her eyes. "You're not the only one in a hurry. I'm gonna be late for a grand opening and—"
"Grand opening of what?"
"None of your business."
"Is it a club? The Night Lights, specifically?"
She didn't answer. He grinned.
"Maybe I can hitch a ride." He said with a playful smile.
****
The Katipunan shortcut was a great idea. It took them just an hour to reach The Night Lights, and when they did, loud music welcomed them. Sannie paid the cab driver politely while the man slipped a bill inside the driver's shirt pocket. It was a thousand-peso bill, a lot bigger than the two-hundred she gave.
