twelve
Jade kicks the wooden bathroom door shut so hard that even she herself cringes at the sound it makes. The restaurant owner would probably kick her out of the diner or worse, sue her for destructing their door, as if her life isn’t screwed up enough. Leaning against the door and chucking her bag to the floor next to where she stands, she dials her sister Lola’s number.
Every beep that passes by louden her blood and nerves in agony and that feeling of being fooled or used diffuses again in her pumping blood. Her other hand, the one that isn’t clutching the phone to her ear, grows into a tighter fist. Everything inside of her is racing and her mind goes: how could they?
“Jade?” someone on the other line answers, voice surprised and relieved.
“How could she – they – whatever!”
“Jade!” Lola shrieks, “we’ve been worry sick about you!”
If it isn’t for her dying phone battery and frustration welling up in her, she would’ve rolled her eyes so damn hard at the obvious lie. No one, she thinks, even notices her being missing in action, let alone worry sick of her. Okay, maybe if they do notice her absence, that most likely happened this morning when they couldn’t find their little errand girl.
“Lola – I need you to tell me what the heck do you mean by “the flowers are already here”,” she makes an air quote gesture with her hands, even though Lola can’t see her. At least her tightly balled fist is relaxed and she isn’t about to punch a hole through the door.
“What? Oh, um yeah, uh. . . the flowers are here?”
“That explains a lot, thank you.”
“Gosh, sorry. Well, I don’t really know, but yesterday Mom told me to inform you that the flowers arrived at the hotel.”
Her eyes widen and she straightens her knees. “Yesterday?”
“Yeah. Yesterday. And I texted you yesterday as well. You received it, yeah?”
“Like, two minutes ago,” she hisses. God. Of course she only sees the text just then. If only she hadn’t been too deceited yesterday, if only she hadn’t been too pissed off with the fact that her phone’s built-in GPS was a pain in the ass and didn’t shut her phone down, if only by the time she restarts her phone and check her text messages yesterday, she actually reads them and not shut her phone down again. But no. She’d been too full of herself then.
“Did you tell mom anything after that?”
“Duh. I said you’re noted about it.”
“Lola!”
“What! I thought you knew. I thought you’d checked your messages but didn’t reply me because that’s how you do – you never replied anyone unless it’s necessary.”
“You don’t think this is necessary?”
“How should I know!”
Lola grunts at the same time Jade groans and leans back on the door, her free arm over her stomach, her head knocking on the door repetitively. She’s been doing so many head-banging today that she’d probably end the day with concussion or memory loss or some shit.
What must her mom be thinking about her? That she’d, on purpose, not come back home and instead fled away to the other side of the world? She remembers scanning her texts and missed calls and WhatsApp messages and none of them are from her mom. Had she been too busy fulfilling an engagement party that she doesn’t even bother to check up on her daughter, who, by the way, isn’t even eighteen yet?
