Under the Umbrella ✓

-13-

Aria had come home depleted from work last night only to deal with Hailey blowing the roof off their house after discovering that their mother had taken some of her money without her knowledge. Aria had tried to calm her, reasoning with her that it was hopeless fighting with someone who's sick. It might have sounded like a justification for their mother's actions even though it wasn't. Because Hailey began to take it out on her. She accused Aria of having it easy and that Aria had no idea about the life Hailey was living. She said that Aria was acting high and mighty from being the breadwinner of the family.

It was true. She didn't have a single clue about what happened behind the curtains of Hailey's life. Because she was busy trying to make ends meet. She had no right to say that Aria had it easy. Hailey herself never knew what Aria had to put up with every day. Despite Aria complaining about her life and resenting countless events, she had never verbalized it to her family.

She wasn't gentle and considerate enough to take the strikes from her younger sister after everything she had done and was trying to do for them, which naturally meant things at their house didn't go too well. The twins had become a bawling mess seeing their sisters argue, and their mother had shut the door to her room to drown out their voices. Kierra, unable to find stable ground with them, decided to take the twins out for ice cream late in the night so they would stop crying. It had been utter chaos.

Aria was still mad at her sister, and she could only imagine Hailey hadn't forgotten about it too. It would take the two of them some time to put the encounter behind them, so Aria was just glad she didn't have to run into Hailey when she woke up in the afternoon.

Regardless, Aria was in a good mood when she left the house. She didn't have to go to work, there was no college, and above all, she was about to meet Sandra. She couldn't wait to have some lighthearted, silly but real conversations at last.

When the both of them spotted each other at Coffee Break, Aria felt the widest beam stretch over her lips. They were thrilled to see each other – almost as if they were a pair of star-crossed lovers being severed of their ill fate – that once they had embraced each other and settled at their seats, they couldn't seem to keep their voices down. There weren't many people inside, but because there weren't, their voices almost echoed around the café.

Sandra began to fill her in with everything that had been happening since they last met. She mostly spoke about how a well-known law firm would be visiting her campus to select a few students for a paid internship and about it being the right kind of motivation she needed to ace her exams this time. Aria acknowledged Sandra to be academically outstanding, so she was truly excited for her.

She continued to recount to Aria how a freshman had asked her out and how she inspired someone to consider her as an ultimate nemesis while the woman who managed the café brought over their drinks. Aria realized as she spoke of the events that Sandra appeared to enjoy the external attention and didn't bother evading a single moment of potential uproar. Aria couldn't blame her. The older they got, the more serious life seemed to get, and it was only evenhanded to get involved in something diverting and different, like her own situation with the stranger. Which reminded her...