Anastasia

25

"To hell with all those people who trampled you to the ground."

"Goodnight." Ana said through the phone and hung up, tossing her phone on the bed, watching it bounce once before sinking into the thick blanket, making a mini crater around it.

It was definitely a long night, and another unforgettable one. Ana couldn't help but feel like she wanted to maintain her friendship with Zachary, despite the argument. It was more of a misunderstanding, honestly. She has already silently forgiven Zachary for it, but she still wouldn't trust him completely yet. Now that he mentioned that Danielle is one of his closest friends, she started to have several doubts surfacing in her mind. Were there things that she didn't share with Ana? They are best friends after all, so shouldn't everything be shared between them? Besides, who would she tell? She only has Danielle as her friend.

But if she doesn't want to share with me, I should respect that. Right? her mind challenged her heart.

Hey

Could you make me your matcha drink again? I confess, the last time Astrid was with me in the lift and you know that she really dislike anything that is given to me by the opposite gender except her, so I had to throw that away.

And now I'm really guilty for throwing it away

I'm sorry.

Her phone ringed with multiple message notifications, and she reached for the black rectangular gadget to read that it was from Zachary.

Yeah, sure.

Thank you. I can sleep in peace now.

Good night :)

Night :)

She texted back, deleting the 'xo' before sending the message. Shaking her head, she told herself that he is already taken, toxic relationship for not. He has a partner, so she shouldn't be doing foolish things to stir unnecessary emotions.

The next moment, she got a call from Danielle.

"Hey Ana I'm so sorry for not being able to send you because I had a family issue going on suddenly." she babbled.

"That's alright. Is everything good now?"

"No, not really. My older brother got into a car accident. Apparently his stupid ass was drink driving and thankfully he crashed into a tree, not into some other vehicle. When he recovers, I'm going to give him a good scolding." she fussed, and Ana smiled, imagining how Danielle would look like when she was angry. Her arms would flail all over the place, her face would be red like a cherry, and she would pace up and down the room, yelling every word that comes to her mind without filters.

"So no severe injuries?"

"Big hit in the head, and several cuts and bruises. He didn't get a concussion, so that's good news." she explained, and gave a loud, tired sigh.

"Okay, you need me to come over?"

"No, that's fine. By the way, how was the party?" she quipped.

"It was a disaster." she chuckled, running her hand through her hair, the horrible events replaying in her head.

"I asked Zachary to get you, he did right?"

"Yeah. We made up." Ana replied.

"Good, good." Danielle said, and Ana couldn't help but wonder if she did that on purpose - faking the accident so that she wouldn't come and had Zachary done it instead. Talk about overthinking.

"Well, you should sleep now. It's past one in the morning." Danielle spoke, cutting the momentary silence between them.

"We had black coffee after the party. We thought we were going to stay up till sunrise, but I requested that he should get some rest. If you had seen him, he looked quite a mess."

"Yeah, he's been through a lot this week." Danielle briefly explained, that he had at least an argument with Astrid every day and topping it off, his exams were around the corner so he had to stay up late to study, feeding off cups of coffee and biscuits. That's horrible. Ana thought.

"Well, when are you coming back?" Ana probed, slowly tracing the patterns on her duvet while she spoke. Fatigue had begun to creep up on her; her head felt heavy and disconnected from the conversation she was having with Danielle. Her voice sounded like a muffled buzz on the radio with poor connection.

When Danielle answered, she didn't get a reply from Ana. The other side of the phone seemed to become awfully quiet, and worry surged through Danielle.

"Ana? Are you okay?" Danielle repeated her question, louder this time.

"Danielle. Please lower your volume." her mother shot her a clipped look, snapping at her daughter.

Danielle apologised and got out of the ward, phone tightly pressed to her ear. She picked up soft sounds of slow breathing and snores coming from Ana, and Danielle didn't know whether she should smile in relief or laugh about it.

"Sleep tight, lil' girl." she whispered through the phone and hung up.