Once Zalia enters the room, she feels like she's time traveled back to a simpler time of school dances and awkward dates. A dark blue light is cast upon the entire room, making it extremely hard to see anything except the strobe lights pulsing next to the empty dance floor. White cloth covered tables with silver vases of fake flowers are scattered around the edges of the room, her old classmates chattering and laughing among them. A large banner reading 'Welcome back, alumni!' hangs above the DJ booth, reminding Zalia of just how terrible this night is going to be.
And that thought is only reaffirmed once Zalia sees Liam trying to approach them yet again.
"Sorin, Liam's coming this way. What do I do?" Zalia asks frantically. When she doesn't get a response, she turns to find Sorin gone from her side. Instead, he's halfway across the room, walking like he's in a trance towards a man holding a plate of smoked salmon. "Sorin!"
"Zalia," Liam says smoothly, walking up to her. "You look really nice tonight."
"Yes, I know. Can you not talk to me unless you actually have something to say that doesn't correlate to my appearance tonight?" Zalia sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Actually, can you not talk to me at all?"
Liam bites his lip nervously, looking down at the ground, then suddenly bursts out, "I still miss you!"
Zalia stares at him incredulously. "You fucker, it's been ten years."
"I'm sorry. Cheating on you was a mistake. I should never have let go of something so—" Liam begins to ramble on, but Zalia simply tunes him out and glances lazily around the room.
As soon as she catches sight of Sorin trying to wrestle the plate of salmon away from the poor man, Zalia dashes across the room, leaving Liam mid-apology. "Sorin! Stop!"
"Wait, Zalia!" Liam calls out to her, but she doesn't even hear it.
Zalia quickly pulls Sorin away from the man by his ear, flicking his forehead. "If you even think about smoked salmon tonight again, I'm breaking our engagement."
The obsession isn't so cute anymore.
"I'm sorry!" Sorin pouts, rubbing his bright red ear as she lets go.
"Yeah, you better be," Zalia mutters. But she can never be mad at him for long, and soon entwines her hand in his and leads him towards their assigned table, Table 3. There, a couple is already seated, cuddling and rubbing their cheeks against each other.
"Zalia, look how affectionate they are. Why aren't we like that?" Sorin asks, grinning at the couple.
She uses her diamond lined acrylics and flicks his cheek, playfully rolling her eyes at him. "Maybe if you didn't turn all my words into dirty jokes, I would be more willing to do all that lovey dovey shit."
"Nah, I think I'll keep on doing that. I like it rough, anyways," Sorin winks. Zalia's eye twitches.
Another tendency of Sorin's that Zalia hates but sometimes secretly loves are the dirty jokes. Although they can be very amusing, it's at times like these that she wants to knock some sense into him.
"Hey, Zalia, right?" The man at the table speaks up, interrupting Zalia's staring contest with Sorin.
Zalia looks towards the man, unable to recognize him. "Yes. And you are?"
"Jax. And this is my lovely wife, Giselle," he introduces, to which Giselle nods and giggles.
Zalia stares at him, unable to believe that the polite man who is the literal definition of unwanted PDA used to be the rebellious bad boy who broke bones for fun. "You're Jax?"
YOU ARE READING
Epilogue
Humor❝oh, but darling. what happens during the epilogue is only the start. ❞ what happens after high school? Zalia, the sweet girl who everyone knew was going to be successful one day, comes to her high school's ten-year reunion as the antisocial and sa...
