If Gray said yes to a dead body in the trunk of her car, I bet Zia would totally believe it. I mean, I would, too lol
Gray breathed sharply and rose. “I’m going to bed.” Still no response from Zia. “Goodnight.” Gray went to her bedroom. She rummaged through her closet for comfortable sleepwear and found a black t-shirt and sweatpants. She changed out of her clothes and succumbed on the bed. She looked at the time on her phone. 11:07 PM. She put the phone on her nightstand and tucked herself in. As she was about to drift off, her phone chimed. She checked the notification. It was a text message from Sarah Lewis. “Hi. Are you asleep already?” the message read. She positioned the phone over her face and started typing an answer. “No.” A few seconds later, her phone chimed again. “I just wanna tell you I had fun yesterday. I didn’t know you were the Auntie that Sophia mentioned.” “Okay,” Gray replied. DING! “Are you going to sleep now?” Gray stared at the text message for a few seconds. Then she wrote a response. “You?” DING! “I’m at work right now. If I sleep I get fired.” Gray’s lips sub
Edward stared at his phone with an expression painted with yearning. That call seemed to be a short one. And he so wanted to talk more; however, he figured she was already exhausted from whatever schedule she was catching up on. “Here, I brought you pillows.” Felicity set the pillows down on the couch. “I’m giving you your last chance. Are you really set on sleeping on this hard couch? Because I can just sleep in my mom’s room and you can sleep in mine.” He gripped on his phone and turned to her. “You know…” He paused. “I think I’ll just go home after all.” “Oh,” said Felicity. “Will you be alright? It’s still a few miles to your home.” “I’ll be fine. Listen,” he approached her. “Thank you for dinner. I’m sorry I can’t stay with you tonight.” “Hey, I’m gonna be fine.” She softly chuckled. “I’m a big girl. I can handle the night. Thank you for helping me today.” She gestured her arms for a hug in which he accepted. *** “Hey, how come I’m walking with you?” said a red haired woman
“Give me ten reasons why I should go with you,” said Gray who was sitting on the dining table with her cheek leaning on her palm as she listlessly yawned, staring at her empty plate. “One, you’re my guardian,” said Zia, cooking in the kitchen. “Two, you’re the only one who knows about my situation. Three, you’re my best friend. Four, you have nothing else to do---” “Excuse you but I have a jam-packed schedule today,” countered Gray. Zia sneered. “Really? Like what?” “I have a three to five hours schedule of resting after breakfast, five-hour nap after lunch and ten to fifteen hours of sleep after dinner.” Gray leaned back on the chair, still yawning. “How rude of you to assume I have nothing else to do.” Zia brought a cedar planked salmon on a wooden plate to the table with oven mitts over her hands. “Five, a child like me can’t go alone,” she continued, ignoring what Gray just said. “Six, you won’t be spending a penny because it’s my card.” She went back to the kitchen. “Seven, I
“Why don’t we just give her to a staff member? For sure they’ll handle lost children better than us,” complained a visibly irritated Gray. “Yeah but what if a bad guy takes her? We should take her to her parents ourselves. She’s our responsibility now,” countered Zia. “Our responsibility? I believe it's her parents’ responsibility, Zi. We’re not heroes. You came here to have fun, right? Go take her to a lost and found center and let them announce about the parents over the speakers. That’s faster. Believe me.” Zia scoffed and turned to little girl, El, but she was gone. She looked up at Gray. “Where is she?” Gray looked around and noticed that the girl was actually gone. “Where is she?” repeated Zia with a raised voice. “I don’t know,” said Gray impassively. “We should look for her.” Zia started walking again. “She might be lost and scared somewhere.” Zia heard Gray clicking her tongue so she looked back. “If only you didn’t talk about being so unwilling in helping her maybe she
“Sarah?” uttered Gray Stewart as she saw Sarah Lewis hugging little girl El. Sarah turned to her. “Gray? You were the one who found her?” Gray stood up from having squatted down by the corner. “Y-yeah.” Sarah put both hands over her chest. “Oh, thank God you found her.” Then she squatted down to level with El’s height. “Elreese.” She put both hands on her shoulders. “I told you not to get out of the staff break room, right? But you disobeyed me. Why?” she said in a stern but calm tone. Elreese started to quietly sob. “S-sammy.” She sniffed, big drops of tears falling from her eyes. “It’s alright, El. Sammy’s not angry.” Sarah gently rubbed her frail shoulders. “Just tell Sammy why you went out.” “Be-because,” said Elreese in between her sobbing. “I…I heard people outside…I…I went out….then…then I…saw big robots…people…ride them…I want to too.” “Elreese,” said Sarah in a calm tone and looked her in the eye. “Didn’t Sammy promise she’ll let you ride them when she’s done working?”
“I’m not what?” asked Sarah Lewis, bemusement painted all over her face. Gray Stewart herself was startled by the words that came out of her mouth. She looked at Sarah who was visibly confused and insulted, then she calmed herself and sat back down. “N-nothing,” she quietly said. The rest of the ride, nobody dared to speak. And they were tortured by the deafening silence that ensued. When they got off the cart, the two little girls were already waiting for them. “Sopieeeee.” Elreese tightly hugged Zia who was slightly bigger than her. Her eyes were teary again. “Don’t cry, El.” Zia wiped her cheeks with her chubby hands. “Let’s play again next time, okay?” Elreese obediently nodded while sniffing her snot. “Okay.” Meanwhile, Gray and Sarah were silently standing at the side. While the little girls were having a dramatic moment bidding each other farewell, the two were engaged in a piercing awkward silence. As Gray and Zia finally went away, Elreese couldn’t stop waving her hands
In a highly respected suburb on the outskirts of the city stood the two-storey house of Theresa Scott. A vintage house in calming shades of wood with a spacious front lawn surrounded with waist-high wooden gates. In the early waking of the sun, Theresa was mowing her lawn. She was a woman in her late forties, medium size with an average height of 5 foot 4 inches. She had shoulder-length straight blonde hair and ocean eyes. She wore a vintage clothing style and stood like a mighty oak. And even as her age was evident in her facial features, it could be agreed that she was an attractive woman in her youth with oozing charisma. As she was pushing the lawn mower, a sedan pulled over at the gates. Her attention shifted to the person who climbed out of the car. “Sweetie!” exclaimed Theresa as she saw Gray approaching the gates. She walked toward her and opened the gate and pulled her in for a tight hug with a big smile across her face. “Hi, Theresa,” said Gray monotonously. Theresa pull
Zia and Theresa met each other’s eyes, and Theresa seemed to have noticed her weird expression upon seeing the pie. “Do you not like key lime pie, honey?” she said. “I can bake something else.” “N-no.” Zia faltered. “T-that’s actually my favorite.” “Really?” said Theresa gleefully and sat back on her chair. “How coincidental. This is my daughter’s favorite pie too. In fact, she always made me bake them when she was little, that's why she was just as plump as you.” She tittered. “That is coincidental.” Said Gray in a sarcastic tone. Zia picked up her spoon and took a sliver of the pie and tasted it. And as the food was melting in her mouth, only then did she realize how much she yearned for this sense of finally coming home. It was like finding the end of a tunnel, the rainbow after the rain or an oasis in a desert. That very nostalgic pie was her very own definition of catharsis—her purgation; a relief from everything bizarre that had happened to her. It was the familiarity she ha