Chapter Fifty-Nine
Fiona’s POV:
Deciding 4 am is not too early to snack, I throw on a short and stop by my bathroom to pee before heading down to rummage in the fridge.
There’s no single movement from Alex’s room when I pass by on my tiptoes. At the fridge, I decided that a snack was not what I needed but a full meal, hoping that Alex had leftovers from last night.
However, it’s not until I’m downstairs, popping a foil-covered meal, which I conclude is my dinner from last night, into the microwave, that I realize that that is an anomaly.
Alex is a diurnal creature, sleeping as early as 7 or 8 pm and up as early as 3-ish, working on his laptop. The sounds of his keys clicking are often the first thing I hear whenever I wake up extra early, like days like that.
I’m still ruminating on this when the timer dings and I grab a dishcloth to retrieve my meal. With the conclusion that he probably slept in, I sat at the dining table and grabbed a spoon.
The irony of the meal doesn’t escape me; he prepared cheesy potato casserole, my favorite comfort food, and here I am eating it at 4 in the morning to escape nightmares.
If that isn’t sad, I don’t know what it is. To complete the combo, I stood up to grab the remote control and tune in to a 24/7 cartoon station.
By the time I’m done eating and cleaning up, Alex is still up in his room. Hesitant to start the day fully myself, I balance in front of the current cartoon and watch a full episode. An hour and two episodes of Mulan after, and I’m starting to worry. I head up to his room and knocked.
“Alex?” There was no response. I turned the knob and found it locked. Now that’s definitely weird. Alex never locks her door, except…
I hurried downstairs to the fridge. In the face of my hunger pangs earlier, I had missed a note pinned on our little notice board, right next to the fridge.
Alex isn’t a big fan of the whole stick-on notes on fridges’ thing, so we crafted a little board together when I moved in with him. Just as I expected, there was a note on the board.
“Left on the morning flight to Peru. Didn’t want to bother you in your sleep. I left my credit card on the table for you when you go to the mall. Spend responsibly. Have fun!”
It’s not the first time Alex has been leaving notes like this to explain her absence. His job takes him to many places. I sigh, I want to escape to Peru too.
However, it’s the first time he left in the wee hours of the morning, without saying goodbye even though I was right in the house with him.
And what was that about the mall? As if in answer to my mental question, my phone beeped. It’s Eleanor texting “12 o’clock, okay?”
Faintly, I remember agreeing to a trip to the mall with Eleanor today last night, while I was being emotional. How did that quote go again?
Never make promises when you’re sad or something. Anyway, now I am stuck with a trip to the mall. I’m not sure if I want to take an inevitable question from my friend(s). Yay. The universe, one point: Fiona, nil.
Tristan’s POV
It’s around 3 in the morning before I finally drag my weary body home to bed, shutting the front door quietly so as not to disturb anyone’s sleep.
I had spent the night, for lack of a better word, spying on the rival. She lived a pretty normal life, and I still can’t believe she was right under our noses, all these years.
I’m slightly conflicted. The chance to live a normal life was a precious gift for someone of our kind, especially for a lady like that who would be saddled with responsibilities past her age, should she be allowed to even live.
I grab a bottle of water from the stack on the counter and put it in a few gulps. Surveillance is a pretty draining job, especially if you hold the key to a kingdom’s future.
The prize or the lady? It’s too much thinking for 3 am. I trudge to my room and drop to my bed. I decide to think it through later in the morning, the rival’s face the last thing I see before I close my eyes to dream of memories I’d rather not remember.
It is hard to explain Alex’s sudden trip. Alex was always worried about where I went, who I met, and if I stayed too long outdoors. It seemed there was more to this than meets the eye. It was unusual, most of all, he had not called since he left.
I know I think I can handle myself without him, but sincerely, I miss him. The house feels empty, and I miss him waking me up in the mornings, seeing the worried look on his face, and his meals.
I know I wished for his death and Victor’s, but I don’t think I really mean it.
Honestly, deep down, I believed that he was okay. This assurance of faith I could not explain how, but I just knew he was fine, and, in most instances, my instincts never failed me.
“Fiona, are you ditching on me? I have spent almost 30 minutes waiting for you. James is not even answering the phone or replying to his messages,” an enraged Eleanor was saying to me when I answered the phone.
“Get off me, I can imagine your face. You know, anger gives you wrinkles and ages you faster. I will be there in ‘Cinco Minutos’, dear,” I replied, trying to soothe her.
Eleanor and I had taken Spanish lessons a few weeks ago and had stopped when the guy teaching her relocated.
I know how much she enjoys the Spanish classes. ‘Cinco Minutos’ meant five minutes if I did not get it wrong, for I was very dumb when it came to Spanish.