Sia twitched her lips and continued drying her body whereas Estrella waited for her to give an answer to her question.
“Yeah, why? They are just pills…” Sia trailed off. She dropped the towel and sauntered to her dresser where she latched on her lotion.
“These ain’t just pills, Sia. These are pills for anxiety…” Estrella gushed, lips sagged. “As much as I don’t have much knowledge about drugs I know about this…it’s only for those suffering from panic attacks that take this.” She stood up from the bed and sauntered toward Sia glancing at her through the mirror.
Sia drew in a sharp breath and applied more force to the lotion she was applying to her body.
She doesn’t like being asked questions like this because it always leads to reasons why she started taking pills like this and that reason brings with it memories of the tragic events that happened years ago.
But Sia knows who Estrella is. She won’t forgo this until she provides her with reasons why she takes the pills because Estrella cares so much about her.
“Tell me the truth Sia…do you have this anxiety about something?” Estrella pressed on, earning a groan from Sia.
Sia stood up from the seat and veered, facing her friend.
“I don’t…fine.” She huffed. “I have anxiety. I have panic attacks so I take the pills to help myself.” She wheezed, quirking her brows.
She drew distance between them as she sauntered to the bed. Estrella veered around, gripped by shock.
“You…have it?” She murmured looking at Sia as she curled up on the bed. “What warranted this? What happened to you?” She asked as she broke into stride toward the bed.
Estrella snaked into the comforter on her side and slanted her body to face Sia, supporting the side of her head with her palm.
Sia lay flat on the bed, peering at the ceiling.
“Six years ago…my mother died in the most horrendous way.” She said, not cutting her eyes toward Estrella.
Shocked by the news, Estrella gasped and whispered, “I’m so sorry about that Sia…”
“She was burnt by fire,” Sia said interrupting Estrella.
“Omigod…jesus…fire!?” She yelped in surprise, sat up, and pressed her back against the headboard. She peered down at Sia, heart hammering in the wall of her chest.
“Yes…my brother too. It’s been eighteen years since he passed away. He was burnt by fire too.” A tear mixed with sorrows of her past slipped from the crevice of Sia’s eyes.
A sob coated with pent-up hunger for revenge escaped her lips
She raised her hands and dabbed them on her dampened cheeks. Estrella couldn’t budge her limbs as the gory news she heard made her freeze.
Her mother died by fire.
Her brother died by fire.
And a few hours ago she almost died by fire.
Estrella didn’t know when a tear fly past the duct of her eyes.
“I don’t need to be told again how you developed that anxiety. I would have developed mine. No, I might have even killed myself, Sia. I might have ended my existence after losing my family. God.” She inched closer and slung her arm around Sia.
“Our house was set ablaze and someone had a hand in it. I felt like my world has turned from grim to dark. All I could see then was darkness. It surrounded me. It followed me wherever I go.” Sia muttered, tears blearing her vision.
Estrella sobbed into the pit of Sia’s neck, her body zinging as she sobbed.
The news is way too much for the ears to hear.
It’s too heavy for the mind to process.
It’s too hard for the heart to bear but someone…
A girl of twenty-two years who would have lived a boisterous life. Dreamed her dreams and work on accomplishing her dreams,
Saw the scene.
Heard the cries and bearded the pains of losing her family in the most horrendous way.
Estrella couldn’t control herself from shedding tears.
Not everyone would have survived this and not everyone could will themselves to tell the tales of their past.
But Sia mustered the courage to let the feelings she tried to numb float in her mind again.
Sia is strong you can’t tell Estrella otherwise.
“I was a slum girl. I was a girl whose family couldn’t feed. I was a girl whose mother told to be strong because she never was. I was a girl who had nothing but one pair of tattered pants and baggy shirts after our house was burnt. I was a girl who was insulted by people. I was a girl who fought to keep her sanity in check because that girl almost went mad. That girl almost embraced suicidal thoughts.” Sia paused, letting her tears flush down quietly.
“I was a girl who lost hope in humanity. I was a girl who was homeless.” She wept, voice cracking.
“I was a girl whose path was flung with tortuous memories. Memories that poisoned my sleep and kept me awake for years. Memories that haunted me and crippled me. I was…a girl every girl out there would wish to never be.” She broke into tears, wetting her cheeks and tasting the saltiness of her tears as they slipped into her lips.
She slammed her eyes shut and let those memories rove her mind once again.
Estrella hiccupped, her tears has become a loud sob. She tightened her grip on Sia’s shoulder, bawling her eyes out.
She let her imagination take over and she pictured everything that her friend must have passed through.
Experiences hurt but memories haunts.
She knows that after all these years despite the riches Sia hasn’t forgotten what she passed through.
She knows those memories will keep haunting her. Torturing her.
She’s pained. She’s weeping for her friend.
Sia chuckled, a bitter chuckle while fiercely wiping her cheeks, “I lost hope in love, hope in existence, and hope in humanity.” Sia whispered.
Estrella couldn’t bring her eyes to meet with Sia’s. She coughed, shaking and her breath seized in her lungs. She found it hard to breathe.
“While I lost all ray of hope in these. Something happened…” Sia let out a dry chuckle again before continuing. “I had an accident that is the catalyst of change from my destitution. I mean, who could have thought an accident could change my history overnight?” She asked rhetorically.
Estrella chortled when Sia said this. She thought fate has a way of doing its thing.
“Let me guess…” Estrella whispered, drying her misted cheeks. “You met your husband…” She said.
Sia curled up her lips in a smile.
“He was the one that knocked me out. I actually wanted to die. I wished I died in that accident because when I woke up in the hospital I riled up.” She shook her head as those images ran through her mind again.
“When I saw him sitting on my bed and all smiles…I found that weird. Because for months a smile never peeled from my lips. And suddenly he blurted ‘marry me’ and ‘give me an heir.”
Estrella then hoisted her head and bored her gaze into Sia’s eyes. She’s surprised the marriage came with a condition. It wasn’t like every other marriage out there. It’s not like the one she’s about to get into. A marriage incepted from love.
“Now that’s weird,” Estrella murmured.
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I thought too. So, he promised to cater to my needs. Everything I need and want. I accepted but my loss of hope in humanity still surfaced. But all the while I was married to Mr. Monson he revitalized the hope I lost in humanity. I then knew that there are still good souls out there. Souls that knows what humanity really is.”
“Mr. Monson loved me but I wasn’t able to retrieve my lost hope in love.”
After saying this, silence blanketed them. Estrella tried to drink in all that Sia said. She really doesn’t know what to say to make this right because the tale numbed her mind much less her powers of speech.
After a while of wallowing in their individual thoughts, they both drifted into sleep.