Chapter 0008

BACK TO THE PRESENT

Alicia checked the time; it was an hour ago that her husband had left and he was yet to be back. She sighed, wondering whether to call him or not to. It was some minutes to 7 in the night. While she debated on calling her, she went through her phone and stopped when it got to Faith’s number. Her fingers hovered above the ‘send’ button as she deliberated on whether to click that or not…

FLASHBACK

“You are kidding right?” Faith demanded, standing up.

“No, I am not. This is Daniel and he is real,” Alicia said again as she introduced Daniel to her friends. Lydia was not among.

“Oh, my gosh,” said Tonia, standing up and walking towards Daniel, giving him a hug. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said, rubbing her hand over his strong arms and giving Alicia a wink as she did this. Then she pulled away.

“Nice to meet you too,Tonia,” he replied, handing her a bag of something he had brought. “This is for you,” he said.

“Oh, my gosh! she collected the bag. “Thank you so much, I knew I loved you when I saw you,” she winked at him as she went through the bag.

Camil extended her hand to him. “Welcome Daniel, we are happy to know that you are real afterall. We thought you are a ghost,” she said and Daniel took her hand before handing her a bag as well..

“Something for me too. Wow,” she said, collecting it from him.

“And this is Faith,” Alicia said with difficulty, praying that Faith would at least be nice.

“Hello, Faith. I have heard so much about you,” Daniel said, extending his hand to Faith.

Faith stood up from her seat and then stared at her friend. “You cannot be serious,” she said to her. “I cannot believe you are this stupid, but well, I am not surprised,” she said, throwing Daniel a wicked look before hissing and walking out on all of them.

Alicia inhaled, apologized to Daniel and followed her friend into the room.

“Faith, please, this is not easy for me,” she said to her as she got in.

“Really? It is not easy for you? You could have sent him back to wherever he came from. You are in a relationship or have you forgotten that?” Faith demanded, jumping on the bed. “Does Lydia know about this at all?”

Alicia sighed. “Look, let’s be fair, I was with Daniel first, before your friend came along…”

“Oh, so, he is now my friend. All those times he was making you happy, you were considering him as my friend, and not as your man? You used him! You bloody hell used Fabian to satisfy your stupid lust. You never loved him, did you?”

Alicia sighed. “Faith, please….”

Faith shook her head. “You know Fabian cried on the phone when he told me everything…I thought he was lying. Daniel just came and you discarded him. You are just evil! You are the kind of woman that I never pray for my brother to meet.”

Now, Alicia was getting angry. “Look, I never asked him to fall in love with me…he very well knew what he was getting into before sleeping with me. We both had a good time together and now that Daniel is around, why do I need to keep on doing this? I should never have listened to you in the first place! You confused me, making me think Daniel is not going to come, making me think he is not real. If anyone is to be blamed, it should be you, not me. So stop making me feel like a bad person. If you never encouraged him, nothing would have happened between us! Look, Daniel is my man, I am in love with him, I have been in love with him before I even met him, I am sorry that your friend got hurt but, Daniel has been through a lot too and you have no idea what he has been through, before he finally found me. If you love Fabian so much, go be with him!”

PRESENT

She inhaled as she remembered all these then she locked her phone, perhaps, she would call Faith another time. She stood up, feeling bored and wondering when Daniel would come back.

Some minutes later, she stepped out of the shower and stood in front of the mirror. Normally, whenever she took her bath, she would remove her wedding rings and put somewhere on the table. While she rubbed some ointment on her skin, she picked the rings up but one of them dropped, rolling under the bed. She grunted and stood up. She walked towards the giant bed and bent down to pick it up, it was unreachable, until she had to lie face flat on the floor, stretching her hand…thankfully, she found a book under the bed which she used in pulling it closer to her. Finally, she stood up and picked it up before sitting in front of the mirror again. While she wore both rings, her eyes fell on what she called a book, it wasn’t a book. It was a magazine, a school magazine-St.Paul High School Class ’97.

She frowned, she had heard that name before. She brought it closer and began to open it, there were several pictures of students in black and white. She saw Daniel’s picture. It was hard to miss, below it was his name, Daniel Johnson. Beside his, what another picture which was torn out and the name was painted so she couldn’t read it. Next to it was another guy who looked really familiar, no, she had seen him before, the man, Lucas Harrison. The man they had met at the restaurant…