If you are lucky, you never get to experience it.
Betrayal
It hits harder when it comes from someone you love.
Like I said, if you are lucky, you never get to experience it.
I wasn't so lucky.
Jhanessa and I were complete opposites, yet like Yin and Yang, inseperable.
She was the typical girly girl, the one that liked pink and believed in fairy tales.
I was a girl still but I liked different things, like video games, the color black and all things machinery.
There was only one thing we had in common, our love for coffee.
Still, we took it differently,mine black and hers with so much cream and sugar that it terrified me sometimes.
People looked at us with questions in their eyes whenever we were seen together.
How do they fit?
To be honest, I didn't know either, we just did.
Everything changed the moment he came into the picture. Ethan, the boy who changed everything. Jhanessa talked alot about the books she read, how the female lead character felt a rush if excitement whenever the male lead character looked at her or touched her.
Just like I couldn't explain my friendship with Jhanessa, I couldn't explain why my tummy would swirl whenever we our eyes met across the hallway, before I knew it, I was a girl in love with a boy who didn't know my name.
Jhanessa was really excited for me. The prospect of me, Claire Anderson, liking a boy.
She decided to play cupid in my story, unfortunately I got the version of cupid that wanted the love for herself.
Twists and turns came and immediately after high school, they went to the same college together, three years later, I heard it.
They were married
I stared at my phone for the fifteenth time that day.
The message glared back at me.
Unknown Sender: Hey Claire, it's me Jhanessa. I ran into your mum and I got your number from her. Would you like to meet up for coffee? It would be completely fine if you don't reply to this text but if you do, I'll be waiting at our table on Wednesday every week, 5:00pm from now on.
If I didn't love my mother so much, I would have disowned her.
I tried not to get mad, I really did. She had stopped talking to me immediately after they both started dating. The worst part was everywhere I turned in my house, she had left her mark.
I tried to forget her, moved on with my life and I was doing just fine until this.
I deleted the message and told myself I was going to give my mother a piece of my mind.q
The first week came and passed, so did the second and the third and every yesterday, I'd sit staring at my clock to watch it pass 5:00 o'clock.
On the fourth Wednesday, I found myself outside the small cafe.
So many memories came rushing back. I took a deep breath and I walked in. We had always been polar opposites but always drawn to each other so it wasn't a surprise when my eyes found her almost immediately.
I walked up to her.
"You came", she said with a smile I stared at her blankly making her sigh.
"Do you want to sit? I ordered already, black for you, unless it has changed".
I continued to stare at her, finally I broke my silence, "Why don't you just tell me what you want. I don't even know what I'm doing here. I just couldn't stop myself from coming".
"Will you please sit down first?"
Reluctantly, I took my sit.
"Thank you".
"Why did you send me that text Jhanessa?"
She sucked in a deep breath, "I'm really sorry Claire. I'm so so sorry. I should have told you that I liked him too and I tried, I really did try to get him to like you. I'm just really sorry".
My lips turned up, my smile sardonic, "It only took you seven years to say that. You could have apologized immediately you started dating, you could have apologized before you went off to college, could have said you were sorry when you married him but you didn't and now you sit in front of me and say you're sorry and what? Expect me to say I forgive you?"
I sprang to my feet, "I don't even know why I came". I turned around so fast I bumped into the waiter that was bringing our coffee, spilling it everywhere.
I rushed out of there trying to hold back my tears.
Weeks went by after that. Why did she have to come back?
My life had been going great. My phone rang snapping me out of my thoughts.
"Hey Mum".
"Did you see her?"
"I've been meaning to call you. Why would you give her my number, you know what she did but-"
"She's dying Claire"
What?
I rushed out immediately after that, making an order on the way.
How did I not see it? How pale she was.
The nauseating smell of chemicals hit my nose.
The nurse at the reception asked me who I was and surprisedly it came out easily, "We are sisters", I told her.
"White has never been your color".
Jhanessa turned to me with tired eyes, "What are you doing here?"
"You should have started at the coffee shop with, I have aplastic anemia, I can't find a transplant and I'm dying. I would have tried to be a little bit nicer".
She laughed, coughing out blood in the process, "I'm really sorry Claire. I really am".
I walked up to her, "Where's Ethan?"
She sighed sadly, "He left me".
I hugged her and she whispered the words I'm sorry over and over again.
I handed her what I ordered.
She smiled, "Extra extra cream and sugar?".
I nodded as she took a sip of her coffee.
I couldn't hold a grudge against a dying person so I forgave her and as it turns out, our story together wasn't over yet because I was a perfect donor.
And I got my Yang back. It was going to take me a while to trust her again but in the meantime, we would take our coffee, to remind us that we are not so different.