Remember That Day

Chapter 25

It was nine in the morning when Jayda was awoken by her ringing phone. Although she was too lazy to get up, she did so when the ringtone already hurt her ears.

Rubbing her eyes as she reached for her phone beside her pillow, she froze when she saw that it was Tris.

After they went to the restaurant a week ago, she never answered her texts or emails from her. She didn’t know what was gotten into her when she decided to avoid her for the meantime.

“Um?” she mumbled right after she answered the call.

“Finally!” Tris exclaimed. “Jayda, I’ve been contacting you for a quite long time! How are you? Why aren’t you answering my texts? Are you okay?”

“Ah,” Jayda got up from her bed. “I’m sorry. I’m quite busy these days and I couldn’t attend all the messages from my phone.”

She lied.

“Really?” Tris asked. She was worried and her voice said it all.

“Um. Why?”

“Why?” Tris repeated.

“Why did you call me?” It was a cold Jayda. She had never been too cold over Tris not until their conversation about killer happened.

“Am I disturbing you much?” Tris cried. “Did I do something wrong for you to treat me like that? Why are you so cold and odd?”

Jayda shut her eyes. She never wanted to hurt her bestfriend, but she couldn’t do anything about her strange feelings over people around her.

Tris added, “You’ve been ignoring all of my texts and calls as if I’m a criminal or something! Why? What are you really up to?”

“Tris—”

“Jayda,” Tris cut her off, “I am your bestfriend.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all Jayda could reply to her.

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

It was threatening. But Jayda still couldn’t find the right words to say. By her silence, she heard Tris on the line again.

“You know what? I’ll just stop bothering you,” Tris announced. It was firm. She was sobbing on the other line, but it was too clear for Jayda’s ears. “Do everything on your own and I’ll do mine for all I care!”

“Tris, I didn’t mean to—”

And the call was abruptly hung up. After it, all she knew was she was hurt.

The next hour after she had some ham and bread and apple juice, she decided to dedicate all her time and attention in front of her laptop, trying to fulfill the fifty-thousand words of her ongoing novel for the month of October. But she got devastated when she realized that it was November 1.

After a couple of browsing, it stated that she only needed a thousand and two-hundred words, but she failed when she missed the last day yesterday.

She gasped. She even rested her head on her swivel chair out of irritation that was starting to boil. Her time were wasted because of one missed day, and she wasn’t able to receive her payment because of that mistake.

Clenched jaws as she crumpled a scratch paper she grabbed on her table, she remembered something from last night.

Jayda was finally awake. She was glancing on both of her side before she ended up looking at Damek.

“I couldn’t believe myself that I dozed off just right beside you. I should’ve been sitting in front of my laptop right now and writing my novel if I haven’t saw you outside your unit asking for help to pee,” she complained without pause.

“If I couldn’t make it until fifty-thousand because I helped you, you’re dead meat,” she further threatened although Damek was still on a deep sleep.

“You are so annoying!” she shouted from the top of her lungs, face were red in so much anger.

In the afternoon, a phone was ringing somewhere in the midst of Damek’s chemical-induced fog. Cigarette for lunch. He stumbled forth, and when he found it, he managed to say, “Gon?”

Damek was inside his car in front of the busy coffee shop he and Gon owned for a quite long time. It had been a long time since he dropped at the shop.

Gon asked, “Where are you?”

Damek opened the window as he smoked his cigarette again and answered, “In front of our coffee shop.”

“Doing there?”

“I don’t know. Just passing by.”

As the fog lifted, his eyes followed it until it escape inside his car.

“You feel lousy, don’t you?”

“Um. I feel like I haven’t sleep for days.”

“Have you eat lunch?”

“Just a cigarette.”

Gon chuckled on the other line, but he would not let that moment not to nag at him. He said, “You’re being crazy again. Just go inside the shop and ask Toreen to prepare you some food. If not, just die, you asshole.” Damek laughed at Gon’s sarcasm.

“So nice of you, my dear friend.”

“Exactly.”

“Fine,” he said, finally surrendered. He grabbed his keys and stepped out from his car. “I’m going inside. Wish me not to get squeezed by my fans here, including Toreen.”

“Noted,” Gon uttered and giggled. “Call me when you need me. I’ll get back to work. Bye.”

Damek stuffed his phone inside his pocket as he entered the coffee shop. It was afternoon yet people inside were with their coffees on different blends.

One step inside and a shrieking voice of a lady in early-forties, not too tall, short-haired, and on a casual blue dress welcomed him. It was not new to him although it was still embarrassing.

“My lovely Damek! Welcome back!”

It was Toreen, Gon’s cousin and the manager of the coffee shop. She planned on getting married, but she had been single since birth. Despite her age, she still got a nice figure and face. However, Gon and Damek were the ones she considered as her own sons.

“Hello, Toreen,” Damek greeted her. As soon as the woman drew in front of her, she gave him a hug.

Toreen never wanted to be addressed as Ma’am or Miss by Damek and Gon. She preferred by her name alone.

“How are you? It’s been a long time,” Toreen said as she released him from her arms.

“I know right. I’ve been busy lately.”

After a couple of chitchats near the entrance, they finally decided to go at the counter to get some snacks.

“What do you like aside from this?” asked Toreen as she went inside the counter to make an espresso for the both of them.

“Wait. Let me see.” Damek looked over the menu and he ended up chosing a banana cake.

“Omg. That’s D’Ivanov at the counter!”

“He’s here, finally!”

“He owns this coffee shop, right?”

“Fine young gentleman.”

It was not long before some teenagers ran to him to ask for a picture. It was not something for him to say no, so he let them. Just the usual set up when fans were around.

Toreen giggled as she handed the espresso to Damek. The voices inside the shop were all about him.

“Your banana cake and espresso, young man,” Toreen said.

“Thanks!”

“You got a lot of fans,” Toreen commented as she stepped outside the counter. “Famous, huh?”

“I guess?”

The two sat at a table just near the counter were they used to have a long conversation. It was past one in the afternoon and Damek had nothing important to do. All he wanted was to free up his mind, and talking to Toreen might be a help.

“You never bring a girl here. And now you’re telling me that you were dumped by a girl who is already in a relationship without even confessing? Wow. Her name?”

Damek expected that from Toreen. Just as he had a bite of his cake, he said, “It’s Jayda, and I guess that’s some other story about being in love?”

Toreen smirked. “Poor you. You wouldn’t want to be single forever, right?” Chewing and sipping his coffee, Damek nodded as an answer.

“I want to have kids, Toreen,” Damek announced. “I don’t like to be like you. Anyway, why don’t you look for—”

“For a guy? At my age?” Toreen just laughed at it. “I’m too old for that, Damek.”

“But you’re still beautiful.”

“I’m assuming! Well, you got a picture of her?”

“Jayda?” Damek smiled then wagged his head. “I wish. But she’s beautiful. Short-haired like you, blonde, slim, and she really got a temper.”

“Temper? Maybe because you’re too annoying?”

“Whatever, Toreen.” Then they both laughed.

After a half hour, the conversation shifted to something that had been bothering Damek.

“Are you okay?” Toreen asked. From his deep thoughts, Damek turned to her.

Damek said, “Toreen, would it be possible that a dead body would vanished in an instant? And cameras which supposed to be the last witnesses were not working.”

“A crime incident?” Toreen queried as she sipped her espresso. “New plot for your Webtoon?”

“No.”

“You’re reading a comic book?”

“Not really.” Damek shook his head. “It’s for real.”

Toreen was surprised that her eyes widened. She exclaimed, “Are you serious?”

“Well, it’s Jayda’s problem that I had come to know. She once suspected me, and I couldn’t blame her because some of her clues from her own investigation pinpointed me.”

Damek started to talk about the crime that Jayda told her and nothing more than she told her.

Toreen gulped as she looked more worried and curious. She asked, “Why don’t you guys call a police?”

“She once—no. She told the police twice already, but no one believed her. There were no traces of crime. She witnessed it all by herself.”

“And you believed her?”

“I do. Me and Gon, we believe her. I want to help her, Toreen,” Gon said as he let out a sigh.

“How about his boyfriend?”

“I haven’t seen him with her,” he said. Just as he looked at the entrance, he saw a couple entered the shop. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe Jayda could remember something like other things she saw, other hints and small happenings around the incident?”

“Yeah. I should talk to her, Toreen.”

The sky were mostly orange in color, the sun was ready to set. Damek noticed it as he drove back to the hotel at four.

Not too far from the hotel, he pulled over in front of a convenient store to buy a pack of cigarette and canned beer. When he was about to enter the store, a woman who came running from the sidewalks bumped to him. The woman was just lucky that Damek held her before she could fall off to the ground.

“Miss, are you okay?” he asked.

The woman was sobbing, and when she tilted her head to look at him, Damek froze. There were so much inside his head, but he only got to say was her name.

“Jayda?” he whispered.