Chapter 2: Meet Trixie
1290 Words
Vanessa’s POV
She winced and focused her grey eyes on me, her tiny eyebrows arched together in a sad but playful expression. “Your failure in understanding necromancy101 is the root of your problem,” she said, smiling, and breathing inwardly so I would notice it.
“There is no such course in our line of study, Trixie,” I argued.
“Would soon be introduced."
“Blah blah.”
She smiled again and started playing with her fingers. “Anyway, I wish there is something I could do for you.”
Another loud thunderstorm roared again and a cold breeze accompanied the wave of the sudden light that shone outside, exposing the tons of greenish trees we had in the compound. The hospital was built with layers and layers of glass windows from all corners of the walls. The ceilings were tall from the ground surface and it gave room for lots of space— invariably giving the merciless cold an edge to play a dangerous game with my skin. I continued shaking and clenching my jaw, to the point of biting my tongue. Trixie looked at me worryingly, a concerned expression written on her face. She stood up from her chair and walked up to me. “This is serious,” she murmured.
“Do you think I was joking before, miss?”
“Presumably. . . yes.”
I brushed a laugh. “You know you are as stupid as f**k, Trix?” Foul languages weren't my thing. But staying with someone like Trixie over the last few years had quite thought me a lot of bad things.
“You say that every day.” She bent down and brought out the bag she came with from home. The bag was hidden properly within the counter. She unzipped it and brought out a white sweater from the bag. She offered it to me. “Have it,” she said.
“Jeez,” I said, “Trix, how did you get that? You have this all this while I have been complaining that I am cold?”
“I have always known that your worst enemy is an odd cold environment,” she said and smiled. That was true, I usually get sick in a cold environment. “And yes, I have it since you started whining. I thought it wasn’t serious anyway. Wear it now.”
I smiled. “You are a sweetheart,” I uttered in a flat happy tone. I stretched out my hands to take it but she hid it behind her back. “What now?” I asked her.
“I need you to just agree that I am a necromancer.”
“But you are not,” I yelled, refusing to agree with her. “We all know you are not.”
“Oh." She raised her brows. “Maybe you don’t want to wear this.” She decided to put back the sweater in her bag.
“Wait,” I said, holding her hand. Her hand felt warm. “You are holding me to ransom. This is cheap blackmail. You are forcing me to say what I don’t want to say.”
“It doesn’t matter how I choose to do it. You just have to say what I asked you to say in case you want to save yourself from dying from this. . . cold.”
I had no choice. I was already freezing and I didn’t want to take any medication for it. If I did want to, I would have gone to the Pharmacology department, somewhere on the first floor to demand it. “You win, Trixie,” I said. “But only for today.”
“I have not heard you yet, lady." She reminded me. “I am waiting.”
I giggled. “You are a badass necromancer, TRIXIE.”
She laughed. Instead of giving the godamn cloth right away, she brought out a red biro from her white apron and drew out a sheet of paper from the drawer. She scribbled down some words in there. It made me curious. “What are you doing exactly,” I said. “What’s that you are writing?”
“Just writing down the time and date you said it. I wouldn’t want you to deny it tomorrow.”
I laughed. “That is funny.”
She kept quiet until she finished writing down whatever it was that she was writing.
She gave me the paper and said, “Sign it.” Without looking at me.
I giggled. I took the paper from her, signed it immediately, and gave it to her. She inserted the paper somewhere inside her bag.
After what seemed like a minute, she turned to me and looked at me, a surprised, dark expression on her face. “I want us to go to someone’s birthday party tomorrow,” she said and snapped a finger.
“Birthday party? Again?” I asked her.
“Again?” She said, “when was the last time we both went to a birthday party?”
I collected the sweater from her and tried to put it on before she change her mind.
“What about the one we went for last week,” I said, trying to remind her.
“C’mon, that’s not a birthday party,” she whined. “That was a bash, old lady.”
“What’s the difference?” I said, confused.
“A lot.”
“Like?”
“Birthday parties have a purpose, bashes don’t. Bashes could be a gathering of friends just to enjoy themselves and have fun.”
“What in the f*****g world does that mean?”
“It means that both of us are going to a birthday party and not a pool party nor an old school gathering, young woman.” Trixie had always considered me an old-school lady even though he was older than me. She knew that I wasn’t good with parties or clubs but she would always force me to come with her either way.
I scoffed. “What difference would it make this time? Besides, we have not really seen anything positive from the ones we have been going before, or have we?”
She inclined her nose in a deliberate puff, making it look as though she was mimicking a pig. “Look, Vanessa. This one is going to be different. A billionaire would be present at this party. There were other millionaires too who would come. Who knows what could happen? They might find us favorable.”
“Jeez,” I muttered. “Find favorable? Where does it ever work like that? Don’t let me assume that you think like a kid, Trixie.”
“It seems like you don’t understand this,” Trixie said, readjusting herself in the chair. “A young, handsome, hardworking, sexy billionaire is coming to this party and there is no way we are going to miss this one, believe me. My friend Alison would not lie to me just for nothing.”
Trixie and I had a brief staring match. “Sexy, yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Hardworking, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“And single?”
She kept quiet. She didn’t answer that question. “C’mon, Trixie. Say something.”
She threw her face to the other side.
“No idea,” she said.
“You see. We are not going, Trixie."
“No. We are going,” she insisted. I could sense a note of anger in her voice. “Unless you don’t want to come with me then that’s fine. I won’t force you to come.”
Jeez. What was wrong with this girl? What should I do?
- Writer
