Not a Best Friend Thing

Chapter Twelve: Goodnight.

Hey there, I was so sad the last time I updated that I missed the excitement of finally meeting our author hehe. Sorry. Can you give me thoughts about him, tho? Did you guess correctly? Enjoy the weekend guys :)

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How does dying work? Does the heart just halt and then die? What about the lungs? What would happen to it? The air that we inhale goes through it right? Klay knows about these things, grade-school basics. The oxygen flows through the blood stream. The blood stream circulates around the body. The heart pumps every now and then normally about sixty to a hundred times a minute. Facts, but still Klay wants to see how an actual heart comes to screech like a full-speed bus takes a halt. Right there. Dead. Even when she also knows that it's impossible for a person to take his own life by holding his breath, still she's considering it. And contemplating whether she'd allow her heart to take an instant halt like that, she sips a tiny pressure of air through her nose that barely reaches her trachea. She's dying and it isn't even her dream death. Because she's supposed to be old, riding on a rocking chair like asian people do, with clammy hands, gray hairs and a hint of rheumatism on her legs and a fulfilled life worth dying for. However as strong as she can feel which is barely, she has been numbed for about half an hour now, she isn't sitting on a chair that rocks its way back and forth. She's sitting by the table with her dad on her right and on the left, a man whom she decided was a creep just now.

Another fact for Klay is that she knows that her face looks like she is about to take a s**t. It's obvious in the frown of her younger brother who is across from her, sitting beside her mother. He looks at Klay and to the man next to her, and then to Klay and back to the man next to her as if trying to figure out just why his older sister's been having an issue about breathing. He twists his face to a grin getting a hint of what is happening. Klay looks down on her plate.

"s**t," she mutters on her breath.

"Shall we say, grace?"

Her mother says and Klay debated whether to excuse herself to the bathroom or choked herself out to death. Despite knowing the prior is impossible, the voice of her father passes by on her head in magnified decibels. No one leaves the dining table until all members are finished eating. She flinched realizing she might die while praying. Her father starts lifting his hand toward her and she receives it. She holds her breath and lifts hers for Edward to take. As soon as his fingers touched hers, she immediately realized how cold her palm had been.His hand is soft and warm against hers. And the warmth shoots current through her arm. She shudders. They clasped each other's hands and Klay did not pray for the food but for her hand to not start shaking.

"I'm sorry to have barged in like this Henry, Mrs Jules." Edward says once the prayer is over, looking one after the other to her mum and dad.

"It's fine. It's better here than in the office. Busy all the time. Your dad told me your going to Harvard?" Her father asks after shoving a bite of steak to his mouth with a fork.

Edward takes a sip of his red wine. "Yeah, I'm going to have my master's there."

"Oh really?" Klay's mum's eyes glisten. "That's wonderful, Klay's planning about that herself." Then she looks at Klay which probably prompts Edward to look at her too because she sees him turn to her at the side of her eyes. She doesn't say anything.

"She should. She's good in journalism, got full marks on the publication's admission test earlier the day." Says Ed. Klay doesn't really know how to feel about his comments. He's praising her now when he didn't even hesitate to turn his back on her without the slightest bit of impression after telling her about the mark earlier? Wow.

Her father turns to her. "Is that right?"

"Who wouldn't? It's not like she has anything else to do? The girl married her academics." Sonny says and chuckles. She shoots him a glare. "Haha, funny."

"So Ed when was the last time we saw each other again? You grew so fast." Klay's father says taking the topic back to the man beside her.

"Uh- Klay's sixteenth birthday, I guess?" Edward answers and Klay's jaw drops. He were there?

"I think I might have been the worst godfather in the world, how long has it been since I stopped buying you presents for holidays?"

Edwards chuckles in this and Klay grow surprised. Hah! He has the ability to a near laugh. Where had that stern atmosphere gone into?

"I think since I was fourteen?" Ed says.

"That's pretty long considering you're...?" Her dad trails motioning for Edward to continue his statement.

"Twenty-two."

Her dad thinks for a brief second, "that's eight Christmas seasons. That'll cost me a grand. You are indeed a man now. You sure will make a handsome newscaster son."

Klay finally finds herself looking at Ed as he flashes a smile to her father. Jesus, the smile.

"I still have to write about my handsome godfather detective cracking up tough cases like that before that's going to happen." Edward gives the adjective more emphasis.

"That would be me." Her father says with a smug.

"But I'm positive the "handsome's" Edward makes a quotation mark on the air, "true since 1999." He says and both of the guys laugh. Did he just throw a punch? Okay hold on. This couldn't be Edward McMillan! He actually threw a punch line!

~~~

After lots of talk of catchings-up and nutcases Ed finally steps out of their house and Klay finally has time to think about all that's happened for the past six hours.

First, ECward was Edward McMillan and that's a bit creepy isn't it? ECward, was well...normal; he jokes and flirts. Normal, typical guy. Then Ed was strict, rude and stern, hell how did they become one? But then they are one guy. So suck it up and move on. Second, it happens that this one guy is her father's godson and guess what? That makes him her godsibling if there's a word like that, but you get the point. Third, the godsibling is an intern at her dream news channel so they technically share the same dream. And lastly, this guy whom she shares a dream with, doesn't just share her dream but the same organization at school which will likely be her constant refuge for the rest of the semester. Geez, how did this happen in just one frigging day?!

Klay finally sits on the bed after enumerating the facts on her head. For the past days, she had been complaining about her lousy life but now her life did not just take a turn but rode on a dang rollercoaster. Fun!

Her phone pings on the foot of the bed and she scoots over to pick it up. She taps on it to read.

ECWard: "Nice pajamas ms. grumpy. Good night :)"

She's starting to hate herself about this whole predicament. She thinks she's going to be like this bipolar man who just had messaged her. She feels irritated and excited and angry and glad, god she's going crazy! This coming monday should be very very dreadful.

Klay: "You should realized by now that you are a jerk. Stop texting me."

She typed and tossess the phone back on the bed and groaned, "Edward McMillan, I hate you!"