Olivia Sparks

Penthouse Suite—Rockaway Towers

It was already midnight when Olivia felt Maxen's lips planting on her forehead, but she pretended to be asleep—keeping her eyes closed but the fluttering of her eyelids gave the truth away.

Earlier when they got back in their penthouse suite, not a word was uttered as they walked aimlessly around the space, finding stuff to occupy them as they killed time until bedtime, completely dodging the elephant in the room.

Her hand that was hiding under the pillow turned into a fist when Maxen rubbed her cheek, whispering, "I love you, baby."

As soon as she heard the soft click of the door closing, Olivia's eyes flew open, a tear falling down from her eyes, drenching the pillow with salty regret.

Picking up her phone, she dialed the number she always did to hear an advice—Emily's.

"Livi daaaarling!" Emily's sweet as honey tone soothed Olivia, but it was enough too to make her cry. "Oh god. What's wrong?" Emily asked upon hearing her gal pal sniffle on the other end of the line.

"I messed up," Olivia confessed.

"Whyyy? What happened?"

It was one in the afternoon in Cuba where Emily was at that time. "Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"Noooo, not at all. I was up really early to help in a soup kitchen, so I crashed when I got home. Don't worry about me, I'm all good. What about you? You don't sound ok."

"We fought. Well, more likely, I got jealous and ruined our date night." Olivia sighed, massaging her forehead.

"Hmm. Has Maxen done something?"

"No, it's... Do you know Camilla Yu? I met her yesterday then when Maxen mentioned that he went to school with her I just felt jealous."

"Why would you get jealous over Camilla? Yuck."

Stifling a smile at Emily's exaggerated commentary, Olivia swiped her hand on the empty side of the bed. 

But her smile fell, and she cried a little more when the sheet felt cold under her fingertips.

"Well I found out that Maxen asked her out for a dance… which I know is silly because it happened years ago… but still."

"Livi darling… Yes he did ask her, but you're the one he's hell-bent on marrying."

Hearing Emily's words, Olivia's lips curled downward, disappointed at how she reacted over the news.

"Livi darling, I know it's hard to put your trust on one person, especially when you've been cheated on before. 

"You're trying your best to give him a chance, to put your faith in him, and there will always be moments when you can't help but be swayed with your emotions. 

"But please, don't ignore the fact that he's ready to give you the heavens and earth if you tell him you wanted that for dessert. That's how much he loves you."

"I messed up, didn't I?" Olivia covered her eyes with her forearms as her shoulders shook when a flood of tears trickled down into her face in a stream. "I don't know what to do."

She pressed the phone on her ears when all she heard was the clickety clack of what she assumed was a laptop.

"You don't, because currently your brain's messed up, but lucky for you, you called the right person—me."

Springing up from the bed, Olivia got a hunch on what Emily just did but kept quiet, giving her gal pal the chance to announce her brilliant idea.

"Your plane leaves at 6am. It's a 3-day trip, so you could make it in time for Finn's birthday. What's Shadow's name? I need to buy her a ticket too."

"Emily?" Olivia huffed.

"What?"

"Thank you," she whispered, a lump in her throat constricting her speech, but Emily still heard her. "Aaand I'll book Shadow's ticket, she's my person anyway."

"Sure. Oh, and I booked a room in the same hotel but I'm sure Maxen will move you to his townhouse."

"Emily," Olivia croaked, as a rush of emotion swirled up from the pit of her stomach. She almost lost her balance, feeling dizzy at the slew of excitement and uncertainty, she had to plant her free hand on her side of the bathroom sink. "What am I going to do without you?"

"Heeey stop it, Livi darling. What should girls do but help each other, right?"

Leaving her phone by the sink, Olivia waltzed to her walk-in closet, filling up five luggages with enough clothing, shoes, and jewelries for her 3-day trip.

...

It was eighteen hours of excruciating flight from Nisia to New York City, yet Olivia didn't sleep a wink no matter how comfortable her seat was in first-class.

At some point, she asked a flight attendant if she could go to the Economy class to speak with Shadow, but was surprised when the flight attendant fetched Shadow for her instead.

Not in the mood to argue with the flight attendant's error, she let the matter go and took it as an opportunity to brief Shadow. 

After all, because they were in a rush earlier, she wasn't able to give Shadow the details of their unexpected exodus to the other side of the planet.

Soon, Olivia's eyes felt heavy, and she fought hard to keep her head from bobbing on an invisible pop music. 

And just as her eyes were to clam shut, the captain's voice echoed on the speaker, talking about the time and weather that she already checked a million of times the whole flight.

She didn't know if the pressure in her ears was from the altitude of the plane or from her heart that was running on horsepower, but she almost went deaf with the loud thumping in her ears.

The plane successfully descended, but the deplaning took almost an hour because it was spring and the airport was packed with visitors from all over the world, bright-eyed even jet-lagged, eager to witness the promise of magic in the Big Apple.