Gym

After setting her things at her apartment, Angela immediately went to her training session with Nina.

Noticing how aggressive her best friend was as she pushed herself past her limit, Nina stared at the other. She waited until their trainer ended their session before she asked, "What has gotten into you? You're like a bull today. Is something wrong?"

"Nothing."

Nina scoffed, "You seriously don't think I would just believe that, do you?"

Angela grabbed her bottle of protein drink and wiped the sweat off her face and arms. Her face was flushed and she panted while trying to catch her breath. She didn't want to tell Nina what was causing her bitter mood. But who was she kidding? She was like a machine, counting the hours since the last time she had heard from that person whose name she refused to think—and she failed every time.

Thirty hours and some minutes.

"Angela Kylie," called Nina.

Letting out a sigh, Angela told her something else. "I went on a date last night."

"Woah, your dad has already started? I'm surprised you showed up."

"My father set me up. Literally. I showed up thinking it was a family dinner, but to my surprise, a man was waiting for me instead."

Nina gasped as though she was in shock, but the brightening of her eyes indicated how excited she was. "Who was he? What's his name?"

"Vincent Stone."

"You're shîtting me." Nina was floored. Her friend furrowed her brows and kept her mouth shut, so Nina quickly searched something on her phone, and then showed it to the other. "This Vincent Stone?"

Angela only glanced at the screen, half surprised to see her date from last night on the search result. She nodded. "You know him?"

"Know him?! Have you seen him? Of course, I know him. He's made it to Forbes!" Nina was ecstatic—it was evident in her eyes, yet Angela appeared to be unimpressed by that bit of information. But she tried to press for details, "How was he?"

"Okay, I guess…"

"You seem very enthusiastic about it," Nina said sarcastically.

Angela honestly didn't want to talk about it, so she only told her best friend a few more things before telling her that she wasn't in the mood.

Seeing as her friend was obviously reluctant to share more, Nina decided to let it go.

…

A week later

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," Nina scowled as she stared at Angela who had been cooped up in bed for days. The latter hadn't shown up for their training sessions and she canceled on their meetups too.

Angela groaned in protest when her best friend forced her out of bed. She was hungry and had forgotten the last time she ate. If they could just leave her alone, she really wanted to sleep—just like what she had been doing for the past days.

One hundred and fifty-two hours and whatever minutes.

Liar. A damn Liar.

Her gaze drifted towards the clock on her nightstand, and her brows knitted when she realized that it had stopped moving. Had she gone insane, or did the clock relocate to her brain? The clock had died, yet the timer in her head seemed to function well.

"Something is wrong and you're not telling me. I need to know what's going on, Angela. We can't go back to how you were before. I can't see you again like this." When her friend didn't respond, she added, "Please. It's me. You can tell me anything."

Since Angela came back, she hadn't told Nina about Gael and the book yet. She could have said something about stopping the production of her book, but that would mean she had to tell her about Gael too. And she wasn't ready then.

For days, she had constantly told herself to be more patient, convincing herself that perhaps, he was just busy… maybe something came up. But a week had passed. If he hadn't promised, if he hadn't told her he'd call again, she wouldn't have waited.

If he couldn't keep his promise, he shouldn't have lied to her. What did he say? He was a man of his word? Right. Lies. Full of lies.

Whatever. She was done.

Getting up, Angela sat on the bed and pulled her knees to her chest. She could barely look at her friend in the eyes as she mustered up the courage to spill everything.

"You will hate me after this," said Angela.

Nina straightened her back, sensing that her friend was serious. However, she shook her head and responded, "I would never—well, even if I do, I promise I won't walk out on you."

With a heavy chest, she started, "We need to stop the first book's publication."

Nina was baffled. She sat at the foot of the bed, her eyes trained at Angela's as she tried to make sense of what the other had just said. "And why?"

Closing her eyes, Angela started to spill everything. She started from the incident three years ago when she met Gael in Hillberry Isle until the last time she saw him last week.

The entire time she spoke, Nina had shown no reaction. The latter's expression was unreadable, causing her to feel even more nervous. Angela felt like she had committed an unforgivable sin and was confessing to get her doom.

"Nina…" she called, but her best friend remained quiet. Her heartbeat raced, and although she felt slightly better after confessing, a different kind of uneasiness settled in the pit of her stomach.

Nina got up from the bed without speaking. She whipped out her phone and called someone.

"Who are you calling?" Angela questioned. "Nina!" She followed her best friend out of the room. "What are you doing?!"

Nina spoke on the phone for a minute before she faced Angela, saying, "I'm stopping the publication. This is serious—"

"I know that already—"

"No, Angela, you don't. How could you not tell me this before? Just let me handle this call first and we'll talk." Nina was evidently mad, but she did not raise her voice.

Angela's heart ached, knowing that she had hurt the people she cared about. It was the first time that she had seen her best friend mad at her like this. She felt awful and small as if everything that she had done was worthless. 'You've really outdone yourself this time, Anj. This is why no one wants you. Evan's right,' Angela thought.