Page 135 of Overdue I Love You's
We got a message from production telling us that we’d be attending a masquerade club. I didn’t know they existed until today. Pretty sure they’re making us go because a ball is on my bucket list, but it’s tooniche and out of budget to put one together.
“Guess we wear masks and shake our butts off,” Katarina enters the room. She walks to Hina and kisses her cheek.
“Look who took six weeks to make up,” the joke feels dry on my tongue. I’m stuck on Dean—wanting to talk to him.
But it’d go against what I asked and I’m not one to go back on my word this quickly.
“Funny,” Kat smiles. “It felt like a lifetime.”
“Of course it did,” Hina teases. “You lost me.”
“Now, I love you.”
They smile warmly at each other.
I want that too. The comfort of another person, to feel belonged in their arms without the fear of time pulling us apart.
Never knew I craved security until now.
“How’s your migraines doing?” Kat asks.
I didn’t realize Kat brought her own luggage in here. She sits on the ground, rummaging through clothes upon clothes.
“Better,” I tell the truth. Perching onto Hina’s bed, “Which is surprising. They never stay away for long.”
“This’ll help tonight,” she sits back on her heels and takes a sleek, black case out of her pocket. She hands it to me.
“What is it?” It looks like it’s earbuds.
“Open it,” she motions with an open palm.
I do as she says.
At first, that’s what it looks like. Silicone rings attached to rose-gold metallic rings. I take them out of the case, holding them in my palm. They’re incredibly light.
“Ear plugs,” Kat tells me. “To block out noise. People wear them at concerts, but apparently it helps with migraines too.”
“Kat…” my voice is full of awe. “Thank you!”
No one’s ever done this for me. Albeit, Nadine and Rosa don’t know I struggle with migraines and Sunny doesn’t know the intensity of them.
“They’re not from me,” her lips take on a knowing tilt. “Dean asked me to give it to you.”
Cue my heart stopping then running like it’s under attack.
“Don’t mention his name to her,” Hina peers over a shirt. “She starts crying. Pretty sure I saw her giving you the stink eye earlier.”
“I was not!” I totally was.
Kat waves it off. “I was the same with you and Hina. I get it. Dean has only given me one-word answers since the beginning, but today it’s like I couldn’t get him to shut up and all he did was talk about you, Nova.”
“What?” My mouth falls open. “You sat there, watching Dirty Dancing, talking about me?”
She nods. “I don’t know what happened between you two, but I’ve never met a man who talks about a woman with as much respect as Dean does for you. He doesn’t just see you as someone to love, but as someone who can love him too. That has to mean something, right?”
That word again.
I don’t reply, not even sure how to.
