17: The Hole That Never Heals

AUDRA'S SCHEDULE

Monday: YOGA DAY - DO NOT DISTURB

Tuesday: Trying out new 'Looks'

Wednesday: FILMING DAY

Thursday: BFF day

Friday: Treat yo Body day

Saturday: QUENTIN DAY

Sunday: Lazy day

APRIL'S SCHEDULE

Monday: Watch 5 episodes of whatever TV-series I'm hooked up on.

Tuesday: Answer to approximately 1034 messages directed to Audra, as part of my assistant job

Wednesday: FILMING DAY or, the day when I exert 105% of my whole energy

Thursday - Sunday: Edit edit edit try not to think about penguin edit edit edit try not to forget to eat.

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"Your life's sad."

I knew that it was a mistake to show Alex my schedule book. Well, technically it was a schedule paper because I didn't have any time to scribble anything on my new Leuchtturm1917 notebook aside from the first page describing my schedule.

I got it a year ago, when Audra asked me to be her editor/assistant and that she'd pay me 20% of whatever she made off Youtube.

It amounted to a surprising total of around $854,2 a month. It was enough for food.

And sometimes, it was enough for food for two.

"It's not sad. I'm making enough money for myself, and I don't spend much."

"Because getting you to go out is like witnessing a Snow Donut," Alex smiled. "It's a miracle. But sometimes it happens."

"So what's the deal?" Alex's voice took a turn of darkness. I hated it when he did that because it was like his voice was covered in a truth-serum. It made me incapable to lie (not that I was very good at it anyway).

"I guess Audra's happy today. Today's supposed to be Filming Day, but she says that we can do it tomorrow."

"Hm."

"Apparently, she's got this amazing deal with a woodmaker."

Alex's perfect eyebrows shot up. "Woodmaker?"

"I wanted to tell her that there is possibly nothing that you can do to mix make up and wood-carving. But she won't listen to me." And it was true. Audra was so sweet and smiley today that it scared me off. Like the 'Calm before Storm' thing, you know? If right now she was at the height of her happiness, imagine how low things could be when something wrong happened.

Maybe we could end up so low we'd be in the earth's fiery core.

"I don't want to have crispy skin if we do end up down below there. And so-"

"Wait."

Alex blinked, and then he leaned towards me as he tipped his chin. His green eyes looked at all around my face, before then he smiled a little bit. "Crispy skin. Because of the burning with extremely high heat. Because Audra's high with happiness right now so you're afraid that tomorrow she'll be so low she'd bring you low enough to get to hell?"

"Earth's fiery core," I corrected him. "But pretty close. You're getting good at this, Alex."

It was a game that we'd been playing. Well, Alex had been playing. I often talked about things to people without letting them know my thought process, and this could be challenging because it was like telling solely the punchline of the joke without the body or even the title of it.

"Okay, proceed now," Alex said.

"So, since I very much wish to keep my skin as it is, I'm asking for your ideas on how to mix beauty routine with wood carving. Or if I should just disappear to South East Asia for a few days lest it's an impossible a task."

"My instinct of course want you to do the latter," Alex said in a 'duh' tone. "That rainbow colored girl has been mean to you, and she's taking an advantage of you in ways that I could never imagine is possible." (He's referring to the one time when Audra asked me to crouch on all four so that she could step on my back and reach the top shelf.) "But yeah. No. Make up and wood. It's practically impossible. Except if you think that putting on make up on a piece of wood is a good idea."

I was only beginning to nod when Alex held up his hand.

"It's definitely not a good idea."

"I don't understand why Audra's so excited about meeting this wood guy, too."

"Yeah?"

"He doesn't even have a name. Or a youtube channel. And usually Audra only wants to collab with youtubers with twice her followers."

"Ugh. I think of her like I think of this hanging lamp-" he pointed at the lamp above us.

"What's wrong with the lamp?"

"It's just one string away from beating your face."

Makes sense.

"But that girl's good at growing in this kind of 'online business' thing."

I smiled. "You're doing that again."

"Doing what?"

"That quoting thing with your fingers," I tried to emulate his motion, but as I caught a glimpse of my reflection on the mirror behind him, stopped myself. I looked like a pervert doing that.

"So what's so special about this wood guy? And if he's hot, what about Quentin?" finally Alex started asking the important question. That was one thing that I liked about hanging out with him. He sometimes made me realize important things that I wouldn't otherwise noticed.

"Let me show you his instagram," I said, and then I opened the ILA guy's instagram.

The moment Alex laid eyes on the instagram page, he stopped moving.

I waited for him to react. Any kind of reaction actually. After a while, the only thing that convinced me that he was still alive was the fact that he still blinked his eyes twice.

"April."

I released a long breath that I didn't realize I was holding. It would be a long, arduous process if Alex actually dropped dead now. I wasn't sure if I was ready to have that kind of emotional trauma.

"Don't you realize who he is?" Alex's voice held a little bit of tremble, which was unusual of him.

I looked up at him, looked up to thick lashed green eyes and how his whole face was no longer the perfect picture of serenity. And then, without realizing it, I found the hair on my nape stood straight. It had been a while since I relied on Alex to find a little bit of calmness inside me. If I were a ball of stress and anxiety, he was the calm leaf just casually strolling about. If I were an anxious Pomeranian whose owner left alone for the night, Alex was the Russian Blue cat who wouldn't care less if the owner came back as long as he got enough cat treats.

But right now, Alex was sweating and his eyes bore a great deal of calamity. (Sometimes I confused these two words, though. Calmness and calamity.)

"Alex?" I called out to his name. I held the urge to ask 'are you dead?' to him, though.

"He has a lot of followers," he finally said something.

"Yeah. He's really good at this thing. Audra said that his works sells for thousands." I paused, then tried to let the weight of my words sink into me. "That's a lot of money."

He nodded. "It is."

"So. Yeah," I nodded. And then for the next ten minutes, we didn't talk. It was such a rarity for us to not talk, because usually Alex and I were good at talking to each other. He made me feel like a good conversationalist, even though I normally wasn't, and according to him, I let him spatter all kind of smart-assery without judging him, and that made him felt good.

"Did you see that the guy only follows one person on Instagram?" Alex said.

"Really?" I tried to open up the page to see.

"Doesn't matter," he pressed the sleep button on my phone. "Let's get you back."

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Audra had been letting me sleep in the spare room of her apartment. After a while, she started to get me to chip in for electricity bills, but she kept the room pretty much rent-free. Alex often commented that if Audra was good at anything, it was at being a landlady.

Alex got me into Audra's apartment, and then he left me.

"I can come tomorrow, for the filming," he said. It was the very first time he was ever interested in seeing Audra putting on make up.

"That's nice. But you would fill up too much space."

"But-"

"The studio only can gather around 3 people. That's me, Audra, and the wood guy. If you're around, nobody will have enough room to move."

Alex didn't care one bit about my reasoning, though. "I'm getting here tomorrow."

And before I could even protest, he turned around and started to walk away. I got into the apartment, then, and was surprised to see everything was clean and tidy and... considerably more spacious.

"Audra...?" I called out to my roomate. "Did you just throw out a lot of..." I scanned around just to make sure. "Furnitures?"

"Just a few tables. And books. And other uncecessary, aesthetically unpleasant things." I could hear her voice from the other side of the room. "Minimalism is so cool nowadays, you know?"

I took in the apartment and found myself confused. It seemed like it had grown twice the size. But then again, Audra was a borderline shopaholic, especially when she went to Ikea. Everything could get into her shopping list. Saw a slightly cute chair? Buy it. A pink curtain? Off to the cart. This misshapen lamp? Hey, come home with me.

And then all of it was now gone.

"Wait, why are you here?" Audra screeched. "I thought you're going out with your 'not boyfriend' Alex."

"Yeah, my 'not boyfriend' Alex just dropped me here." I never understood why she called Alex like that. It was such an inconvenient way to describe 'friends'.

"You have to go!" Audra's screech became higher. "Go, go go! Call your 'not boyfriend' Alex. Or call that tryhard asian girl."

"Bella?"

"Whatever her name is."

"But I want to go home and brainstorm about our filming with the wood guy tomorrow."

There was a mild groaning coming out from Audra's mouth, and that was when I realized that she had put on her 'Game' face. The full on No Make up Makeup that made her look like she was born with pink lips and radiant lashes naturally.

"You look good. Are you going out?"

"The wood guy is coming here!" Audra yelled at me. "And I don't want you to be here when he's here!"

And just as soon as her lips were clamped shut, both of us heard the bell dinging.

"IT'S HIM!" Audra shouted-whispered.

"IT'S HIM?!" I shouted-whispered back and I didn't know why.

"Why did you tell him to come today when I'm not around?" I asked her. "Do you want to do the selfie kind of video?"

"I just want some time alone with him!" both of Audra's hands were on the air, and I knew that it took every single inch of her willpower to not pull at her perfectly curled hair. "I want to get to know him before filming together tomorrow."

"But there will be some filming tomorrow, right?"

She didn't answer.

"Quentin will be very hurt," I said, clutching for my chest because I had already started to feel it on behalf of my brother.

"Oh, damn it," Audra groaned. "I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. But now he's not even gonna get hurt anyway because you're here and the three of us are going to hang out together. All three of us. So there won't be any hurting will ensue. Okay?!"

She stomped to the front door as the bell dinged again, and when she opened the door, all there was waiting for her was the back of a very tall man.

Apparently, the wood guy was in the middle of turning away and leaving.

"Oh," his voice was deep and slightly annoyed. "I thought you weren't home. Audra, right?"

"Right! You never told me your name, Mr Talented," Audra smiled at him. I clutched my chest again on behalf of my brother, because most of the time, guys will fall head over heels whenever Audra smiled at them.

I found it hard to take a look at his face, partly because most of his back was still turned to me, and partly because the sun shone right into his face. Ah, the woes of being so tall.

"Come on in," Audra prodded him.

As the Wood Guy stepped inside, I felt the insides of my body froze. The cup that I was holding fell into the floor.

I knew this face.

"Holy mother of elephant," I found myself saying.

"That's just my assistant. She can be... different," Audra gave an excuse for me.

But then the guy wasn't listening to her. Even I could tell that. His eyes were still as brown, and his face still as beautiful. He gained a few inches and I guess a considerable amount of weight in the form of muscles.

But the intensity of his gaze, the way he furrowed his brows whenever he saw things he wasn't expecting. That kind of slightly brooding, slightly debonair expression. It all felt too familiar.

And the Penguin inside my head, despite its bone structure, started to fly.

"You," he whispered, breaking free from Audra, and then turned his body towards me.

That was the face of the Wood Guy who only followed a single person on instagram.

The face of the guy Audra was so excited to collaborate together.

The face of the guy who, according to some articles from Buzzfeed, 'will melt your hearts with his passion and dedication to his works.'

The face of the guy who melted my heart, literally, in the most painful way possible.

He never tore his gaze away from me, and I found him striding towards me.

Before I could stop myself, I bent down, took the cup from the floor, and then send it flying towards That Guy's face.

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The weird thing was, even though I had hurt him, the hole inside my chest still wasn't healing even a little bit.

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AN:

I think I can do it with this whole weekly update thing. Okay? Okay, Cat? Right. Yes, I can. I'm so happy that I'm able to write more consistently in these couple of months! I'm really trying to write faster, because my ideas are coming like sea waves and I'm afraid if my fingers aren't fast enough to store all of them, they'll go away from me.

And there you go, the chapter you all have been waiting for! Sorry I left it at cliffhanger, but I do that because I'm going to post faster than once a week. Next update is at SATURDAY.

Please remind me every WEDNESDAY to update this story. :) I want this story to finish, because they deserve it, and because I want to create another story.

Thank you so much for reading, and please don't forget to vote and comment. It's the first thing I check when I wake up in the morning. What do you think April should do after hitting Ryder with a plastic cup?

<3