Goddesses Don't Get Sick (3 page)

FIVE.

AN HOUR LATER,
most of the party goers had either passed out on any available floor space or gone home. Staggering slightly under the effects of the night’s drinking, Sharon made her way outside to see what had happened to her friend. Seeing Angela sitting alone on the curb with her head in her hands, Sharon’s first assumption was that the stranger had to be around, or had only just left. But after looking up and down the street for someone who clearly wasn’t there, Sharon’s curiosity overcame her.

She was certain the man she’d seen had to be the mysterious suitor who had been showering Angela with gifts. What Sharon wasn’t certain about was where a man who had clearly put a lot of effort into pursuing someone would have disappeared to…
without
said someone. Wandering up to the curb, she sat down heavily next to her quiet friend.

“Sooooo,” Sharon grinned drunkenly and nudged Angela. “How’d it go?”

Angela didn’t respond. After a silence that extended for too long, Sharon glanced over at her and blinked as she noticed that tears were trailing silently down her friend’s face.

“You okay?” Sharon asked in concern, hesitantly resting an arm around her friend. Angela stared blankly at the road beneath her feet, throat working as she tried to compose herself.

“I kissed him,” she murmured, more a comment to herself than an explanation. Sharon’s face split briefly into a broad grin, before her drunken mind caught up with the situation.

“That’s, usually a good thing, right?” She ventured hesitantly. “Especially if you like him, and he likes you…”

As she talked, Sharon tried to figure out why Angela wasn’t smiling, or off in her bed with the stranger. To her logic, the two should be a match made in heaven, especially after Sharon seen how attractive he was. Angela just shook her head and sighed, trying to wipe the tears away but only succeeding in smearing them across her face.

“He ran away,” she whispered.

This took a few moments to process through the alcohol Sharon had built up in her system. Eventually, something clicked, but it still didn’t make sense.

“He…what?”

“He ran away. We were talking, and he finally told me his name and he said all these things, and then he hugged me but when I kissed him he…he looked terrified. It was like I’d threatened to…emasculate him or something. And then he just ran away. I don’t know what I did; I thought he wanted me to. I…” Angela trailed off, fighting back tears as her mind was forced to go over again what had happened with Tuyen.

Sharon sighed softly and pulled Angela into a hug, before she helped her up and led her back inside. Once in her room, Angela flopped onto her bed and gave up the struggle against the tears, letting out a low, keening sob as she unconsciously hugged the toy cat Tuyen had given her months ago.

Sharon watched uncomfortably, wanting to comfort her friend but not knowing how. Admittedly, she was drunk, but no matter which way Sharon looked at the situation, it just didn’t make sense.
The guy clearly likes Angela
, she thought. So why invest so much time in a girl only to run away when she tried to kiss him? Sharon shook her head to herself and cautiously rested a hand on Angela’s shoulder, waiting for the sobs to abate before she spoke.

“Hon,” she tried to think of the right thing to say. “Boys are…well, stupid. They usually—”

“Get it right with their first impression and then promptly fuck it up.” Angela finished softly. Sharon blinked a couple of times, the words taken from her mouth.

“Well, yeah. How did you guess?”

“‘s what he told me the first time we met. After Aaron cheated on me.”

“Well, he’s right. Aaron was an idiot for giving you up.”

“Yeah. But I thought this one’d be different. ‘specially after all the gifts and stuff…”

“Well then, he’s not as smart as we thought.” Sharon grinned wryly for her friend, the effort in vain as Angela kept her back to her. When she didn’t respond, Sharon continued. “You’re a great girl, Ange. The only possible explanation for him running away is that he just fulfilled his own prophecy.” Sharon paused to think about it. “Either that, or he’s gay.”

“I thought he’d be different,” Angela repeated softly. The girls were silent for a moment, before Angela sniffed and shifted onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

“Go sleep,” she told Sharon, eyes never leaving the ceiling. “I think I saw a free couch in the living room.”

Sharon looked at her friend for a moment, before sighing sadly and getting up from the bed.

“You should sleep too, you know,” she remarked. “Things’ll probably make more sense in the morning, hon.”

Angela snorted and rolled back over to her side, turning her back on Sharon. Shaking her head, Sharon let herself out of the room without another word, closing the bedroom door with a soft click behind her. She stood at the door and listened for a moment, not really sure for
what
she was listening, but still. Eventually, she gave up and moved down the hall in search of the apparently empty couch.

Alone in her room, Angela waited until she heard Sharon’s footsteps move down the hallway before she sat up on the edge of her bed and wiped her eyes. Looking blankly at the cat she’d been crying into, Angela hissed under her breath and tossed it into a corner. Everything in her room sang of his memory; it was too much to take. Her head pounded dully, the ache matching the one in her heart as she tried to stop thinking about the evening.

Turning off the light, Angela buried her head under a pillow and closed her eyes.

SIX.

ANGELA SLEPT WELL INTO THE NEXT DAY.
Waking up in the late afternoon, she wandered through the house to find it empty of people, but full of mess. What with the partygoers having long since woken up and staggered home, and her roommates presumably at work, it seemed like Angela was the one left to clean. With a small but resigned sigh, she moved through to the kitchen and began to clear up what few dishes remained unbroken.

Hours later, the house finally clean and dusk not far off, Angela opened the front door to take out the trash. She stopped short to find a bouquet of red roses waiting on the doorstep. Frowning in confusion as she wondered if she’d missed the delivery man, Angela bent down to inspect the bouquet. Finding a card stapled to the cellophane, Angela tore it off and unfolded it, looking for an addressee.

Goddess,
it began, but Angela didn’t read any further. Ripping up the card, she added it to one of the trash bags and left them at the gate, before kicking the roses off the doorstep and shutting the door on them.

Picking up a half filled bottle of bourbon left over from the night before, Angela stormed to her room, grabbing a pillow and hurling it against the wall. She stood there for a moment, seething, before she took off the feather that lay around her neck.

Looking at it for a moment, a small part of her protested, not wanting to let it go. Shaking her head, Angela ignored the naked feeling around her neck and placed the feather back in its box. Curling up on her bed, Angela opened the bottle and proceeded to see if one really could drown their sorrows in alcohol.

It appeared that she couldn’t, but at least the unconscious stupor that fell shortly after came without dreams. Small mercy for Angela, but better than nothing.

SEVEN.

SHARON STOOD AT THE FRONT DOOR
of Angela’s home and looked out at the front lawn, now littered with discarded bouquets of red and white roses that had appeared at the door every morning since the party; over four weeks ago now. The roses had lasted surprisingly long, and some of them were only just now starting to wilt and die. The effect was rather astounding; a sea of red and white that caused a lot of passersby to slow their pace and gawk.

Angela’s two roommates had tried to ask her about the roses. Once. The glare they had received was so black, they both wisely decided the curiosity was not worth it.

After all, curiosity
did
kill the cat. But satisfaction brought it back. And Sharon believed more in the proverbial cat’s satisfaction than its curiosity.

“Ange? Don’t you think this has been going on long enough?”

Angela looked up from the textbook she had been reading at the kitchen table. Her eyes narrowed briefly, before she snorted and went back to her book.

“I think he’s sorry, hon,” Sharon closed the door and moved to sit across her friend at the table. “I think he made that point clear weeks ago.”

“Well then, if he really is sorry he can tell me in person,” Angela spoke light-heartedly, refusing to look up from her book as she turned a page. “I want a real conversation with him. Not a bunch of flowers with a note every day.”

Sharon looked at the small pile of torn cards in the rubbish bin and coughed into her fist.

“Has it occurred to you to maybe read the notes he’s been sending with the flowers?” she asked.

“What’s the point? I bet they all say the same thing. ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ blah-de-fucking-blah.”

“Okay, I understand you’re angry, but still. What if the notes say something important? What if he’s asking you to meet him somew—” Sharon jumped as Angela suddenly slammed her book shut and glared at her.

“I don’t give a
fuck
what he has to say in those notes,” she hissed. “If he wants to see me, then he can bloody well come here and explain himself. He needs to stop hiding behind his gifts and start telling me the truth. I
know
how good he is at writing, I’m sure if I read any of the notes he’s left me then it’d all make sense and I’d forgive him in a second. But damn it, I don’t want it to be that easy for him!”

Seeing the surprised look on her friend’s face at the outburst, Angela groaned unhappily and cradled her head.

“I just want to know the truth. I don’t want a bunch of flowers and apologies. I just want to know what I did wrong. If he doesn’t like me, okay, fine. I think I got the message. But I want to hear so from him, not some note he sent me.”

Exhaling softly, Sharon leaned across the table and stared at her friend until Angela met her eye.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, he’s scared of visiting you because of the way you’re acting?”

Angela shook her head and sighed heavily. She opened her mouth to reply, and was surprised to find her throat closing with emotion. Seeing the unhappiness she was trying to hide, Sharon reached over and squeezed Angela’s upper arm reassuringly.

“I’ve got to go,” she lied, able to see that what Angela needed most at that moment was to not have someone pester her about the situation. “Look after yourself?”

Angela nodded, getting up and seeing her friend to the door. As Sharon walked off down the street, Angela looked at the flowers that scattered her lawn in a dying sea of red and white, before closing the door on them.

Sharon shook her head wearily as she walked home, her mind stuck on Angela’s behaviour since the party. In all the years she’d known her, she couldn’t ever remember her friend reacting this badly to a disappointment. Especially over a guy.

Admittedly, this hadn’t been a typical situation, but still. She’d always been the pragmatic one when it came to relationships; a grounding force against Sharon’s more reckless style of dating. Now that Sharon was having to be the sensible one, she was struggling.

Lost in her thoughts, Sharon turned the corner and almost crashed into a man walking the other way. Caught completely by surprise, Sharon caught herself on his shoulder. Looking up to apologize, Sharon yelled in shock as she recognized Tuyen.

He blinked and stepped back, gazing at Sharon with a kind of dulled recognition.

“Uh, Sharon, right?” he forced a smile on his face, the kind one puts on for those barely more than strangers.

“…Yeah,” Sharon didn’t realize she was staring. Seeing him now in daylight—and without the influences of alcohol—Sharon was stunned at just how attractive he was. Or could be. Right now he looked terrible. His hair, lanky and unwashed, hung over hollowed eyes and he looked haggard, like he hadn’t been sleeping at all. Growing uncomfortable under Sharon’s scrutiny, Tuyen ran a hand through his hair and gestured vaguely up the street.

“Is she…?” He began lamely and halted, looking almost as if he were trapped. He sighed and looked about to say something else, before he gave up with a slump of his shoulders. Taking pity on the hopeless creature before her, Sharon nodded.

“Yeah. She’s home. Though if I were you I’d stop sending flowers.”

“Yeah, I figured...” Tuyen barked a laugh, before he sighed again uncomfortably and shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t exactly had a lot of experience in this kind of thing. I don’t really know what to tell her.”

Sharon nodded, wondering if this man who had looked so confident when she last saw him was really as naïve as he appeared, and what it was exactly that he counted as experience.

“Just…talk to her,” Sharon ventured hesitantly. “Try telling the truth.”

An expression of extreme discomfort spread across Tuyen’s face, before he mumbled something about the truth being complicated.

Sharon took the comment in and chose to ignore it as she continued. “Be honest with her. Right now, I think it’s the only chance you’ve got. If you still want to be friends with her, that is.”

Sighing, Tuyen looked down at his shoes and nodded. Looking back up at Sharon, he fixed her with a tired smile, more real this time.

“Thanks.”

Smiling, she patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck,” Sharon continued on her way, getting only a few steps before she paused and called back to him. “You’ll need it.” Missing the pained expression that crossed his face, Sharon crossed the road and left Tuyen standing on the sidewalk.

Funny
, she thought to herself idly.
He always seems to just appear out of nowhere…

Tuyen watched Sharon go for a moment, before he turned and looked towards the direction of Angela’s home. Swallowing, he clenched his fists and began to walk slowly towards the house.

A lone feather fluttered down in the still air, landing where he’d stood only a moment before.