“YOU LOOK like you’re carrying the weight of the world. Did something happen?” his friend Jaxon asked.
Jacob sighed and downed the rest of his beer. He should not have come to Jaxon’s birthday party in the first place. He ended up looking like a fool. He should not have forced himself to socialize.
When he arrived earlier, he tried to mingle with the people he knew. He even joined a few conversations to temporarily take his mind off his problems. But after a few minutes, he lost all interest. So there he was, sitting alone in a corner of the bar, drinking by himself. He did not want to go home either because his mother would surely start lecturing him again. She would insist once more that breaking up with Venice was for the best. He was sick of hearing it. He had always known his mother was never a fan of Venice.
“Sorry, Jax,” he said. “I’m just not in the mood.” He apologized to his friend. Jaxon patted him on the back.
“I heard what happened, to be honest with you, Jake. But I’m not going to believe what they’re saying,” he said.
Jacob sighed. “It’s true, Jax,” he admitted. “Venice and I broke up. It’s over.”
Jaxon patted him on the back again, as if trying to comfort him.
“You’ll get back together. You’ve always been on and off, right? Even before, you two were always fighting and breaking up. But after three days, you’d always end up getting back together anyway.”
“It’s for real this time.”
For a moment, Jaxon did not respond. He just stared at him. He clearly was not convinced.
Jacob could not blame him.
After all, he and Venice had always had an on-again, off-again relationship. He could not even count how many times they had broken up and gotten back together. Even their friends were probably tired of the constant cycle by now.
“What went wrong this time?” Jaxon finally asked.
Jacob took a long drink from the fresh glass the bartender had just given him before answering.
“She found someone else.”
“What?” Jaxon was visibly shocked. “She cheated on you?”
Jacob shrugged.
“Not sure. I don’t know if they already knew each other while we were still together.”
“That’s messed up. I didn’t know Venice was like that.”
Jacob sighed. “I don’t really care anymore. One thing I do know is that I need to find that fortune teller woman Venice talked to three weeks ago.”
“What? Which woman?” Jaxon asked, confused.
“The fortune teller woman Venice talked to,” he repeated.
“Why would you look for that woman?”
“She must have said something to Ven. Ven’s mood suddenly changed after talking to that fortune teller. I have a strong feeling that woman said something to her.”
He muttered the words while staring at the bottle in his hand.
A moment later, he looked at his friend.
Jaxon did not ask any more questions, even though the confusion was still obvious on his face.
“I swear,” Jacob said, his voice low and firm, “I’m going to find that woman and make her pay.”
SAPPHIE winced when the glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor. As it broke, her heartbeat seemed to pound even harder. She had no idea what had happened. One moment she was holding the glass, and the next, she had dropped it. This must be one of her klutz moments.
“That’s a bad omen,” Rio commented in a calm tone while eating a piece of toasted bread. She merely rolled her eyes at him and started cleaning up the mess before her stepmother could see it. “So what are you going to do now?” Rio asked after a moment. “Now that you’re not doing your little side hustle anymore, how are you going to make money?”
She shrugged. “It’s not like I did that for very long. I only did that gig for four days while our town fiesta was approaching. And besides, I can’t pretend to be a fortune teller for that long. This time, I’m going to find a proper job again,” she said, earning a raised eyebrow from Rio.
“Sis, are you sure?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Sis, you know I support you all the way, right? But are you really sure? Maybe you’re forgetting what Mom did to you before.”
Of course, she still remembered. Rio’s mother was the reason she had resigned a month ago from her first job as a nutritionist at a large university. Even after exhausting days at work, she was still ordered to wash clothes or bake brownies and cookies for her stepmother’s friends when she got home. In the mornings, she was woken up ridiculously early just to cook breakfast. Her salary was taken from her as well. She was basically a slave in her own house. Eventually, she could not take it anymore. She ended up hospitalized for several days because of stress and overfatigue. The last straw was when her stepmother took all her savings and did not leave a single dime for her. As painful as it was, she decided to quit her job. The side hustles she did were mainly to annoy her stepmother. The woman hated it whenever Sapphie gave little or no money at all. Sometimes her anger even ended with her yanking Sapphie’s hair, especially when she was drunk. She had been meaning to leave the house, but she could not bring herself to leave Rio behind.
“I can’t live like this forever, Rio,” she said after a while. “I need to find a job and start saving again, for myself and for you too.”
Rio let out a sigh. Then he walked over and hugged her. “I know, sis. I just wish there was something I could do for you.”
“You being here is enough for me.” She kissed his cheek. “But for now, help me clean this up before your mother sees it.” She gestured toward the broken glass on the floor.
“Nope, you’re on your own with this one,” he joked, and she pinched him on the side. He playfully smacked her shoulder in return, and the two of them laughed. Afterward, he helped her clean up before his mother arrived.