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Chapter 7

James looked at his phone where the window shows the caller ID of Kevin. He raised an eyebrow, thinking about whether he called the wrong person or he simply did not pick up.

“What happened to him?” He asked the wind while walking, sipping on a can of beer in his hand. The rehearsals for the new single are already done, and he could relax for the night, probably for the next three days. Still wondering at the friend, he chugged down on his drink and tossed it into the trash and continued his walk.

He did not notice the person in front of him and bumped into a smaller figure, making the person shriek before stepping back and falling to the ground. James panicked, offering his hand to her.

“I am so sorry,” he said in a rushed tone, the intoxication from the drink wore off. “Are you all right?”

The lady did not respond but took his hand and dusted off her shorts. When their eyes met, James was about to offer his handkerchief, but suddenly his world stopped, finding himself stunned and staring at the beautiful eyes of the woman underneath the streetlight and in front of the convenience store they are in.

Bethany had a staring contest with the person in front of him with blue eyes and wearing a black face mask, and a hood that was covering more than half of his face. It was then the urgency and sense of danger hit her as she stepped backward slowly, trying not to piss off the man that was in front of her.

He also smells like beer; it must have been the wrong timing for her, and he might do something that he will regret with her.

The man, on the other hand, tried to speak, but it was a little muffled and a little deep. It was then that he stopped midway on letting his voice out and froze to his position, eyes still not averting from her. Before he could even make another move on her, Bethany decided to run away from him, in fear for her own life.

Upon starting to run for her life, she did not realize that she accidentally dropped one of her IDs, leaving the man looking down and reading the details of the card that was on the ground from Bethany’s pocket.

She did not look back, and all she could hear in the dead of the night, passing the streetlights was her own voice, panting and short of a breath of how fast she is going and trying to outrun the man chasing her. After a few minutes of running mindlessly and does not even have the right direction where to go, she stopped by the bus stop and looked back, trying to see if the man is still chasing her.

No, he was not.

A sigh of relief came over to her and she sat on the bench, trying to relax from what happened. She pulled her hair and tied it into a messy bun, giving her nape the fresh air that it needed to cool off the sweat that had formed earlier. Bethany felt her legs become numb, shocked from the straining activity that she just did and wanting to massage them, but she cannot move, nor even has the energy to do so.

She then looked at the night sky, thinking of the missed chance to have dinner. She massaged her stomach, silently apologizing to herself that she will sleep without any meal. Bethany only closed her eyes, sighing and remembering how the man stared at her.

Was she wrong for judging him too quickly that he was an evil person that might have done something to her if she did not run?

Maybe, but for her, it was justified, given that he smelled like alcohol and was a little drunk, plus his face is covered. She is hoping that she will never see his face again.

With a sigh, she stood up and fixed herself, and started to drag her feet feeling heavy and numb towards her house with an empty fridge.

I guess I will just go home, she said to herself.

The next day, Bethany freaked out while searching in her bag and closet. She is dialing Amy’s number as she is tossing everything in her closet outside, making the room quite messy.

“What is it?” Amy answered from the other line, grumbling, and having a hoarse throat. She was mumbling something that Bethany could not comprehend and she sighed, putting the phone in her ear again. “It is just four in the morning. Let me sleep.”

“No, I am sorry for calling you this early,” she apologized as she answered while putting her friend through the speakers. “I just have a question to you: did you perhaps have my ID?”

“ID?” Amy wondered and paused for a few moments. Bethany stopped messing with her belongings and anxiously waited for her friend to reply. It took a while, and she was about to ask her about it when she cleared her throat and spoke once again.

“No, I don’t have your ID,” she brought the unfortunate news to her, making Bethany sigh in grief. Amy’s voice already sounded just like how she sounded usually, indicating that she has already recovered from her sleep, the drowsiness is already dead. She touched and held her forehead and gripped it, trying to rack her brain where she could have put it.

“Where did you even put it?”

“I don’t know! I just found out now that I lost it somewhere,” she answered her friend with frustration, already tiring herself at the start of her day, finding the lost ID. “Where is it?”

“Maybe you bumped into someone, and you had your ID got fell off somewhere that day?”

The realization then hit the lady. Bethany’s eyes widened as she remembered the face of the man with blue eyes when they bumped into each other the other day. She had her hand on top of her mouth, trying her best not to scream. Amy, on the other hand, became worried sick on the other line of the call.

“Is something wrong with you today, Bethany?”

“I… I just remembered where I lost my ID.”

Bethany then proceeded on telling her friend the whole story, while she listened quietly. It was then that Amy advised her to report it to the authorities, but Bethany refused to take the advice of the friend.

“His face… it was covered all over, I cannot remember his face at all except for the blue eyes that he has.”

“Well, in that case, all we can hope now is to wait for him to at least give it back.”

“Yeah,” Bethany responded in disbelief, giving up on the search for her ID and looking back at the mess she made in her room. “I hope so too. I will just have Mary make another for me.”

“Within the day? Don’t you know how she hates to be rushed in her work?”

Bethany scratched her head at the back, taking the point of the friend. “Well, I have no other way to –”

“Why don’t you just ask Kevin to use his ID to make you enter the office? I am sure he will gladly accept your favor.”

“What does that even mean?”

“There is no other meaning from what I said, Bethany,” Amy explained her suggestion to her, raising an eyebrow and holding back a giggle on her end. Even though she could hold it, her friend noticed it and wanted to call her out. “Unless you can see it as… a favor to your high school crush.”

“We both know that it is not,” Bethany rolled her eyes, walked around, and resumed fixing her belongings inside her bag for the day. “I just don’t want to… have any connection to him besides being his secretary. I might ruin a relationship, given that his girlfriend is a little too clingy on him.”

“It is very immature of her to think that way,” Amy groaned remembering the sight and the face of Gwen that day. “Besides, you can’t even function properly and work for the company without that ID, so I advise you to just hit him up.”

“I will… think about it.”

“You will not because you have to,” Amy chuckled at the other side of the phone call, and they bid each other goodbye. When she browsed the messaging application and found Kevin’s username, she typed a message, trying to reach him in the most professional way possible.

But the mix of anxiousness and excitement hit Bethany and could not hit the send button. She swallowed a lump in her throat and closed her eyes, finally hitting send, putting it down, and running away from the room. She did not even dare to open her phone again and went straight to the office without opening the messaging app, unsure whether her boss was all right with her favor or not.

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