Because Every Journey is a Story

Oliveria finished unpacking her things and wondered what to do next. Who am I kidding? It's 2330, she thought. She got into her pajamas and tucked herself into her bed.

Waiting for sleep, she wondered why she was so clueless as to what to do in her own home. Maybe because she was never at home long enough to consider it her home.

She had bought the house a little while after she graduated at a university nearby. After a week, she decided that she couldn't stay in the same town after all those awful years at the university. Almost immediately, she won one million dollars and a trip to Australia.

It was unreal. Her parents might have found out that she partook in a special lottery and they might have rearranged some things, but she chose to ignore the thought. Her parents never ceased to spoil her, but even if it did really happen, she would rather play dumb than have her mood spoiled.

When the beautiful journey in Australia ended, she decided to turn the tables around. She cancelled her flight back to England and booked a new one to Thailand. The list went on and on: from Thailand to Malaysia to the Philippines to China to Japan to Saudi Arabia to Germany to Scandinavia to Greenland... She only stopped when she realised that the money she had left was only enough for a flight back to England. Not that her parents wouldn't give her more, but sooner or later her journey had to end after all. 

"Tomorrow," she said out loud to her thoughts, getting sleepy. Her eyelids fell like stage curtains over her eyes until all she could see was black.

-

The next morning, Oliveria woke up to the sound of her phone ringing. She grabbed it and looked at the time displayed on the lock screen. 

“I-it’s 1100! Wait, that shouldn’t matter anymore,” she said to herself. “Should it?” She accepted the call and put the phone to her ear without looking at who it was. “Uh… hello?” 

“Oliviaaaaa!!!” a voice rang from the other end. Immediately, Oliveria felt like going back to sleep. There was only one person who would always call her that. 

“What, Sloane?” she said without even bothering to not sound tired. It wasn’t very nice of her to do that, but Sloane was that one girl in university. That one girl who would always use her friends to her advantage, that one girl who was dumb enough to wonder why everyone else hated her. She was, at the very least, annoying. She couldn’t even get her only friend’s name correct. 

“Where have you been?! I couldn’t get to you at all! I tried to call you, I tried to break into your house, but the only things I could get from you were your Instagram stories! You’ve been on vacation, Olivia! And you’ve been ignoring me! How dare you do that! Now I’m tired and sick of everything I had to do all by myself these months! Including getting mad at you!”

First of all, grow up. Second of all, you never had to yell at me at all. Third, last but not least, you could have phrased that until you had fewer sentences to say and therefore save your energy to do something useful. But do you even have anything useful to do, though? 

“Yeah, you know, I had to take a break,” Oliveria started. “All those university years got me tired.” 

“Well, I was never tired of university , so how can you be?” 

I don’t know, because all you did was create enemies for no absolute reason, and I had to clean up the mess you made, going here and there apologising to everyone and everything. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Hmph!” 

Oliveria could just imagine Sloane’s pout. 

“Well, sorry, but whatever! I need your help now!” At that point she launched into a speech of orders for Oliveria to do, but Oliveria could only think of one word she said. 

“You’ll do all that for me, right? Because I’m your friend! Okay, thank you so much, see ya Olivia!” 

“Wait, wait, Sloane! Don’t hang up yet!”

“What? I haven’t got all the time in the world.”

“You said… you said ‘sorry’.”

“Yeah, so what? You’re the one who’s always nagging me to say sorry to people.”

Oliveria chuckled to herself. “I kinda actually missed you.”

“Ew, don’t make this weird.”

“We’re friends, we have to be weird!”

She hung up and Oliveria laughed some more to herself. “Oh my god, she actually grew up.” With all the tasks Sloane had given her, she could only say goodbye to going back overseas. She never had a job to keep her rooted to the town she lived in. Her parents would never let her have a job anyway. The same went for Sloane.

She put on her coat and decided to walk to Sloane’s. It was a penthouse in a condominium in her neighborhood, which people called the ‘rich people neighborhood’. Seriously, they couldn’t have thought of a better name, could they?

Oliveria also wondered why she stayed friends with such a toxic person as Sloane all these years. It wasn’t just a lot of her now ex-friends who asked the same. Sloane used to have a lot of friends, Oliveria included, before all of them realised how poisonous Sloane was and ditched her, leaving her alone. Except Oliveria, of course. 

It wasn’t like she didn’t have a choice. A lot of time she was asked to come with her friends to leave Sloane alone. There was nothing wrong with that. “An evil witch like her deserves to be alone,” her friends added. But even if it was true, the thought of being alone was enough to scare Oliveria, even if it wasn’t her who was going to be alone. So she stayed by Sloane’s side, while her now ex-friends misunderstood that she was just as evil. 

Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with being friends with an evil person, as long as I don’t encourage her evil, Oliveria thought. It just means I’m extra nice, because I still care about her, even after all she’s done to me. So why do I still feel bad?

Before she could give it another thought, the elevator dinged, notifying her that she had arrived at Sloane’s penthouse. It stops. “It’s me, Oliveria,” she called out into the empty elevator. The doors opened directly to Sloane’s home. It also triggered something in Oliveria that made her completely change her vibe. 

“Geez, Sloane, anyone could just enter this house anytime, where’s your security?” Oliveria scoffed, almost tossing her coat to the clothes hanger. 

“Anyone in the elevator would have to speak to me so I could open the elevator doors and let them in,” Sloane replied, crossing her arms. “I am the security. Isn’t it smart? Smarter than whatever you probably put up for your own abode.”

“Damn, you never let a chance to make people hate you go free, don’t you?”

“Oh, I believe you mean jealousy, Olivia.”

“Unlike you, I’m a narcissistic masochist, so win-win. Plus, my name is Oliveria. And I don’t like to be reminded of my parents’ stupidity.”

“Oh, whatever. Your parents gave you such a dumb name, I might as well correct it. Now help me with these. You’re an alumni, you might as well be kind enough to help one of your juniors.”

How can a name actually be wrong? God never said so, Oliveria thought as she shook her head, smiling. 

After all the “school work” was done, Sloane flipped out her phone and started furiously typing, ignoring the curious looks from Oliveria and making her body turn elsewhere when her senior peeked over her shoulder.

“Oh, oh,” Oliveria sniggered (which, even though she tried her best to not seem so, still sounded like she was awkwardly speaking in another language). “What is this now? What are thy hiding?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is now, because I saw some of it.”

“What kind of dumb retort was that?!”

“I heard it from a dumb person. It was so dumb, I saw what you’re searching into Instagram.”

“-!” 

Sloane made a frantic turn to cover her phone with her body. She failed; her body was too slender and her shoulders weren’t broad enough.

“Why are thy searching for a ‘douchebag who is insulting to women’? I didn’t know you were a masochist too.”

“Ugh, I wouldn’t be that desperate for attention! That’s like, pathetic!”

“Ouch, Sloane.”

“Well, you deserved it.”

“So who’s this new guy?”

“Like I said, none of your business. Your messed up logic does not make any sense in my home.”

“Aw, man. I just wanna help.”

“Yeah, how? Make my logic as twisted as yours?”

“Like maybe by shrinking your search results down to a few people?”

“You don’t even know who I’m talking about! He’s new!”

“I’m deducing that you don’t know who you’re talking about either.”

This time, the infamous Sloane Pout Face had a shade of red as an addition. Is she embarrassed or mad? Oliveria wondered. Well, well, well, the things that happen when I’m gone, huh? 

“Just what happened, Sloane?”

Sloane then proceeded to launch into yet another rant (how does this girl even talk so much? Oliveria wondered), all while keeping her new pout face on the entire time (it made the old pout face seem like a mere BETA version). Apparently, a guy had humiliated her in front of the entire class when it was time for their team to present in front of the crowd. 

“That uggo with all the freaky scars on his face just made everyone laugh at me! I didn’t even get to do anything, he just took over right after that! My marks this semester are damned because of him!”

“So what did you do next?”

“I stormed out and ran to the bathroom, of course!”

That just increased the chance of your marks’ damnation. “Oh.”

“I’m gonna find him on Instagram and spread rumours all about him!”

“Yeah, you are.” 

So it’s like an anime plot now, huh? Oliveria could feel a smirk threatening to escape her lips. So much fake kindness around you that you are attracted to the first thing that insults you. Oh, the cliche! Forget going overseas again, my story is over! It’s time for Sloane’s story to begin, isn’t it?

Oliveria stood up. “Where are you going?” Sloane asked.

Might as well make it more interesting. “We have better chances finding him at the university campus, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes! I’m glad I thought of that! Now let’s go!”

Oliveria noticed her nostrils flaring and her knuckles turning slightly white. Oh, for this once, Oliveria! Don’t get mad at her! 

The girls grabbed their coats and headed into the elevator. Whilst the elevator was going down, it stopped at the 5th floor and guess who stepped out into the elevator with them? Mr. Scarface! Ha ha, this beginning has too many potential plot twists already. 

Oliveria smiled to herself. She was surprised that she was content with staying in England and assisting Sloane, given the fact that she was a thrill-seeker who always wanted to try something new. Nevertheless, she was at peace with stepping off the stage, away from the spotlight so Sloane could shine in her place. 

“What are you smiling about, Olivia?”

“Nothing.”