Mona Liza Lies

11 | Fin-tastic

"Disha. Disha! Disha!" Mona shrieked as loud as she could, following the short-haired girl in the vast crowd of students.

It wasn't hard to find her. Instagram made stalking easier. All Mona had to do was see if there's a Disha her late friend was following and yes, there she was. She saw the name of her high school in her bio and all she had to do was wait outside her school till the last bell rang. On second thoughts, Mona figured that might have been a bit creepy.

Once Disha stopped to see who was chanting her name, she seemed surprised — no — happy to see Mona.

Mona wondered for a second if she had a twin. Surely Disha won't smile so wide just to see her? She didn't even know Disha could smile.

"You found me, thank God." She asked her friends to keep walking and they did, leaving her and Mona alone in confused silence.

"Where's the dude in the hat?" She asked after two seconds, sounding disappointed. "Note that I'm not asking about Dennis because yes, I'm delighted he's not with you."

"Dennis is actually rather sweet," Mona said defensively. "He gave me a bunch of flowers once when I lost a game against him, not that it mattered, but he's nice—"

"If I wanted to know a cheesy love story, I'd have paid for Netflix." Disha interrupted. "We need to talk about Torrin."

Mona was taken aback. "I'm not in love with him."

"Yes, because Torrin is my boyfriend."

"You know I meant Dennis." Mona sighed. "I'm not in love with him. He's literally Liza's boyfriend," she paused, "ex? — uhm — non-dead partner?"

"What I'm hearing is that you're not in love with him because he's Liza's ex," Disha smirked. "Which means that's the only hurdle there is. You are interested in him."

"That's not what I meant." Mona's heart started racing. Just the thought of Dennis made her feel guilty to no end. 

She would be lying if she said she hadn't thought of Dennis in any other way than as friends. When they first met, Mona had said, "Liz, I'm proud of you. He's hotter than the last jerk."

Dennis had laughed and the three of them spent the day with effortless conversations, and once or twice, Mona may or may not have felt a pang of jealousy when she saw how caring he was to her friend. He was bad at jokes, but bad in a way you had to laugh at his efforts.

She remembered being caught after staring at him for too long. Liza had came back from the kitchen so she didn't have to come up with a stupid excuse like I'm sorry there was a fly near your gorgeous, gorgeous green eyes.

Mona and Dennis became closer from there. Perhaps not the best of friends, but friends nonetheless. She couldn't have been more grateful because when Liza died, she didn't have to deal with the pain alone. She knew there was someone else who knew what it was like to lose a big part of your life.

"Earth to Mona," Disha snapped her fingers, and Mona appeared startled. She was lost in new, unfamiliar memories that she obviously didn't hear what Disha was going on about.

"Come again?"

"I said I asked Torrin who sold him drugs and he appeared to dodge the topic—"

"He got hesitant to tell you who sold him illegal and dangerous narcotics? Wow, I wonder why."

"—shut up. I know him. It's got me thinking, what if it's one of his friends?"

Mona's mouth fell open slightly. "You think that's the same person who gave Liza the pills?"