24/7

Square One

•~• Nic's POV •~•

"Tell me about him."

As soon as we arrived at his home, I asked everyone to give us a few hours to be by ourselves then I led Jay to the first empty room I could find.

The moment we entered, I helped get him into bed. When I was sure he was settled in, I gave him a soft kiss on the lips, did a quick perimeter check of the house, and coordinated with both our teams for any kind of update on the situation. Satisfied that everything possible was being done to locate and retrieve Seb, I went back to check on Jay.

He was as I left him- sat on the bed, his back to the headboard, eyes blankly staring ahead.

Gingerly, I crawled to sit beside him and put my head on his shoulder.

"Tell me about him, Jay."

It was only after he heard my voice did he stir.

"I met him in college. When my family decided to move to the south, I transferred universities. We were in a few classes together. Same course, same major. We found out that we shared the same interests- gaming, writing code, building computers from the guts out. It wasn't long before we started hanging out a lot."

He took a deep breath then turned to face me.

"What?"

"I wish I met you in college. None of this mess would've happened if—"

"I'm here now. Go on, finish your story. You might not feel it yet but this is good for you."

"Just don't leave me, okay? Dito ka lang."

With my index finger, I traced my name on his chest, exactly over where his heart is, wrapped my arms around him then kissed him on the cheek.

"Ayan, I signed my name over your heart. Sealed with a kiss pa. That's as binding as any legal contract in existence. Sige na, finish your story."

"We were best friends but he was fiercely competitive. I admit, I also thrived on the competition kasi it helped motivate me to do better, push harder. He was good, but I was better. Hindi yun yabang ha? Our grades reflected the work that we put in. I was happy of course, who wouldn't be? In my mind I was competing with someone who challenged me to outdo the expectations I set for myself. Akala ko siya rin. I was wrong."

I started running my fingers up and down his chest, hoping to keep him calm.

"Nic... If you keep doing that I might not be able to finish telling you what happened to me and Juan Carlo."

I playfully slapped his arm when I felt his hand creeping under my top.

"Faulkerson. Now is not the time."

He laughed and the heaviness in my heart lifted.

I'm screwed. I think I love him already.

"... we dated campus girls, as a group or you know, proper couple dates. We didn't really like the same girls so there was no competition when it came to that. Until we were introduced to the most amazing girl. She was perfect. Smart, funny, easy to talk to. Even when I talked about the latest program or system I was coding, she listened to me like I was the most fascinating person in the whole world."

"You loved her."

"I did. He did too. So we made a deal that we won't let our love for one girl affect our friendship."

"But she chose you."

"Yes. In the end, she chose me and that burned him. He didn't let us see how he was affected but his deep-seated jealousy and anger made him lose focus. His grades started slipping. He got cut from the basketball team because he would get into fights during games. He lost his scholarship because he fell behind on everything."

"And he blamed you."

"Yes. Our friends tried to warn me how he liked to talk about hurting me but I brushed them off. I didn't want to believe that my best friend would turn on me. Until the graduation ball."

"Did he hurt you? What did he do?"

He shook his head as loud racking sobs shook his body again.

I let him cry out the pain in his heart. When the sobbing subsided, I cupped his face in my hands and kissed his tears away.

"Baby, finish it out. What happened the day of your graduation ball?"

"He made me kill Vivienne."

*•*•*

Author's note: It took me a while to finish writing this chapter because I kept getting stuck. So... I killed someone. Hopefully that'll be enough to get me unstuck.

🤞🏻😶