It's Kinda Complicated

20. Media-appearance catastrophe

Whoever said, 'everything happens for a reason' needs to take one good look at me right now. And then I am sure they will never say those words in that order again.

Here I am on a working day, sitting on my couch, in my apartment, eating popcorn and watching... any guesses?

News.

I am looking at a brown-long haired girl, clad in a blue T-shirt, which reads 'I am too good to be true' (snort), and jeans giving the camera as many weird expressions as possible. She is trying to escape from the flashing white light of the cameras but she is trapped. Her face is as red as a tomato. There are people shouting something and her eyes are about the size of dinosaur's eggs. Now she is looking up at the sky and muttering something.

And that something is 'you've got to be kidding me'.

How do I know that? I am the monkey dancing before the cameras.

"Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?" I shout expecting some sort of response from the person far above, who I am sure, is looking at me right now and is being entertained.

The fake-nasal voiced-bamboo sized-perfectly dressed-gorilla aka the host is yapping about how Ryan and his lover met at their secret hide out to discuss about their future.

"Our sources tell us that the couple had known each other for a few years now and have been official ever since Riya joined VR Holdings. A very reliable source also informed us that the duo is so cute together and fight like 'old married couple'. We did a little digging have a look at what we found..."

And there were pictures of Ryan and me at the dinner party. Few pictures from months before, where the two of us were standing behind a serious looking crowd and I was laughing at Ryan's comments on the speaker.

One word that describes my life right now: MESS.

I have been ignoring all calls and messages from my parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, blood relations, friends, nosy neighbors and my watchman. Sasha was still diving around in some ocean water near a faraway island and Mini just sent me one sentenced message which read:

'Are you alright?'

The minute my brain understood the message it came up with a well-crafted snarky essay of a reply but I deleted the entire paragraph and just sent 'S'. After that she went back to being AWOL. In my head there were different possibilities for her disappearance (the last time I saw or talked to her was on the night of the dinner) but the one possibility that dominated the rest was that she has been dragged into the life in darkness by her prince of the shadows.

I switched off the TV, lifted myself from the sofa after battling with my comforter and walked to the kitchen to refill my bowl of popcorn. I placed some popcorn in the microwave and leaned on the kitchen counter and was sucked into oblivion.

My head ached and my eyes pricked, a lump formed in my throat and I was swallowing a lot. A small traitorous tear drop managed to break free from my left eye. The eye that held the tear captive for years. The saline liquid slowly crawled down my face near my lips and some more tears broke free, from the clutches of my eyelids and then they just kept coming.