The three stare through the locked wrought iron gate to the pool and jacuzzi on the other side, the still cyan waters beckoning them in. Zalia frowns, turning to her friends. "What do we do now?"
"I got this," Candy says, bending down to re-tie her Gucci combat boots. Swinging her arms for momentum, she jumps up and grabs onto the top of the gate without the spikes, before pulling herself up and over to the other side.
"Wait, let me try!" Rielle quickly takes off her heels, jumping and grabbing the top of the gate as well. Half her body is on the side of the pool, while her legs are on the other side, when she freezes up. "Guys, I'm stuck!"
Laughing, Candy turns the handle and swings open the gate (with Rielle still clutching for dear life on it), letting them in with a large sweeping motion of her arms.
"Still got it, huh Candy?" Zalia chuckles as they stroll to the lounges by the hot tub, Rielle hopping off and dashing to catch up to them.
Candy smirks as she unlaces her boots and pulls her black dress over her head, winking at them as she gestures to her toned stomach. "I keep fit, both daily and nightly."
"That was something we definitely didn't need to know," Rielle shakes her head, dipping her toes into the now bubbling water.
"Agreed," Zalia laughs as she unstraps her heels, before taking a seat on the concrete and dropping her feet into the water. "Any special someone you do the nightly activities with?" Although this isn't a question Zalia would usually ask (because she honestly doesn't care even a bit about her friends' love lives), tonight is the first time in a long while that she gets to talk with them in person; a little gossip once in a while doesn't hurt.
Candy shrugs, lowering herself into the jacuzzi in her lace undergarment set. "I don't really settle. And how about you, Rielle? Any guys in London that's caught your eye?"
Rielle shakes her head, and like Candy, is completely transparent with her affairs of the heart (or lack thereof). "Nope. I've just been too invested in work, I guess. And other things. But that's irrelevant."
Zalia narrows her eyes suspiciously at her. Rielle isn't one to sleep around for fun unlike Candy, and after the piranha statement, she guesses it isn't far off to say the 'other things' are something she shouldn't be asking about.
"Then how about you, Zalia? How'd you meet Sorin?" Candy asks curiously.
Zalia tilts her head from side to side, mulling over whether to tell them. While their story is fairly amusing and great for parties, it's also extremely complicated. "It's a long story," she says simply, shrugging.
"Well, we've got all night," Rielle sings slowly, laying back onto the maroon fabric of her dress, flaring out on the cement behind her.
Zalia lets out a breath, tilting her head up towards the ebony canvas above her littered with swirls of silver glitter and splashes of crystalline stars. She smiles, remembering the night sky above her now was similar to the one peering through the window when she first met him. Finally, she looks back to them, a reminiscent gleam in her eye. "It all started when he was a rookie private investigator and I was a rookie forensic pathologist."
☄︎. *. ⋆
⋆·˚ ༘ * 🔭
T I M E - 2016
L O C A T I O N - California State Crime Lab
"The heart is missing. Again," Gertrude said, shaking her head in frustration.
"Another case of the Lady Killer? What does the prodigy think of this?" Dean asked, nodding his head to Zalia.
YOU ARE READING
Epilogue
Humor❝oh, but darling. what happens during the epilogue is only the start. ❞ what happens after high school? Zalia, the sweet girl who everyone knew was going to be successful one day, comes to her high school's ten-year reunion as the antisocial and sa...
