Damage control

My conversation with Emma didn’t last much longer than that, and after the two of us finished our boba we went our separate ways. The friendship between Emma and Rachel certainly wasn’t fixed, but it at least seemed that Emma really believed that Rachel was remorseful for her actions

I tried calling my phone again, but just as before it rang and rang with no answer. She had made no attempt to call me back either. I hoped that the reason was something trivial, like her not recognising her own number, but I had my doubts.

I decided to do everything I could to make the next day as convenient for Rachel as I could.

Assuming that a similar occurrence had happened at her household, I apologised profusely to her mum, who seemed appreciative of the gesture but suspicious of its genuineness. In her words, ‘you never apologise for anything.’

I followed that by calling Grace and telling her that I wanted to meet up tomorrow to patch things up. It took a little convincing, but she begrudgingly accepted and we arranged a meeting for the evening. She also seemed surprised at ‘Rachel’s’ sudden change of heart, but I insisted that I had just had a really awful day and unfairly took it out on her.

I also made sure to eat a decently sized dinner and drink a whole bottle of water, since her body felt both starved and dehydrated. Honestly, as if it wasn’t enough that she was destroying my health.

As the day dwindled down, I decided to write down everything I had done for the day and everything she would need to know for the next, in hopes that it would help her get her life back on track. In the note, I told her about the meeting I had arranged with Grace and that she should apologise for taking her frustrations out on her friend.

Front the reactions of Emma, Grace and Rachel’s mum, I got the feeling that ‘sorry’ wasn’t really a word in Rachel’s vocabulary, but hopefully I had driven her to a corner where she had no choice.

With all that said and done, I anxiously climbed into bed, hoping beyond hope that Rachel had calmed down enough for rational thought. With little but worries on my mind, I slowly drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, it was not to my familiar springy bed and grey bedsheets.

In fact, I didn’t wake up to a bed at all.

“Where… am I?” I asked myself, as I lifted my head from the cold hard concrete floor.