Paper Wishes novel Chapter 2

Through the door I heard a soft sigh, and what I thought was a sniffle. Kai was probably crying, too. He was probably in as much pain as I was, and yet here I was, shutting him out because all I wanted was to not feel anymore.

Although I saw him every day, things hadn't been the same since my mom passed away. Over time I'd made small improvements-eventually, I started to return his smile as we passed each other in the hallway or we would engage in small talk about our respective days during dinner before I politely excused myself to my bedroom to wallow in my smallness. Once Death had touched your life, you realized how small and powerless you really were.

I cared about Kai and was grateful that he took me under his care when he could have turned my mom down, and passed the responsibility on to his parents. But lost in my grief, I'd forgotten how to be around other people. I didn't want to be around other people. I didn't see the point of maintaining relationships. In the end, everyone left you in one way or another.

At my best during my worst, I was able to wear a mask that allowed me to get through work, to muddle through forced interactions with people. But at my worst, I realized there was no light in me at all.

Kai smiled at me, and for the first time in a long time, the smile reached his eyes.

"We should go to Heartful first. Hopefully, you'll find something there since you get an employee discount," he said.

Heartful was the small but popular and on-trend boutique that I worked at part-time. I had been lucky enough to get the job thanks to Jezabel, the store manager, who was Kai's classmate. She remembered me being her underclassman in high school, and I remembered her, too. I recalled that she transferred to another school before the end of her senior year.

One day during a slow period at work she shared with me that she had decided to work for a few years after high school instead of going straight to college, much to the disappointment of her first generation Filipino parents who had hoped she would have gone to school for nursing. In the end, it worked out better than she had expected because shortly after she'd started work here, she was surprised to find out that she'd been promoted to store manager. Even though she said she'd been surprised, I wasn't, and I don't think anyone else that knew her would be either.

"No problem." I rolled my eyes. It irritated me a bit when Kai pet me but it had become a bit of an inside joke between us since he was five feet ten inches tall and I was a diminutive five feet even. Ten inches might not seem like such a big difference until you were trying to reach something on the top shelf-which was where I was convinced he hid all the good snacks.

As I set my plate down on the table, I picked up Kai's Galaxy Tab to read through my favorite Asian blogs. I unlocked the screen and discovered that the browser had been left up and he had been searching, 'how to confess your love to someone.' Raising an eyebrow, I put the tablet back exactly where it had been. That had been a very unintentional gross invasion of his privacy and I was embarrassed. I felt my face heat up. I rested my head in my hand before I covered my eyes. Maybe it was time for me to buy my own tablet to avoid the risk of any more unexpected discoveries.

I made a mental note to find out if he needed help talking to the girl that he liked. I had to do something to make up for that embarrassing faux pas. But I mean, really, what were best friends for? I'd be his secret wingman and he'd never be the wiser.

Distracted by this new train of thought, I momentarily forgot about Mr. Dream, who inexplicably gave me the strength to carry on.