The Experiment 2: The Journey

Good Luck, JC

It was past 6PM when Christine stepped into the apartment complex where her cousins lived. Her original plan was to go to JC's sister first and then have her invite him over so she could see him. She had a lot to say, a lot to tell him. She wasn't done, and she wasn't going to let him shove her away just like that.

She found Giselle's unit and she knocked on the door. She heard quick footsteps and it opened after just a few seconds.

"Christine!" Giselle said happily when she saw her.

"Hey, cuz!" Christine said, matching her cousin's enthusiasm. The two of them were pretty close before Giselle got pregnant and had her kid, and then she had to become more serious about life, being a single mother and all. Since then, she couldn't spend much time with Christine anymore. They saw each other again December of last year, when Christine was trying to help JC, but it had been just a quick chat.

"Come in, please. I'm sorry the place is a mess. Tommy has just slept and I'm just starting to clean up the place."

"He sleeps early, huh?"

"Rarely," Giselle replied, rolling her eyes. "But he spent the whole afternoon at a playground with his baby sitter, so after the early dinner we had, he was just knocked out."

Christine grinned, unsure of what to say. She never really liked kids.

"So, what brings you here?" Giselle asked as she removed the toys that have scattered on the living room floor and on the small couch.

"Just catching up... and I don't have stuff to do," she answered. "This isn't my favorite time of the day. It's when it gets lonely. I get off from work and head straight home with really nothing to do, no one to talk to."

Giselle looked at her in the middle of preparing some drinks. "You're single?"

"As single as anyone could get."

"That's kinda hard to believe," Giselle said, laughing. "Christine Colins, you were never single. You always had a guy wrapped around those pretty fingers of yours, and then another one on the side."

"Ugh, don't remind me," Christine said, grimacing.

"Seriously, what happened? I remember the guy you were with some time ago. The hot guy from your office? I actually thought you two were getting serious. He looked real smitten, couldn't take his eyes off of you."

"He was, yeah, a few years ago... but I don't really want to talk about that," Christine said, swallowing hard and waving her hand to dismiss the subject. "I actually came here to check on JC. I helped him get that job at Hearst and I was wondering why he resigned. I was kinda hoping he'd let me help him find another one but it's too hard to reach him nowadays."

"Yea, he's quite busy helping out at dad's junk shop, plus he's finalizing some stuff for his first exhibit Saturday next week," Giselle said. "I'm actually excited for him. He's hoping someone important can see his works and offer him a permanent job."

Christine scoffed, unable to help herself. "His works have to be really good for him to capture that kind of attention," she said, rolling her eyes.

"But they are," Giselle said quite defensively. "His works are exquisite. He has a real talent in this kind of thing and I'm so proud of him. He actually showed me one of his collections. It contains some stolen and candid shots of a girl he's, I dunno, maybe currently obsessed with. I'm not really sure, he won't tell me. But he had a whole folder of her pictures and they were all so beautiful. She's so beautiful."

Christine's eyebrows shot up as she stared at her cousin. "Stolen shots of a girl?"

"Yes!" Giselle replied, gushing. "And he was able to capture her beauty in all angles, it's actually amazing. If I were a guy, I'd fall for that girl too. There's just something about her that's so endearing... mesmerizing, and JC was able to capture that wonderfully in all his shots."