Reel or Real

Chapter 33

The day after, my mind has been consumed by the woman named Jaye and the little girl named Jasmine Evans that it almost made me forget about our problems with Austin.

Almost.

But we had decided to give Austin some time and to not call him, so I just decided that, since I wasn't able to bring some flowers to Jasmine, I would do it today. After school, none of us really was in the mood for hanging out so, after few minutes of meeting outside, all of us had parted ways.

Now, here I am again walking toward the tomb of 5-year-old Jasmine.

When I saw a quite familiar figure standing in front of it again, I almost dropped the flowers that I was holding.

Austin?

I ran towards him, almost tripping on an overgrown grass while doing so, but fortunately managed to catch myself before I face planted on the ground.

"Austin?" I grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around. Immediately, my face twisted in a frown.

"Uh, no, it's still Jaye" she replied. It's too late to hide my disappointment now, but I still gave her a small smile.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were a friend of mine when I saw your back" I apologized, but she just nodded and faced the tomb again. It's still bright outside, but I still couldn't see her face because of the face mask and the sunglasses that were obscuring my view of it. I wanted to ask her about it, but I'm afraid that I'm crossing a boundary and piss her off. We're still, practically, strangers, after all.

"You're here again" she noted as I placed the flowers down. Some of the flowers from last night were gone; I'm guessing Jaye threw away the ones that were wilting, so there was enough space to put the flowers I bought in.

"I promised her I would bring her flowers since I couldn't bring some yesterday" I shrugged, still down on my knees.

"Why?" her question made me look up at her.

Yeah, Mary, why?

I smiled up at her, this smile a little bit wider than the previous one that I gave her, and stood up on my feet again.

"Honestly, I don't know. It just felt right, you know? And I keep feeling this need to do so." I paused and looked up at her again for a brief moment. "When... I saw her picture at the news I couldn't stop looking at it, which was why I went here yesterday at night. I wanted to see her" I bent down and touched the top of Jasmine's tomb.

"Thank you" I barely heard her when she whispered those words. Before I could reply, she was speaking again. "She loved meeting new people and making them their friends, she also loved making everyone smile" at the end of her sentence I could hear her voice starting to crack, but she just coughed it away and continued. "She's very matured for her age, I know a lot of people say that about their child or their siblings, but she really is. She didn't complain when we barely had anything, she didn't complain when I was barely there for her because of my mom and I's jobs, she didn't complain when we had to move to a whole different country" then silence came.

"I have no doubt that she's a very sweet child" I input.

"She's more than that – was more than that. Now she's just... gone"

I didn't know what to say anymore after that. I also didn't know how long we stood there; I just know that it became slightly windy since I arrived. The wind was cold against my skin, so I didn't mind that we were practically bathing in the sun. I could barely feel the heat.

"Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if it's too personal, I would understand"

I was hesitant, but curiosity is getting the best of me and it gave me the courage to utter out those words. I was hopeful, but not expectant, though her agreeing to it didn't really come as a shock. For some reason, I just felt that she would.