Chapter 21: Bar Stranger

Chapter 21: Bar Stranger
Time skipped to the next day
Music was disturbingly popping loud into her eardrums when she walked in a red high heels and heaved her weight onto the first set of comfortable seats well arranged in a linear order. She was wearing her favorite strapless red dress that stopped to her thighs, turning her head like an owl to see that the bar was quite scanty and dim lights shone everywhere. She glanced at the wrists watch and saw the time ticked to 4:57pm.
Waiting for Jalan to show up so she could see the face of the pastel bitch trying to ruin her marriage and hopefully pull out at least a quarter of her hair, Anna caught so many male eyes giving her the wrong attention. The gold ring was still on her finger_ same ring which Jalan had said they exchanged at their wedding which she never even remembered.
Jalan failed to show her a single photo of their wedding, claiming that they all got burnt in a case of Arson back at their old neighborhood.
“What about a soft copy?” She’d asked him back then but he’d replied with this ridiculous statement “Everything burned down including our cell phones”.
As stupid and lame of an excuse, she needed to pretend to believe him to have the courage to make things work out. To make her marriage work out. She wanted to blindly trust him even when he chose to make a fool out of her by creating a barrier of disturbing secrets between them. Now that she is here, she will patiently wait to see whoever was the piece of shit called “Sino”.
“Yo. Babe. Wanna glide your hips on me?” She barely heard the foolish looking boy asked her _ considering the loud music _ though she still gave him her signature dirty glare and he instantly spun himself around in a hundred and eighty one degree. His peers clustered together like bunch of bananas busted into an annoying hysterical laughter. She saw them when she walked in and half the stares she was receiving mostly came from the group of teenage looking faces. None of them looked like he’d cross the bridge of 20. They have a lot to learn under their mommy’s care.
Anna turned to her watch again but this time, the time majestically ticked to 5:07pm. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she quickly turned and saw another uninvited guest_ quite older than the first one whom she had chased away _ Could probably be in his mid 20’s. He looked like a handsome Japanese lord with tattoos peeking out through the collar of his shirt.
But why is his beautiful mono-lid eyes staring at her with a shocking expression? Does she looked like his dead girlfriend or something? Anna figured either that or he probably knew her in the past.
“Excuse me” She pushed his hand down from her shoulder “You seem to wonder who I am?” She raised her voice to make sure the guy heard and understood her question.
“Park Anna Ae Ra’s doppelgänger” She heard him loudly blurted out an unprepared response. His small eyes now widening pass the size of a half coin.
“Excuse me again... Mr. I am no one’s doppelgänger... I mean yes, my name is also Anna. Anna Colton by the way. And maybe I look like someone you knew before but you shouldn’t go around calling people doppelgängers. That is a bad habit” Anna corrected him louder.
“Park Anna Ae Ra was a classmate of mine. But she died 2 years ago... I’m just not convinced that she died. And my heart tells me you’re the one... Don’t you remember Sino Yamato? Your bully at Rigel Summer?” The guy waited for her to reply.
The Rigel sounded familiar to Anna and she fell silent, batted her eye lashes into a deep thought.
“Anna! The fuck are you doing here?” Someone yelled her name again. A very familiar voice which she can easily identify with even in a slumber.
Jalan skipped through seats and zigzagged his legs towards Anna and quickly pulled all of her to his chest “Sino. Stay right here. I’m coming back to explain this” He raised his voice to address Sino and then heaved the slim woman up into his broad arms buried underneath a black shirt while she clutched on her purse tightly.
“Where are we going?” She demanded in an air kick.
“Shut the fuck up idiot”
Anna kept silent, embarrassed from the eyes of the teenage group staring at her while she get carried away like a diaper wearing baby.
Jalan shove her into the back seat and addressed Ambrose to take her straight home.
“Who was that? I’m not going until you tell me something convincing” She held onto Jalan’s collar and stopped him from moving out of the interior “No more lies. I am so tired of your lies... Who was that guy you called Sino?”
“Don’t be stubborn and leave. You’re becoming a headache” He yanked her hands off his collar and speedily slammed the door shut.
The ride to La Rampa was creepy silent since Ambrose was not as nosy as Patrick who would have probably asked “Do you need some air? Should I park over for a minute Mrs Giovanni?” And Anna now realized that she’d have appreciated if it were Patrick driving her instead as he was much humanly than Ambrose _ the caricature of Roman Ambrose _ Much creepier than his name. He’d lurk behind like a serial killer in the darkness and follow her with his shadows only to take pictures of her and send them all to Jalan Marco.
When they arrived home, Anna went straight to her room and plopped into the cozy bed. Her head badly ached because of loud music. She’d hated every loud sound as they make her want to throw up. Rest turned into a slumber as Anna drifted to sleep.
Her phone started ringing inside her purse and summoned her to reality. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, roughly opened the purse and pulled out the phone, swiping and placing it to her ears.
“I’m at your front door” Robin’s voice came through
“Urrr... Robin? How are you doing? Sorry am out to spend the night at my friend’s house. Don’t wait for me at home” She blew a white lie to make Robin go away.
“So when are we meeting again?”
“Tomorrow. I will text you the time and place by tomorrow”
“Alright”
Robin hung up first and she sigh out in relief. Her wrist hurt a bit because she slept with her wristwatch. She thought about Jalan as she stared at the watch and it was already past 8pm. She scrolled through her call logs and tapped on Jalan’s number.
Line busy.
She ended the call and carefully took off her wrist watch and slide out of the bed, advancing to the bathroom.
Anna looked at her face in the oval mirror and noticed that the scar above her left eyebrow was beginning to naturally fade out. A scar which she does not remember how she got it _ though Jalan still made up his unconvincing stories about it.
For a moment, she recalled what happened at the bar again and Sino’s face flashed through her memory _ a strange memory of the Japanese guy holding her in an embrace. Anna quickly splashed water into her eyes. Ewww! What is wrong with her head? Is her memory becoming distorted with dirty thoughts and imaginations? When has she become a pervert?
Though it felt as if it were real for that moment. Could she be the same classmate Park Anna Ae Ra who the Japanese guy said she had died two years ago? Was that why Jalan said he was going to explain something to the guy Sino? Could it be that Jalan is... She gasped out loudly and her body shook in horror.