Way Back Into Love (Essie)

She feigned a smile and swam as far away from him as possible.

He stared at her receding figure with his unblinking eyes. The waves danced but he didn't stir. He was in a daze and not even tsunami could placate him.

As soon as Essie was ashore, she began to look around for Mandy. Luckily, she didn't have to search long. Mandy was caught sitting on the beach chair, with her head bowed down.

"Mandy, you misunderstood. There is nothing going on between the two of us," Essie explained in a hurry.

Mandy suddenly stood up from her chair, raised her hand and slapped her across her face. Writhing with rage, she said, "You are the most despicable person, Essie. You pretended to help me whereas behind my back you were trying to seduce him! You cheating bitch. Why did you do this to me? Did you want to prove that you are better than me? All these years, I considered you my best friend. And look what you did to me!"

In spite of the burning pain on her face, Essie grabbed Mandy's shoulder and said, "Mandy, we have played together since childhood. Don't you know who I am? If I really wanted to be with him, I would have gone ahead and done it. Why on earth would I give you hope and pull you into this? No! This isn't true. And about what happened earlier, he did it with an intention to piss you off. Guess what? It worked! You were stupid enough to fall for it."

"Why did he want to piss me off?" Mandy asked in between her sobs. If he had done it just to anger her then it meant he hated her with a passion!

breath. She picked up the fruit juice from the table and handed it over. "I am not sure why he is doing it. Perhaps

opened the bottle of juice and took a sip. Still

who I like?" Giving Mandy a glare, Essie dragged her to sit on the

the eyes of her bestie, Zac was a poor hobo. How

asked, finally asking the

silly of me to ask him such a question. I am not his type," she said with a shrug. Although Zac didn't give her an answer, she took it for a no. That's why it was

you? How dare you!" Mandy poked her forehead, but she was in a much better mood. Knowing that Zac

help us avoid misunderstandings." Essie smiled again. She hoped

agreed with her. If he indeed didn't like Essie, it meant she stood a

each other. They didn't realize that Zac was standing not far away from them and listening to the whole conversation. He was annoyed at

her. How

Zac was quite disturbed.