When I look back to the onset of summer, it feels nothing less than a snippet of my past life. A grimy scale now separates that time with the current, and the stark difference between the before and after is clearly visible. Maybe that's how we will all come to address that sun streaked period now. Before Kylie went missing. Before Emma and I broke up. Before I won a bet whose stakes depended on toying with my best friend's emotions... Mia.

***

2nd April 2007

My hands were typing and retyping, but nothing seemed good enough. I was running out of creative apologies by that point.

Meanwhile, she didn't pay any attention to my dilemma and kept gobbling on her caramel almond cupcakes. Ironically, it was my brilliant idea to bribe her with a sugary treat to help me out of my near daily woes.

"Do you think she will call me? She hasn't even responded to my texts," I sighed, visibly devastated.

I crashed at Mia's house, dumping the nervous energy bubbling within me after yet another argument with Emma. It wasn't even over anything valid this time around. She got upset because I forgot to take notes for her in class, when she couldn't make it. It's a big deal if I did that, since I don't even bother penning down notes for myself. But I can agree to some extent that it is my fault.

"Of course she hasn't, you are reeking of desperation. It's not the first time anyway, I can bet that within a week, both of you will cling to one another like always," Mia rolled her eyes.

"Someone's jealous, huh?" She choked on a piece of almond the very next second, failing to cover up the blush on her cheeks. One of the many times that I acknowledged how beautiful she is.

"Believe me, I don't need to." She scoffed, dumping the now empty box of cupcakes away on the couch. Mia couldn't stay soft for any longer than five seconds. It's only a matter of time before she goes back to her 'I don't give a fuck' attitude.

"Yeah, whatever you say. Why are you here anyway? I vaguely remember you telling me, your parents were supposed to come tonight?"

"Oh, they did come. It was fantastic, our happy  little happy reunion. I didn't even bother to take anything to subtle away their presence, because they were right over my head. All the damn time," she pinched her temple and slumped down on the jute carpet. Almost as if a rock had been dropped down upon her.

I knew how she had a tough relationship with her parents, but this seemed really bad. She usually avoided delving much on that topic, so I had no clue what exactly might have triggered her this time. Not that I hadn't tried bringing it up in intervals, but that conversation didn't end up very well.

"I was thinking..." her phone chimed in, interrupting my already poor attempt.

"Wait, I am getting a call from hell," She picked it up, simultaneously toying around with the bare threads of her tattered jeans. "Hello... yeah, I just picked it up... no, there aren't any more calls. But listen," a beeping sound flew past the confines of her flip phone. She put it down swiftly and left the sight within a snap of fingers.

"Mia? Hey, what happened?" I followed her quick footsteps up the creaky stairs of her apartment. She hurried towards the bathroom and locked herself in before I could reach for the knob. "Mia, please talk to me."

"Go away, Archie. I need to be alone... all by myself."

I obliged, but I didn't want her to be alone. I could tell it had something do with her parents and probably their constant provoking, which often forced her to take such actions. I knelt down with my back on the door, just wanting to be there for her. What if she cried? I wouldn't even know, what with the leaky shower tap and the soundproofing of these old ass Greenwich apartments. The thought baffled me, and more so when I could actually get a hang of what was happening inside.

It hurt me a little every time the door shivered– the thumping of her feet letting it rattle. Her grey eyes would've faintly turn red at this point, and she might try to give herself slight burns with a cigarette butt to keep from breaking down. A ritual for all the times something went wrong.

"You're here, Arch?" I heard a faint voice behind the daisy white door.

"I'm not leaving you, Mia," I responded back, hoping for her to let me in.

A few brutal minutes went by, and I finally heard the click of the knob turning. I quickly got up, scrambling my way inside to find her sprawled on the emerald tiles that reeked of detergent. Her face was down in her knees, and her body was slightly trembling– almost looking feverish. I knelt down on the floor beside, letting her know I was there. That I always will be.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked, her voice muffled, and her head raising immediately.

She'd caught me on spot. "Because someday when I will be lying on the floor in a loop, suffering from immense pain, and believe me it will happen," I chuckled. "You will be there for me right?"

"I don't know, I might have commitments. But I guess I could try," she replied with a tight lipped smile, one that reached the caramel of her eyes. Both of us shuffled closer, ignorant of the soppy tiles, as I engulfed her smallish arms into a hug. She smelt of strawberries and cigarettes, something I could dangerously get used to.

Exhaling a heavy breath, which she seemed to have been holding in for a while, her head found its way to my chest. We stayed intact, wrapped up under the basin, embracing each other and the silence around.

"Back in Seattle," she nervously spoke. "I was young  and I pretty much blamed myself for everything. Every conflict between my parents, all the mess in our extended family, it all came pointing at my quirks, my tantrums... the onset of my rebel phase. And it was more times than I could count on my fingers that I found myself at the receiving end of those disputes.

They constantly yelled, sometimes even slapped me for saying... just anything. I never understood where I went wrong, so I started filtering my words for my own good. It eventually came to a point where I stopped speaking at all. I didn't speak to my parents, I didn't have any friends. The only person there for me, was me."

She stared blankly into the pale walls in front of us, gulping at the recollections. I pulled her closer, reminding that she didn't need to face it alone anymore.

"It never truly left me, though. The hanging fear that one of my parents will screw up and I would have to take the brunt. Like this one time, when we went shopping to mall for my eleventh birthday. It was all going surprisingly well until a feud broke out between my parents. My mother must've turned furious and walked away, while I stood there grasping a bunch of ballerina dresses in my freakishly tiny arms. My father left me alone as well, and went after my mother. What I did in the midst of this chaos? I went running to the dressing room and muffled my sobs, because making a scene was something I despised back then too.

I even developed insomnia during those years, and it just kept getting worse from there on. It was just a while after that I started doing drugs. This was around the time my parents decided to get separated for the third time in the same year. Ideally, I should have been relieved, but I couldn't force a smile for my life.

The drugs helped ease my pain away, and as a fourteen year old I didn't know any better. It became a convenient outlet for me to dump all my feelings in," she ducked her face further inside the grasp of my arms, while her feet struggled to stay still on the cold floor.

My hand inadvertently slipped off her arm, while I took in her ugly confessions. Until now, all I knew about her addiction was that she started taking drugs during high school under the typical peer pressure, and it soon turned into an addiction. I had no idea that the truth was farther away than any of us could fathom.

"Now when I have moved away, it isn't any better than before. All those years messed me up so bad, I can't think of repairing myself now. I want to, but the process... it just seems so exhausting." She traced the awry lines of her palm, faltering away before she reached the ends. "My childhood is a place I would never want to go back to. I don't know what have I done to deserve those scars."

"You don't deserve any of that, Mia," I pulled back her loose curls from her puffy eyes.

I was happy that she opened up to me, but not about how she had to face it all alone. I knew there was a reason behind her relapses and her closeted nature, that's more than the influence of a couple of users. I just hadn't expected them to be so deep rooted.

A queer silence followed afterwards, just the sound of an insignificant water leak and that of rustling leaves reaching our ears.

Back when I wasn't dating Emma, I often wondered about how would a date with Mia go. It didn't involve any romantic dinners or walks by the park, but it certainly didn't involve us sitting together in the bathroom. Not that I am implying this situation as a date. This isn't even  remotely close to one.

"I am not discriminating against the lavender fragrance of the air freshner in here, but I think we should head out now," she whispered, pulling away and leaving me with an ugly frown.

We barely even stood back on our feet, when the lights went off. The surroundings turned pitch black, and all that was left behind was a silver glimmer of light reflecting off the taps. Before I could say anything, I felt Mia squeal, grabbing hold of my arms while digging her nails in the fabric of my jacket.

"Get the lights back on, please get them back on," she chanted whilst practically assaulting me with her death grip.

"I take that you're scared of the dark?"

"Yes, I am very scared. As a matter fact, I am horribly frightened by the dark. Now will you get the fucking lights back on?"

That's her two meth balls feisty. "We might've pressed a switch," I aimlessly moved my hands around to find one. "Mia? I know you'd claw me if I pull away, but I can barely move my arms by an inch here."

She nodded and slowly drifted away, but accidentally hit the faucet while doing so. Before we could comprehend what'd happened, the force of the running water drenched us both completely. The cloth of my linen shirt was now sticking to my body, but the water mercilessly continued to run through places it really shouldn't have.

I tried clearing my cluttered vision, and that could have been another of the many mistakes I made that night.

I witnessed Mia, calmly standing under the shower, her eyes looking into mine with an unreadable look. She seemed unfazed by the pricking water droplets, which washed away her mascara but failed to get the cupcake frosting on the corner of her lips. If that wasn't enough of a clue of how close we were in proximity, I could observe her eyes turning redder by the second.

"Are those tears?" I asked, stepping further closer to confirm my doubts.

"No, it's just the water," she said, deadpanned. "Doesn't it feel so soothing when the icy water touches your skin? It relieves all pain with it's numbing nature. That's one of the reasons why I loved rains as a child... I still do actually."

"Well, I never really liked rains. All the puddles and the mud made it difficult to even walk on the streets. The water didn't wash away anything, but made everything all the more dirt." I shuddered at the vivid memories of murk climbing it's way to my knees on my way to sixth grade football.

"It all depends on how you see it. I focus more on the life giving part, than the dirt spreading phenomena," she gathered pools of water within her palms, looking at them with utmost curiosity.

"We are really having this conversation here?" I pulled my hair back, trying to be oblivious to the strange serenity of this experience.

"We are talking about rains while almost experiencing it. You have a better topic to fit the situation?"

"No, I mean why are we standing here, under the shower?" I addressed the elephant, despite my thundering heartbeats saying otherwise.

"I'm not the one keeping you here, you can leave if you want to," her cold breaths tortured me further.

"That's the thing, I don't want to," I might as well have yelled, but it didn't register any louder than a whisper amidst the spatter on the bathroom floor.

"For some twisted reason, I want to stand here with you, squeezing all this excess water of the sleeves of my shirt. I mean, come on, I know more about you than my own family, even the things you don't necessarily tell me. It doesn't bother me so much when I lose a game, but it kills me when you've had a slightly bad day. I don't know why, but I want you to open up to me and share anything that troubles you, because..." I was silenced from speaking any further, barely comprehending how her palm sealed my mouth shut.

She didn't say anything back, making me a nervous wreck. "Did I say something?" My voice tore into shreds as she began trailing my lips with a lazy finger.

She quietly steeped on her heels, bringing her icy lips to mine. I stood in place, restrained by the clutches of shock and hesitation until the momentum took over. It would've been safe to say that I had lost sense of everything around. Everything but the way her lips moved against mine, and how I felt shock waves course past my freezing body as my hand rested on her cheek.

Water puddling at our feet, scaling darkness blinding away any scope of realisation, and even the sound of my phone chiming with constant notifications. Nothing really mattered anymore.

It was a feeling that could never get old, that couldn't be placed. It wasn't just plain infatuation, but it also wasn't something as heavy as love. It stood somewhere in the middle, offering just enough amount of comfort and intoxication to cling on for a lifetime. Fortunately, it was too good to be true.

The lights came back on, giving me the cue to come back to reality. It took a fair amount of time for my eyes to get used to the sudden brightness, but they gradually got accustomed to it.

I found that she was standing far away from me, her eyes still shut as she enjoyed the pouring water. Meanwhile I came to terms with my sudden hallucination. None of this happened, did it? The combination of closed quarters and rising tensions doesn't suit me, something I should have picked on that day.

Even though her eyes were glued shut, the stiffness of her shoulders kept rising with the count of my breaths. Her eyelids flickered furiously, as if she was afraid to come back to the real world, one where tear stains can't mask behind the foliage of dark.

She did though, and her first reaction was realising the lack of distance between the both of us. "Get back, Archie. This isn't going to happen again." Her words jabbed a part of myself, I didn't even knew needed healing.

I hesitantly stepped back. I wouldn't blame her though, it was a very sick move on my part. All I can do is find solace in the fact that she at remembers it at all. "I almost forgot about it." A white lie that I was hoping would work.

Until she saw right through it. "You wouldn't forget, and I quote, your biggest mistake ever. Don't worry, it doesn't bother me anymore. Just remember for your sake, this mistake won't be repeating itself ever again."

She turned the faucet and stormed off as fast as the slippery tiles of the bathroom would allow her to. While I stood there all flustered and overwhelmed. I felt what she must have, when I said those words. I felt rejected– which should have been enough of an indication to stop, but instead I took it upon as a challenge.

I walked over to the stained mirror hung on the wall beside and looked at my dejected face. I tried to turn the frown into a smug smile, playing out how it would go if we won after all. I convinced myself that it needed to be done, that I couldn't go off the track anymore.

"I cannot lose this, not after everything that has went down. It has to happen Mia, there's a lot on stake here."