The Passion House

VI (Part II)

Stacey’s eyes start to swell as tears slowly fall on her face. I get dumbstruck. Panic starts to arise within me.

Why is she crying?

I quickly get off my seat and go near her, “Are you okay? Why are you crying?” 

Everyone at our table has also turn silent. Can anybody tell me what’s happening?

I hold both of her arms so she can stand up properly. I feel her shake under my hands. She starts sobbing. With every tear from her eyes, I can feel all the weight that she has been carrying against my sudden departure. She can’t stop herself. After a while, she starts to wail like a child who has been lost but has now been finally found by her mom by a large crowd of people.

“I-I thought... T-They s-said...” She can’t seem to finish her sentences in between her cries. She wipes her tears from her hands. Good thing that this is not the reality or else mascara streaks will be all over her face. Melvin Stands up to pat her back. Steven has also dropped himself back to the couch and I see his hands shaking, too. 

Stacey tries to gain back her composure and looks back at me in the eyes.

“I thought you were dead,” she tells as tears continue to fall on her face, “They said you might have killed yourself because of the stress.” Harris reaches out a tissue box towards her. Where did that come from?

Stacey takes out tissues and blows out her nose on them, “you disappeared from the world just like that. People started to murmur about your disappearance. Your fandom tried begging your company to find you but even they didn’t do anything because they are afraid that your mom might sue them if ever they did lose you.”

She’s speaking and crying non-stop that Melvin and I end up assisting her to a chair. I sit beside her as she continues to let her heart out.

That must be why they did not try to contact my mom about what happened.

“We know that writers are emotional people and you treasure what you have written. Those works are like your babies. All they have accused about it must have caused a toll on you. This past month must have been so hard.”

“Hey, Stacey, stop crying,” Harris now tells her.

“Yeah, aren’t you ashamed that you’re crying in front of your favorite author?” Melvin tells her, too. 

I look at Steven and Yohanne, They are also trying to stop themselves from crying. That’s when it hit me.

She slaps her hand on my shoulder and wailed more, “You’re such a jerk for doing that to us!” Melvin and Harris’ eyes widened. I was surprised, too. “Do you know how sad, worried, and frustrated we were?!” and she continues to wail like a child. “Don’t you dare do it again!” I touched the part where she has slapped on. Woah. It has been a while since someone last hit me. That’s how I realize something.

Everything we do affects others. I bet what have happened affected her so much, too. She should have realized that I need someone who I can lean on so she has never shown me this side of her. The sadness of the people who love my books is reflected by this woman in front of me. A complete stranger who my words have touched. 

When Stacey gains her composure, she hugs me. “Don’t ever do it again.” She whispers to my ear, “Do you know how frustrated we have been that we can’t be with you during this hard time? You’ve created a world for us when we have been bored. You made us laugh, love, and feel all of these other emotions with you, with us. But on your hard times, we are not there. You have shut us out. How do you think we would feel? Don’t do it again, okay?” This girl is something.

“Yes, I won’t do it again,” I promise her. I assure her although I’m not sure about it.  And she hugs me back. A surge of emotion comes to me. I’m happy, yet sad at the same time. 

“Let’s have a toast for this night!” I hear Yohanne Shout amidst our crowd. She stands up. Stacey and I let each other go and focus on what Yohanne is trying to say, “Cheers because our loved writer is safe and for more of her future books to come!” She says excitedly. Do I deserve this love?

I take the glass of beer in front of me. My hands start to shake.

What if I disappoint them again?

We clink our glasses. I almost spill my drink.

I don’t deserve this trust.

I fear a tear fall down on my left cheek as I chug the liquor in one shot. “Can I go to the restroom?” I tell them. They fall silent.

“Sure,” Yohanne confirms with a very understanding smile. “It’s that way.” Yohanne refers to the corridor near our right.

“Thank you.” I quickly stand up and trots myself towards there.

My tears immediately fall down once I have entered the restroom.

Do I deserve them?

I close the door behind me and go straight to the sink to wash my face.

I didn’t do anything wrong, right?

I look up and stare at the brick design in front of me.

I get back to my senses. 

There’s no mirror here.

I look around the restroom. The gold tiles, gold sink, and cherry wood cubicles create an aura of elegance. The walls are made from bricks, too. 

But there’s no mirror around here. 

I thought about what Adel told me earlier. 

Find the mirror that shows you sleeping. That’s the exit.

Where could that be? I think to myself. 

I fix myself and go out of the restroom. Outside, I see Harris leaning on the wall with his head bowed down and his arms across his chest.

We can hear the distant party in its full blast right where we are standing. The neon lights touch his face. Why is he here? Did he follow me here?

I plan on walking past him as I do not know how to explain what I feel and why I have gone to the restroom. I also do not know myself. I have just felt that I needed to. However, when I reach his side, he glances up at me. “I know a great place here, come with me.” Then he walks first. He must’ve figured out that I do not want to talk about what has happened. I really appreciate it about him. The fact that he doesn’t want me to feel uncomfortable is really comforting.

“Where to?” 

He looks back at me and smiles. He takes my wrist and makes me follow him. We passes through our table and they did not seem to notice us walking from the restroom. He brings me to a small corridor on the other end of the party hall and at the end of it is a door. He opens it and it shows a white room with a golden spiral staircase.

“Follow me,” He says and I nod. I notice that the overall aura of this hotel feels like a modern castle where I am severely under-dressed in my striped long sleeves and denim pants. We climb the tower-like structure. I figure that it must be the fire exit in the real world. If we are from 2 floors underground then I can see the stairs climb up to the fifth floor. But reaching the top is an easy feat. I didn’t even sweat. Maybe it is because of the fact that this is the Dream.

A white door awaits us at the end of the staircase.

“Are we allowed to come here?”

“Of course,” Harris tells me as he holds on to the golden round doorknob and turns it. It opened to a large dark space. I walk inside it and Woah, we are on the rooftop.

This place just gets better and better. 

Unlike other rooftops, this hotel is really clean, well-lit, and it has some benches and tables on it. Plants grow everywhere and are properly cared for. The staff takes a lot of care to this place, too. I walk towards the railings and I see cars driving on the highway in the distance. I notice that there are also people who are still lining up to enter the hotel.

“Wait, can we see the real world here?” I ask him in shock.

“Yes,” he giggles. “Basically, we can see them but they can’t see us. It’s like we are ghosts here. And the hotel built a private place where we can do whatever we want.” He continues as he sits on one of the benches behind me. I notice that there is some shiny rainbow-thin curtain in front of me from the railing. I look up. It reaches the clouds.

“What’s this?” I ask Harris. I touch it and it feels like a very thin film of bubble where I can’t seem to pass through my fingers. Wherever I touch it, it ripples like water.

“That’s the protective layer in between the real and spirit world.” He tells me. “That is meant to divide the living and the souls. It also helps us to not wander far from our bodies. If you decide to jump from here, it would be no use.”

“So you mean, we are basically dead here?” I ask. Surprisingly, I’m pretty calm about this. Why am I not panicking?

“We are like-dead.” He corrects me. “Our bodies are sleeping in our rooms. The hotel just wants to offer us a safe space where we can do whatever we want without thinking about the consequences in reality.” He gets a cigarette from his pocket, lights it, and puts it in his mouth. I sit beside him. “Do you want to try?” He offers me a cigarette from its carton box.

I’m not a smoker because I grow up with asthma. But his offer is very tempting. Maybe just for this once. I reach out to the cigarette from his mouth and try it out. 

“I’ll just try yours because I know I can’t finish it all.” I inhale the smoke and let it fill my lungs. I feel the menthol helps me clear my mind as I look up to the stars. I never thought that this would feel so refreshing. I can feel how Harris stares at me in silence.

“I didn’t steal her work,” I start and give him back his cigarette, he then takes it too and smokes it out. I rest my back on the back support of the bench, still looking at the stars above us. “You see, Trisha, she has been my best friend for some years now.” I can’t believe it. Am I really opening up to this person? I look at him and he’s also looking at the stars now. I clasp my hands together.

“She has been my brainstorming buddy and she helps me come up with ideas,” I exhale softly and just let myself pour down all the baggage that I have been carrying towards this stranger. It must be true when they say it is easier to talk to people we do not really know. “Little did I know that she has been keeping track of it and publishes the same story under a different name of her own. I found out about it that day.”