Chapter 73: Relationship Advice
Luna received her brother's text and felt extremely annoyed. She had just gotten home and did not have any of the equipment she needed. Gritting her teeth, she got back into her car and headed back to the lab. Because this was a confidential matter, she did not want to have anyone else bring it to her, lest it cause unnecessary attention. There was no rational or logical reason for any person to need a polygraph machine, unless of course they were conducting an interrogation.
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When Luna walked into the Lab, Doctor Bell was still working. As if he could sense her presence, he looked up and smiled. Luna's heart beat rapidly and she involuntarily took a step back. He furrowed his brows and got up to walk over to her instead. The last time Luna had seen Doctor Bell was that day when she overheard a man and woman in his workspace. Her thoughts at the time were written all over her face and she had been avoiding him since. Doctor Bell stood in front of her and he put his hand on her shoulder.
"Are you really okay?" he asked. Shrugging off his hand Luna nodded. Tavin was not surprised by her reaction, she seemed to have developed an aversion to being touched by him. He decided to shift the awkward atmosphere with conversation. "Your brother came by today."
"Really? He had not mentioned it to me. What did he want?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing, he just needed some relationship advice."
"Relationship advice?" Luna thought she heard wrong.
"Are you sure it was my brother who came?"
"Yup, I'm sure." Doctor Bell wore a smug smile on his face when he answered. He was satisfied with the reaction he was getting. Any sort of conversation with Luna was good conversation as far as he was concerned.
"What kind of relationship advice did he want?" Luna asked.
"I think he wanted to make sure he was actually in love with that girl you used to be friends with," He said. Luna did not know that Doctor Bell was taking a shot in the dark. Her expression changed and Doctor Bell thought he guessed correctly.
"What did you tell him?" she asked.
"I told him the truth. He seems to like her a lot." Luna was still at a loss. Why would her brother take relationship advice from a two-timing jerk? But thinking about it, she had not told him about what happened between herself and Doctor Bell. Also, her brother was in uncharted territory. Maybe someone who dabbled with two women was the best person to answer his questions.
Still, Luna was skeptical. Did her brother love Lisa? Maybe she had misunderstood his intentions? Maybe he was waiting for the right moment to confess to Lisa? Luna shoved her questions to the side; she had already promised her brother that she would not get involved with his relationship. She would stick to her original plan of silently supporting Lisa as a friend. The equipment Luna came for was heavy and she had only come into this part of the lab to borrow a trolley. Without further delay, she said goodnight to Doctor Bell and pushed the cart through the doors.
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With the equipment loaded onto the trolley, Luna was ready to head to her car, but as luck would have it; Doctor Bell was also heading out at the same time. Their eyes met and she cursed under her breath. He jogged up to her and without a word took the cart from her.
"What do you need this for?" He asked.
"A study I am working on for improvements," Luna lied.
"Hasn't this thing already been improved to 98% accuracy?" Luna did not reply. She did not like to lie and was bad at it. Instead she remained quiet. "
Luna, how long have we been friends?" The question hit her a little harder than she expected. In her mind, they had been more than friends at one point.
"I don't remember, I think I met you when I was 18," she answered, and Doctor Bell scoffed. She was a terrible liar.
"That's six years of friendship, why don't you call me Tavin anymore?" Luna had prepared this speech one thousand times in the past but today, she could only weakly answer.
"No real reason." It had been him who asked her to call him Doctor Bell. Did he not remember?
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In the morning, Tara brought Mina a bowl of chicken soup. The pair exchanged brief pleasantries, but Tara did not stay long. She had agreed to distance herself from Mina the day before. Both girls did not know that they would feel lonely right away. For Tara, it felt good to finally be the one helping someone in need, and for Mina, she desperately needed someone to talk to.
In the past, Mina had never really valued her relationships with others. She only had her sister as a friend before she entered University. Once she had entered Wayvair, she was only sixteen years old, so naturally many of the other girls, who were eighteen or nineteen, did not want to associate with a girl who was legally considered a child. Mina still managed to make friends with two misfits during that time, and it was only then that she realized she needed people too. Now it was the same with Tara. She had grown to depend on their small talks, and they had become the highlight of her day. Sadly, for Tara's safety, their friendship could not continue.
Mina poked at the vegetables in her soup. She had only been expecting broth, but Tara must have pulled a few strings. She had no appetite, and she knew it was because she was depressed. She had dreamed of her family again. It was a good dream, and she did not want to wake up, but the longer she tried to sleep the further the dream slipped away. By the time Tara had come to bring her meal, Mina had already been awake and was staring at the wall. She had been trying to track where exactly she went wrong that made her life turn out this way. Maybe if she had gone to the local college like her parents wanted, things would have been fine. She wondered what would have happened if she had just listened to them.
When Mina lost her sister; she was just fifteen years old. Her sister was in her first year of college back then. She was doing well, and she was happy in love, but in the span of six months all their happiness came spiraling down. Mina's sister and her boyfriend were forced over a bridge on their way back home from a date. Despite the road being packed, there were no witnesses as to who was driving the car that hit theirs. Later, Mina realized that this was her first experience with the powerfully rich. Now, a car accident didn't seem so bad.