The typhoon made landfall, and the floodwater tore through everything.
My boyfriend risked the storm to come find me. Then he took only my supplies and left.
"It's fine, don't worry, your place is high up, the water can't reach you. Just stay home. I'm going to be with Clem, she scares easily."
I called after him, but he walked off without looking back.
That night the typhoon went wild and ripped every window out of my apartment. I only survived by curling up in the bathroom.
The next day the storm passed and left wreckage everywhere.
It was only after I went downstairs that I learned several residents on the high floors had been swept away and killed. They were all over the headlines.
Plenty of friends messaged to check whether I was safe. The only thing my boyfriend sent was four cold words.
"You're not dead, are you?"
...
What a cold thing to say.
Did he think he was being funny?
The second I read those words, whatever warmth I still felt for him turned to disgust in an instant.
Four years together, and he could say something like that?
I didn't answer him. I hurried after the crowd to the property office and got a single cup of instant noodles.
Hungry all night, cold, terrified. No one could know how steady that one mouthful of noodles made me feel. I even drank the last of the broth down to nothing.
But Alex James kept texting me, and he sounded plenty put out.
"Fiona Bennett, why aren't you answering me? You've got time to answer them but no time to answer me? I've been so worried about you."
Worried?
I couldn't see any of it.
Once the network came back, videos started loading again, and the first scroll landed me on Alex and Clementine Mason's faces.
They were running a charity drive at the college, handing out supplies to the people hit by the disaster.
Clementine was beaming, foundation on, lipstick on, and the thing that caught my eye first was the protective-charm pendant around her neck.
That was mine!
It was the one thing my mother left me. I kept it in my bedroom drawer. Yesterday, in the rush to save my own life, I forgot to put it on, and now it was hanging around Clementine's neck.
I couldn't take it anymore and called Alex. He was still on his high horse, sneering, and every word out of him grated.
"Told you you wouldn't die."
"What, finally remembered to answer me? You replied to all of them one by one, and I'm the only one you skipped?"
I had no interest in going back and forth with him, and I no longer cared how he felt. I just wanted my necklace back.
"You took all my supplies yesterday. And you stole my necklace too? Put it on Clementine?"
Alex paused, then dropped his voice and told me to stop making a scene.
"Clem got a bad fright yesterday. You know how the old folks say jade wards off harm and keeps you from getting scared? So I took it and put it on her."
"I've just been swamped with the charity thing today and didn't get a chance to tell you. Don't be so nasty about it."
Nasty?
I hadn't even said the nasty parts yet.
He knew exactly how much that necklace meant to me. He knew everyone here had just lived through a disaster, that she was out running a charity drive, and how much backlash it would draw for her to wear it in plain sight.
But Alex just had to indulge Clementine!
"Alex, I don't want to fight with you, I don't want to argue. Get Clementine to take the necklace off, right now, and give it back to me."
"Otherwise I'm calling the police. And when it gets ugly, don't blame me."
He gave a couple of cold snorts and hung up on me, annoyed.
Half an hour later he sent me a photo of the necklace and said it was already off her.
The picture was clear, and blown up, I could plainly see the cracks running across the protective charm, like it had been dropped.
It was obvious they hadn't treated my things with any care. They'd been wrecking it.
I couldn't hold back the anger and the hurt. I begged everyone I could and even made up a few lies, all so I could take a kayak to the college where Alex and Clementine were running their charity drive.
