She had definitely killed the cat.

Robin would be so pissed with his girlfriend.

It couldn't be a mere coincidence that you stepped into your apartment and your best friend was home with an extremely large chocolate cake and a thick unopened manila envelope by her side.

And that's saying something because Patricia Wong was not someone who would let a whole greasy cake sit in front of her without attacking it like a wild dog. Unless she wanted something from you.

I stepped inside cautiously, frowning at the ever growing grin on Patricia's face. Her almond eyes shone with pride and she kept drumming her fingers on the coffee table.

I ruled out cat-ricide, though not entirely.

"Pat? Honey, what's with the cake? Did Robin finally ask you to marry him or something? Where is he anyway? And can you stop wiggling your eyebrows?" I sigh as I dropped the keys into a small bowl by the door.

"You and your dreams. Robin will probably take another fifteen years before he can gather the courage. Just shut your mouth and sit down," Patricia said, nearly bouncing on our second hand sofa.

Patricia and I had been best friends ever since she set fire to my notes in the college chemistry lab. Our fiery chemistry, pun intended, led us to rent out an apartment together. It gave me freedom from my parents and better commute routes for Patricia.

I loved my parents, no doubt, but my mom simply did not understand how important passion is when you are looking for a job. For her, getting me married was all she desired. Of course, she had a terrible reason I was discouraged from asking about.

That made all the more reason for me to move in with Patricia. Not only was she blissfully ignorant about my family life but she was also the greatest cook ever, which solved my problem of being shit at household chores.

We got together like fire and ethyl alcohol and that was the most dangerous aspect of us: together we could burn down anything, literally. She was everything I could want in a roommate, minus the 'stealing all the food in refrigerator' part.

And that was why, seeing her sitting beside a frosting-less cake, made me even more suspicious. I eyed it with some wariness before I sat down next to her. With sudden decisiveness, I put forward my earlier theory.

"You messed up with Robin's cat, didn't you?" I said, without preamble. "And now, you need me to help you break the news to him before he reaches home, isn't it? Oh my goodness, Pat, how many times—"

"Will you shut up?" Patricia pursed her lips and I slammed my mouth closed. She was a trained taekwondo fighter and getting on her nerves was the last thing you'd want to do.

"Good," she nodded. "Now listen to me very carefully. I am going to give you an envelope. You are going to open it. You'll read it and then you'll tell me what's inside. Depending on what you say, we'll eat this cake or throw it out, okay?"

I raised an eyebrow, wanting to point out that she'd already polished off the icing but decided to go along with whatever she said. Pat placed the envelope that I had seen before into my hands and urged me to open it up. I turned it over in my hand and nearly dropped it on the floor.

Emblazoned on the top right corner of the envelope was the blue and yellow logo of the UCLA, my alma mater and the place I wanted to go back to and teach at. A sense of dread combined with anticipation coursed through me. I met Pat's eyes and her characteristic toothy grin returned.

"Go on, read it!"

Without wasting a second more, I clumsily pulled open the seal and shook the letter out. Setting the envelope on the table, I gingerly opened the letter and my eyes nearly popped out of my sockets. Through my peripheral vision, I could see Patricia getting impatient but I could barely process the words I was reading.

I read it over and over again, my eyes now blurring out everything else around me. A slow smile spread across my face and I felt my hands shake with joy. My heart thrummed happily in my chest, the old feeling of dread vanishing completely.

Ms. Olivia Williams, it read.

It is with great pleasure that we send you news of your acceptance as a Junior Lecturer in Microbiology at UCLA. We hope—

I stopped reading, my eyes filling up with tears. Patricia took hold of my free hand and gripped me tightly. Small lines of tension ringed the sides of her mouth and a deep furrow formed at the centre of her forehead. "So?"

I nodded, smiling in earnest. Patricia's face lit up and she crossed the distance between us and pulled me into a deathly bear hug. She sobbed lightly, her shaky breath mingling with my hair. She finally pulled back and extended her palm for me to place the letter in.

Pat took the letter in her hands and the glow on her face kept increasing, until she had tears in her eyes again. She placed a hand over her mouth in amazement while clutching the acceptance letter in the other. Placing it down on the sofa, she pulled me into a tight hug.

"Honey, you did it! You got accepted! And the pay is huge, too! I told you, you'd get in faster than the Flash can zoom to Antarctica!"

I laughed at that, happiness engulfing me in one quick moment. Pat had received her job acceptance letter a week ago and I'd been worried about being rejected ever since. Not only would we be separated but I would also have to apply elsewhere.

The idea of finally having enough money to hand in my two weeks notice at the library made me giddy. As Pat pulled the entire cake into her lap and handed me a considerable slice, I folded the letter back into the envelope.

"So," Pat said, through a mouthful of cake. "Will you call your parents?"

At that, my hands went rigid and my spine stiffened. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind but then, it settled comfortably in my head, waiting for me to start overthinking. It was almost as if it was leering at me: Haha, Liv, thought you could escape me?

Patricia went on relishing her cake, looking at me with wide, innocent eyes. "What're you going to do about that?"

"Nothing," I said and got up, placing my uneaten cake back on the tray. "I don't want to talk about this." I walked to the kitchen sink and started washing the teacups we'd left that morning.

I gulped slowly, knowing that Pat was already behind me, worried. "Liv, you know I never ask about your parents. But this is huge. They'd be happy to hear about your acceptance, right?"

I turned to face her and saw the concern etched into her face. One of the first clauses of us moving in together was that she'd never ask about my parents and in return, I would shut up about anything and everything that happens between her and Robin's cat, Sylvie.

But now, she wore a clear expression of determination and I swore to share a small tidbit with Robin later. "You aren't going to let this go, are you?" I asked, somewhat hopefully.

"No."

I rolled my eyes and placed the two cups carefully on the shelf. "It's really nothi-"

"Liv."

"Right. Yes. Let's go back to the couch."

We moved back to the living room and settled comfortably, folding our legs underneath. Patricia picked the cake back up and motioned at me to start talking. I sighed and started talking, speaking about my personal life for the first time in the last two years.

"You remember Noah? Noah Bennet?"

"The hot outdoorsy Literature professor you went out with for three years and who dumped you without an explanation over text? Yeah, I know him," she said, scrunching up her nose in distaste.

I shook my head at her tardiness. "Why do you even say it like that? It sounds terrible, Christ. Also, it was a mutual decision," I said, exasperated.

"Sure, keep telling yourself that." She waved her fork at me. "Can you get to the interesting stuff?"

"Well," I began. "I kind of took him to meet my parents after four months of dating. We—"

Pat choked and spluttered, cake crumbs flying out of her mouth. I rushed to the kitchen counters and grabbed a bottle of water off of it. I handed it to her and she took a few huge gulps before calming down.

"You did what?" She exclaimed, her eyes now as wide as saucers.

"Yes. Yes, I know. But I had no choice. I was living with my parents three years ago and mom wanted to meet the guy who had managed to 'knock some sense into me'," I said.

Patricia raised her eyebrows and I nodded. "It took some convincing but he met up with them. It was as perfect as Taylor Swift's Reputation. A literal show. After dinner, all my mom could do was worship him and imagine the faces of our babies."

"Wait," she interrupted. "But you broke up this year, didn't you?"

"We did." I stopped, waiting for realisation to hit Pat. It took five minutes but she eventually caught on.

"Oh. Oh no, you didn't. You told them, right?"

"Guess for yourself."

"Oh, Livvy, why?" Patricia asked, momentarily forgetting about the cake on her lap, as she scooted closer to me on the couch.

"She'd have my head otherwise, Pat. It was the only way," I grimaced.

"The only way to do what? What are you doing, Liv? They're going to find out eventually. And it's just a breakup. It won't be that hard for them to take."

"Oh but it will," I said, my voice quivering a little. I hated it when my mind betrayed my will to remain strong and express no emotions on my family life.

Patricia took my hands in hers. "Okay then. What is so important about you and Noah being together that if you didn't, it would kill your parents?"

This. This was the exact question I had dreaded for so long. It was the very reason Noah had took off running, as soon as he had found out. It was my burden and my family's and I had no option but to carry it. It was my secret to keep because if it got out, it would embarrass me to death.

Noah had been kind enough to never talk about what he found out to anybody but I could not pull him back to me. There was simply no way and I could not risk Pat's judgement on top of everything else. So I said what any logical person with a secret would say.

Even if it felt like a snake tightening around my heart as I looked straight into Pat's eyes as I said the meanest words I could have said.

"That's none of your business, Pat."