015

This time Nisa pushed the "Call" button again, somehow still having hopes somewhere deep inside of her that she would get a different response than the same voicemail alert she had been getting since the past one week or so.

However, this time, it went ringing, much to her surprise. Her heart began beating faster.

There's a sign of improvement!

It went on ringing for almost the next fifteen seconds withot getting picked up, and she was already going to give up her hopes again.

Then it was picked up, and a voice answered.

"Hello."

Nisa startled, gulping without responding a word. It was a female voice.

"Who is this? Are you looking for Joey?" The voice went on.

Who is this?

"DAMN IT! Who the heck do they think they are anyway?!" A male voice was heard yelling in the background. A voice she recognised so well.

"Wait, who're you talking to?" he asked, the voice getting louder by the second, as if approaching by. "We can't answer calls right now!"

"Ouh, sorry, I was just-"

Nisa was just listening, having a lot of questions running inside of her head.

After a slight noise on the other side, the male voice was then talking on the phone to Nisa, snorting. "Yup."

Nisa could not believe it. That was really him. "Joe?"

"Yeah it's me. Why you called?"

She felt stuck there. It could have been obvious enough, but as usual, he was acting like nothing had really happened.

"Where have you been?" she asked with concern.

"Somewhere. It doesn't matter anyway."

She felt stuck, again.

"You've been gone for days, we've been looking for you, no one knows where you've gone... where are you? Are you okay? What happened?" she said, a little bit stuttering, after a short silence.

"Fuck." There was a loud noise on the other side, as if something big just crashed or had just been hit hard. "Fuck it, leave me alone. Let me be gone, for all that you care, I don't. You don't need to know anything, fucking anything you won't understand anything! Fuck you, I don't want you to trouble me anymore than I already am right now so just, LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Then he hung up.

It left Nisa stunned, stoned, and crushed.

Yappari na.

014

"What I know of is that there's Brighton Police Station, Hove, all at maximum 2 miles away from where you were eating instead of going to the Sussex Police, which is what, 10 miles away?" Pen explained to them while he was lying on his couch in his apartment, his eyes set on the television in front of him.

"Shut up already, I know it now, all right?" Brian moaned as he was blowing smoke out of his mouth, holding a cigarette with his right hand, still in his bad mood. He was seated on the armchair, close to where Pen was. "It's not like I didn't know some of those you said, I've told her, but she wasn't listening to me."

Pen glared at him. "If she was really that unprepared to go to the police, then you should've been the one driving the car, instead of her, moron."

Not in the mood to be arguing, Brian sat up straight and stared at Pen, discontented, while his head was directed upward. He figured that Pen was probably making sense.

"My intention is to help her face her fear, or so, that's all."

Brian remembered the time after the three of them were done eating at the restaurant and they were going to go to a police station straight after that, much to Sarah's hesitation.

"No can do, then?" Brian asked to Sarah who was just done making a phone call, as he was returning Nisa's cellphone back to her after getting Joey's phone number in his hometown in Terengganu, Malaysia for his own information to keep. Out of the three of them, Sarah was the one who made the call to his home back in Malaysia, speaking in the normal Malay language, asking to speak to Joey, but he was not there and had not been home since the past 7 months.

"His brother was the one talking, telling me about Joey's furthering his studies here in Britain so he hadn't been home for a long time already now," Sarah told them.

"No suspicion that his bro is missing in action, cool," Brian stated, lying against Sarah's right side of the car as they were standing in front of the restaurant.

"Cakap melayu, bunyi tak macam international call la," Nisa spontaneously blurted out to add up to what Brian just said, not realising she was speaking her native Malay language in front of Brian. At that, Brian was stunned for the second to hear Nisa speak in her national language - he never heard any of them speak it before.

"You said international call what?" Brian looked at her anxiously, exchanging a few glances with Sarah who was then smiling at both of them. "Man, you hardly speak your local language. Let me hear it again?"

Then Nisa realised it, surprising herself, probably being caught up in her mind with something else at that time. "Ah, sorry, I mean, err, speaking Malay would, of course, not cause suspicion at Joey's own home.. since they all speak Malay at home, like we all do back in Malaysia."

"Then I hardly hear you converse in Malay with Sarah... or in fact, Sarah," Brian turned his attention to Sarah, "you hardly do, converse in any other language with anyone else as long as I've known you. Was it, I never heard you do that not even once?"

With a smile, Sarah said, "Then, you wouldn't understand me. And anyway, Nisa and I both enjoyed it, kinda used to it, I guess, but we never forget where we came from."

Nisa nodded. "We still speak Malay, just that you don't hear us often."

"Well, cool, maybe I can learn it." He grinned, feeling quite interested in doing so. He felt like he could get to know Sarah better that way, of which Sarah had told him about quite a few times.

"Then, no luck of Joey." Nisa returned them to what they were all trying to do in the first place, to find Joey. Brian snorted, feeling quite bad that he knew where this would lead Sarah to.

"Gotta go to the police." Brian stood up straight in front of Sarah, looking at her right in the eye. "We gotta face this. You, drive and I'll be looking out from right beside you." He turned to ask Nisa, "okay with you?" Nisa nodded again in agreement, as Sarah just looked at them both with a worried look on her face.

After that, Sarah turned to become more anxious than she was before.

"Whoa, wait there a minute, are you sure this is the right way?" Brian asked her, having a strange feeling about the route they were taking as Sarah was driving silently. "Sarah?" He knew something was off just by looking at her face.

"Sarah, where are you going?" Nisa asked from the passenger's seat. "I thought we're headed for Brighton, you gotta take Southover Street, this is the wrong way."

"It's barely a mile away, Sarah..." Brian was looking at her. "Take it easy, okay?"

"I'm doing fine here, okay?" She was distracted, and seemingly dissatisfied, at the same time having a worried look on her face. "Just fine..."

"But Sarah, you gotta stop. This is the opposite way of Brighton Station," Brian reminded her.

Sarah seemed to gulp. "No, I'm not driving there. I'm going to Sussex Station."

Brian was surprised, knowing that would be sort of ten more miles away. He and Nisa exchanged glances.

"You... know the route?" Nisa asked, concerned. "Coz that's quite far-"

"Of course I do!"

"Okay, then," Nisa said, signaling to Brian to deal with it nicely and patiently.

He moaned. "Fine, it's your car, and you're driving," Brian muttered, thinking this would be wasting more time and energy for all of them.

After passing by the University of Sussex along the way and going through long roads and a few roundabouts, they seemed not to be getting anywhere fifty minutes later.

"You definitely took the wrong turn somewhere," Brian told Sarah, fuming, as they were going down Ashcombe Hollow. "This doesn't seem right."

"Damn," Sarah was panicking in silence as she kept on driving.

Nisa was getting worried. "Sarah, this is getting out of hand. I think we're all tired. Are you sure about this?"

"What are you talking about? We've gone this far!" Sarah said, almost yelling. Nisa would not dare to say anything to make any of them both mad any worse than they were, although the night was already getting quite late.

"Still..." Nisa was in doubts, muttering to herself.

"Sarah, turn around. No sign board, this is getting quite local." Brian turned to face her. "Gotta trust me."

At turning around, they took another turn, and ended up driving to a place where there were hardly anyone around, quite a deserted place filled with empty lots of small shops. They were then clueless of where they were, and were tired, and very discontented with each other, especially between Brian and Sarah. They had both been arguing the entire time for the cause of them getting lost until the morning, mainly caused by each other's ego, also because Nisa was too afraid to enter in between them to have anything to say. Brian ended up falling asleep in the car, as Sarah kept driving to find a way back to where they came from instead of going to the police station like they first intended to. It seemed foolish, indeed.

"We found you there, while looking for our way back home," explaining what happened to Pen, Brian was feeling guilty about what happened between him and Sarah. "Idiot, what happened to you?"

Pen laughed at himself. "Nothing, really. I was dumped again, had a drink, had an accident, got robbed and even got threatened by a thug by a knife - might get killed there, all in a day... that's all."

Brian was dumbfounded by his act of "nothingness". "Nothing, you said?"

Pen was smiling at him now. "You know what buddy...?"

To have Pen call him a buddy, made Brian feel weirder since it was kind of unlikely.

"Let me be on my own right now. And... you, talk to Sarah, huh?" Pen got up and went to his room, shutting the door behind him, without looking back, leaving Brian astounded.

Pen? On his own? That's so not like him.

Although he knew, everyone needed a moment on their own.

Wait a minute, he was dumped again? Which means?

013

Am I seeing stars again?

"HEY!"

Smoke was coming out from the bonnet of his convertible car. Driving under the influence at night, Pen was not able to control his car too well and swerved to the side of the street where he nearly hit someone he never really saw there sooner - hitting the street light instead. Fortunately for him, he was fine, other than being quite out of his mind for the time being.

"Watch out where you're going!" The guy he nearly hit before continued shouting at him. He was the only one still walking around there, of what seemed like a dark street that hardly anyone goes to.

Silent, Pen stared up to the lights above him, oblivious to his surroundings or whatever just happened around him. In his mind, he was only seeing the light from the street light above him that he had just hit with his car. Without much thoughts in his head, he just smiled at the damaged street mast.

Stars...

"Hey you! Don't you hear me? You could've killed me!" Again, the guy yelled at him, now coming closer to him, furious. Wearing a black hoody and brown cargo pants, of what seemed like a local drug addict, he drew himself closer to Pen, thinking to get back some compensation from him, some big compensation.

"You..." He called out louldly, now standing right next to his broken car. Pen turned from the light to look at him, feeling vague.

"Huh?"

Pen then saw him holding a knife in his right hand, as if ready to strike down at him with it in a downward position. Still it came into his senses that he could be in a dangerous situation at that moment, quite slowly. Too slowly.

That is... a... He blinked a few times, seeing the knife as a sparkling rectangular object that he could not identify, assuming it was some kind of a weird torchlight, thus decided to ignore the fella.

"Give me your money, all you've got!" The threat slid through Pen's ears like it meant nothing at all.

A noisy thug with a bling in his hand... He continued looking at the street lamp above his head, grinning to himself - giving a thought to the guy that he was, actually, a psycho.

"I SAID, GIVE ME WHAT YOU GOT!" He yelled out, louder, as he got closer to Pen and pulled his shirt up with his left hand, putting the knife right in front of his nose. At that, Pen forgot about the street light above him but just focused on the light of the street lamp rebounding from the guy's knife directly into his eyes. He gave no response, as if he had no fear, in fact he really felt nothing inside other than the eagerness to look at the light.

Pen simply snorted. "I ain't got anything..."

It seemed as if the guy threatening him could not take it anymore and had grown out of patience. "Weakling. You make me sick." He kept his knife away as Pen just watched him doing so. The guy opened the door of the driver's seat and looked through Pen's trousers' pockets to find his wallet or anything that could be valuable and took them away, all without Pen fighting back or even realising what was happening in his own car. In a few seconds, the guy took away every valuable he could find in the car. As a matter of fact, he could have taken the car away too, if he could start the engine again and the car was not broken - he would just leave Pen there, stranded on the street, left with nothing.

The guy opened up Pen's wallet before leaving. "Hah! Thanks man." Then he began taking off, with his last words to Pen, "Nothing for you now but your car, dude!"

All Pen could do was just moan, feeling like it was just like it was in his unreal dream.

_________________________________________________________________________________


Sparkling little thingy.

Nothing's sparkling here. It's gonna shine yeah, from the sun I know.

It's shining... and it's the stars...

What stars? It's almost morning. Get up, moron.

He could not tell what was going on.

"I smell you, you stink, now, get up!"

Suddenly he could feel very cold water being poured onto his face which made him wake up instantly, shaking his head out like a doggy. He rubbed his eyes hard, able to see the vision of several people standing next to him, talking. "Now, driving under the influence is a serious offense which can result in imprisonment, a substantial fine and loss of your driving permit, did you know that?!" The same male voice was the one yelling like the first one he first heard, indeed, sounding familiar.

"What are you, a lawyer?" He heard a female voice, quite distant, but becoming closer. "Pen, you with us? What happened?"

AH, damn it. His head hurt bad because of his drinking last night, and apparently it was not dark as it used to be anymore, as if it was almost dawn.

"Man, how'd you get here? There's hardly anyone around. Lucky we're here!"

Pen looked up. "Brian." He put both his palms against his head, still feeling dizzy. "Sarah, Nisa. I barely remember much." He looked at Brian. "How did you get here?"

Brian raised his eyebrows, pointing his fingers to Sarah. "She from steak to night driving to extreme police anxiety to getting us lost till the morning to getting us nowhere!"

She was starting to grow mad at his attitude of keeping blaming others.

"Shut up already!" She yelled and moaned, feeling very dissatisfied as Nisa just looked on, not quite sure what to say.

"Hey, you're the one who got us here, supposedly goin' to the police station in Lewes but you got us all lost instead!" Brian claimed back at her, also mad. He looked like he had not been able to get enough sleep. "Buggin' around with my sleepin' time, what is it, 4 am or somethin'?"

"I'm the one driving the car, it's my car, if you have a problem with me then don't ride with me!"

Oh man, what they arguing about now? Pen felt irritated, feeling pain around his nape of neck.

"Enough already, Sarah just took the wrong turn that just caused us going to the wrong route. We're not exactly lost, we are still in Sussex. Just that everything's needing longer time because you guys are always fighting over unnecessary things, taking unnecessary time," Nisa barged in out of the blue.

"You guys aren't solving anything," Nisa stated, getting to Pen who was about to fall back into slumberland again. "Whoa there, hang in there, you two, there are better things to do right now, huh?" Nisa said to the two, indicating she needed help.

Sarah moaned hard and turned away from Brian. As Pen was waking up again, Nisa opened his car door and tried to pull him out, with the assistance of Brian.

"I'll take your things from your car, Pen. We'll get this for repairs since we can't start it," Sarah said, after trying to start the engine.

"We'll take you to the hospital-" Brian told him as he helped to carry him to Sarah's car. "Yeah, thanks, Nisa. I can take it from here." Being the girl with the height that was not up to Pen's standards, there was not much that Nisa could really help much with him, unfortunately.

"I hate hospitals, don't take me there anymore, I'm fine..." Pen exclaimed feebly.

"You're like this and you said you're fine??"

"I'll be FINE," Pen said assuringly, this time turning to look at Brian with a serious look in his eyes. Brian looked back at him, puzzled.

"Fine it is, then."

"Yeah, I am fine." Pen walked out from Brian who was leading him by the hand when he saw clearly where Sarah's Nissan Altima was and immediately went inside to the rear seat, turning his head away from Brian. Letting out a deep sigh, Brian decided to not bother about it for the moment despite everyone's being moody. He checked on what the rest were doing.

At Pen's broken car, Sarah was kinda puzzled. She turned back around. "Hey Pen, don't you keep your MP3 player in your car? Usually in the compartment? Seems like nothing's here."

With the car windows all open, Pen could hear her from where he was, even if it was not too clear. He suddenly remembered something.

Pen checked his pockets and then all over his body. Feeling dissatisfied, he turned around to the window and yelled out, "I've been robbed! Under the stars!"

012

He stared down, speechless, although he had too many things to say in his head only waiting to come out in words. Sitting like a statue on the chair next to the hospital bed where Jennifer was silently lying in, Pen was dying inside. So was Jennifer.

"Glad you're back, Jen," he finally said to Jennifer who had already awakened from sleep. All left in the ward were the two of them.

Still in groggy condition and with her cracky voice, she turned her head slowly to face him. "Me too."

Pen looked at her with the most sincere smile he had ever had in the longest time. "It's been a long time. We all miss you... I miss you."

It was unlikely for her to see him that way. Pennsylvania McCain never seemed like the kind of guy who would ever cry or even put up a face like he did at that moment. He was a guy with foul mouth, strange facial expressions and messed up hairstyles, making him not look like he came from a wealthy family at all.

"Van..." she muttered out slowly. Pen then moved closer to her to hear to what she had to say.

"...you have to let me go."

Like all the stupid cartoons he had watched on television before, he envisioned a lightning bolt striking right through his heart, shattering it into trillions of pieces, impossible to be put back into one. But it was not like he had not expected such things from happening to him, from her, as he knew he had been expecting too much. He only hoped all the while for her to get back to life again and show her pretty smile. He just wished that she had not really said it directly to him.

Smiling, Pen said, "I know. I'm just glad you're okay now."

__________________________________________________________________________________


Where is he?

Her mind was going to be torn apart, just thinking about it. It had been several days already, and nobody knew where Joey had been to, no news about him at all, nothing. Every single minute that passed by was driving her crazy.

"Sarah, let's report this to the police or something."

With the food she just took into her mouth, being chewed, Sarah almost choked at hearing the word police somehow. Brian, Nisa and her were all having their meal at a halal restaurant off over Eastern Road of Brighton, East Sussex.

"Police?" Sarah asked, surprised.

Nisa looked at Brian for a response. He was silent for a moment.

"Might be good..." Brian said after giving a bit of thought. "Still... I haven't tried calling back his home or anything like that... I don't know the numbers..."

"I might know. Can you help me?" Nisa asked assuringly.

Taking a glance at the confused Sarah, Brian was sure of it. "Sarah and I would both help, I'm sure, we're all friends!"

At those positive words, Nisa confidently smiled. "Thank you! Although, you barely know me."

Continuing eating his spaghetti (obviously he was hungry), Brian just nodded. "Neoo whorries," he muttered to her before he finished eating.

"Um, hey!" Sarah raised her hand before continuing to eat her steak. "Do we really need to deal with the police?"

Knowing the kind of person Sarah was, Brian knew, no matter how responsible she was, however good, however kind, however independent, she had a hard time dealing with certain things in her life. Sarah's father was a troubled alcoholic and her mother lived to become quite troubled herself, although not quite as bad as he was. During those troubled days, there would always be the need to deal with the people that she learned not be fond of - the police. This was not exactly something that Nisa was aware of, only Brian was.

"Chill, Sarah. It will be fine. We're doing this for Joe," Brian tried to talk her over calmly, this time without food in his mouth.

Sarah stared at him, blunt.

Chill, sure.

It made her go back thinking about the days when her mother used to be depressed because of her father's sudden appearance and death. To treat the depression, she used to be on Paxil, or Seroxat, or chemically known as paroxetine, whatever name you wish to call it. It made her so suicidal that she needed to be hospitalised to make sure she would be safe, even then she was quite violent toward herself. It caused her to lose her appetite and she lost her weight a lot in just 2 weeks, causing her had to be kept warded at the hospital. It changed the happy mother whom she used to know before her alcoholic father ever appeared into a solemn woman who barely spoke or smiled anymore. It hurt her to see her mother that way, and she could do nothing about it.

Although that was back a few years ago, she could not help but felt bad about it. Life changed for her whole family when her father came back that one day, and it made her wish that he never came back at all, for her mother could have been happier today. In spite of that, her mother was getting better by the day, compared to the days when she was still in the hospital. She had stopped being on Paxil, much to the family's enlightenment.

"Are you gonna eat that or what?"

"Ah, this actually tastes good," Nisa ate a part of Sarah's steak, just to taste it, she thought - smiling, as she had already finished her spaghetti which was the same order as Brian's.

"Hey, it does," Brian, too, ate the steak and laughed, somehow having fun doing so.

"HEY, why are you both eating MY dinner? I didn't eat yours!" Sarah exclaimed, unsatisfied. Brian, enjoying himself, grinned at her.

"We finished first, that's why. You were dreaming. And this dinner is your treat!" Brian kept grinning. He placed both of his elbows on the table, with his palms holding his head up. He watched her eat. "Hurry up then."

Nisa only chuckled. "You two are funny people."

"Don't watch me eat!" Sarah's cheeks were turning red.

__________________________________________________________________________________


Ah. Jen, I see stars, I'm seeing stars!

It was like a line from Starry Eyed Surprise from Crazy Town. Coming out from a bar across Southover Street in Brighton, East Sussex, Pen headed for his car parked right next to the dustbin just as he remembered it just now.

Jen, just as I wished for... I'm so glad...

"Thank you, Van." He could see Jennifer smile right ahead of him while he was seated at the driver's seat, ready to go. There she was, walking away from him... and suddenly gone.

Hey, wait a second.

"I.. I have something to give you first before you go. Wait up!"

The keys were in. He turned the engines on, and sped away.