Where is Tyler?

Eloise

'The word sorry does not fix everything. Infact, it fixes nothing.'

It was why I got so angry everytime my best friend, Anna crawled back to her abusive fiance whenever he apologized and promised to be a better person.

I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand her. She said she loved him. If you love someone, you crave happiness with them and you find it together but Anna only got scars from Tyler.

It is always the Tylers...There has to be something wrong with that name and everyone that answers to it.

It was just a week to Anna's wedding. A wedding I had despised so much even before it will happen. A wedding I had hoped and prayed to God that will not hold. A wedding that Anna looked forward to so much despite the fact that Tyler, her fiance was beating her almost everyday since they got engaged.

Just like yesterday, i remember the day Anna introduced this man to me. It was a Friday. The first thing Anna did that day that got me really upset was the fact that she was very late to our date. Of course, I had always known that Anna was never early to any event no matter how important the event might be. I was already used to excusing her normal 10 or 15 minutes lateness but that particular day, she was almost an hour late. With my new black YSL bag in my hand, I was just about to leave the restaurant when my best friend walked in.

Not only did she walk into the restaurant in an amazing black new dress that I had never seen on her and which looked like an overkill for a platonic best friend date, She walked in holding the hands of a dark haired man whose energy did not sit right with me the moment I set my eyes on him.

With a stop in my tracks, I looked from the dark haired man in a funny looking patterned suit to my best friend who definitely had some explaining to do.

"Eloise" She had started nervously. "This is Tyler, my boyfriend"

My heart stopped it's music for a second as I tried to digest what Anna had just said to me.

'Boyfriend?'

"You are joking, right?" I had asked her. "Is this some joke?"

"No El. I've been seeing him for sometime now"

I remember what I had felt in that moment. The overwhelming sense of betrayal that I tried to suppress and hide as I looked at the beautiful eyes of my best friend.

Her hair was perfectly done, sleek. Her nails were freshly done too. It was more than obvious to anyone who cared to notice that Anna had carefully prepared for that night. It made me ask myself mentally if all her physical preparations were for my hangout with her or for her 'special' date with this strange man she called her boyfriend.

"You Just felt that it was normal to hide it from me that you had a boyfriend while we go out every Friday night, get drunk and blab about how we don't ever get into a stable relationship with a man?"

She had looked at me apologetically, like she wanted to say 'she had no choice' but I was thankful that she didn't say that because it would have been a lie. She had her choices and she picked what she thought was best for her and whatever she thought of our friendship.

In reality and to anyone from the outside, the whole thing would seem like it was not my business but Anna was my best friend. She knew how much I loved and care for her. She also knew everything about me and not being in a relationship was one highlight of most of the things we talked about. So, finding out after all of this that she actually had a man in her life and was hiding it from me made me feel like 'maybe I was not exactly the best friend I thought I really was'.

Without asking much questions, I swallowed and searched in the deepest parts of my spirit; a welcoming smile which I offered to Tyler and said "Hi Tyler, my name is Eloise".

That was all I ever said about the guy. After that, I had to settle for only the things Anna choose to tell me about her relationship with him. Discovering that she had a boyfriend at all was like an eye opener for me. I noticed how much Anna was willing to hide things from me, especially when they were things that involved Tyler or their relationship in general. I decided to stop asking because her actions said it loud and clear that 'It was not my business'

While I was in my own space for months, trying to figure out this new weird behaviour from my best friend, she hit me with the news that she was getting married to a man i was sure she barely knew and was not happy to be with.

In the deepest part of my heart, I wanted to protest. I wanted to finally let Anna know that I was not in the slightest, in support of her relationship or marriage to Tyler but the tone she held while giving me the supposedly good news was that of finality. She didn't need to spell it out for me that it was not a plan that was open to change and that she already made up her mind.

I decided at that point to just be the kind of best friend Anna wanted me to be. I would be happy for her and support whatever decision she made. Afterall, it was her life and if it made her happy, then maybe it was not all that terrible.

Although, throughout the preparation towards the wedding, I noticed the occasional fall in Anna's mood. It was like she was being condemned to live a life she didn't want. Everytime I asked her what was on her mind, she waved it off with a smile and made it look like I was overthinking whatever it was that I noticed. It hurt me so much that Anna refused to let me in.

At a point, I started suspecting that Tyler might be blackmailing Anna into marrying him. It was the only explanation as to why my best friend will still want to go through with the wedding, despite suffering so much in the hands of such an ugly Tyler.

When I woke up that morning in Anna's bed, it was to her scream of horror and the crash of her phone against the bedroom floor where we had slept in together after our late night shopping yesterday.

"Anna?" I called as i turned in the bed and looked at her horror stricken face while she stared at the floor where her phone crashed.

"What happened??" I asked again. Can she even hear me? "Are you okay?"

I stood up from the bed to shake her out of her shock but just as I was about to ask her another question again, My phone rang. My eyes went to the phone beside the bed. I decided to ignore it.