Love Lies A' Bleeding

Chapter 1: Picking on My Sandwich

I must admit that I wasn’t great at speeches, or anything that has to do with opening my mouth. My mouth was only good for eating or chewing, for all I knew. I never liked reporting, reciting and standing in front of the class or anything that concerned talking. I preferred to think. No talk. Because when I did, it didn’t do me any good at all.

So when Chelsea Shaia, junior class vice president, waved a piece of paper in front of my face in the middle of Ms. Soledad Buenolino’s class—my world history teacher a.k.a. Ms. Minchin—I only stared at her and thought, God, she’s dumb.

“Are you going to stare at me forever or what?” she asked, looking at me with two primed eyes below two perfectly arched eyebrows.

I noticed she had on neon pink fingernails then, which she changed every other day, and her hair looked really shiny and black. She had her hair regularly trimmed every two months that made it look like it never grew or it never was trimmed at all.

“What?” I said, sounding bored and already diverting my eyes to the trees outside through the open windows.

I sat near the windows. It was one thing I liked despite my name being on the bottommost part of the student list after Chelsea Shaia, whom I had no choice but be my seatmate.

“Aren’t you really listening to anything that’s been said and done in this class? Are you even real?” she said incredulously, knowing I had not a care in the world whether she talked all day beside me or not at all.

I looked back at her, finally taking notice of the paper she was holding. “What’s that?”

“Jeez, you are impossible,” she said, harshly placing the paper on my desk.

It almost flew away if my hand didn’t catch it on time. A sneak peak told me that it was the result of last week’s world history quiz. And I got a passing grade, almost failing if not for the one point that saved me from it.

“Guess you need to study harder, Sta. Maria,” she wrapped up, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore.

I knew then that she only handed me my paper to say those words. She was like that. We never really liked each other. And she knew very well that I had no inclination whatsoever to be part of her posse and popularity. So we were never friends, really. If I remembered it right, all I did was stare at the window and look at the boys playing frisbee at the Luna East Arts Academy open field all throughout the exam, and I wouldn’t have got back to answering if Ms. Minchin hadn’t called my name. And now I almost failed, but didn’t. I smiled despite myself.

So far, so good. I didn’t have to tell my mom that I failed once again on my world history surprise quiz.

Lunchtime was always the same for me. I sat at my usual table with Molly—my best friend who would rather read a magazine than pick on her sandwich, because that was exactly what I was doing. Picking on my sandwich, I mean. The cafeteria was crowded as always, and the AC, even set on the highest degree, didn’t seem to be working. I could feel cold beads of oil forming at my forehead, threatening to fall on my sandwich in the slightest movement of my head.

I supposed I should have seen it coming. The moment Mang Ben gave me an egg sandwich for lunch instead of the chicken sandwich I ordered, the sign should have been there flashing right before my eyes. But since I wasn’t in the mood to argue, I ignored it like I would ignore my best friend’s constant complaints every time I would hangout with the intense-looking pariahs slash outcasts in campus. So now I was killing my time setting aside the bits of egg to my paper plate and silently praying that someone was doing the same thing I was doing just so I would feel better.